Dr. Anna Wartman

Biography

Dr. Anna Marie Wartman died on Friday, March 23, 2018 in LeClaire. Burial will be in Mount Calvary Cemetery, Davenport. Keeping with her wishes, there will be no services. The estate of Dr. Wartman was converted to a Trust in the name of Dr. Anna Maria Lesisz Wartman to be used as a scholarship fund for Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pre-Medical majors at Augustana College.

She was born as Hanna Maria Lesisz to Henryk and Zofia Lesisz, nee Fedorowicz on November 29, 1938 in Gdynia Poland. The Nazi’s invaded Poland the following September from the West and the Russians soon thereafter from the East. World War II had started. She was moved to her grandparent’s home for safety in the country and survived in a town that was leveled by Nazi bombing. Miraculously she and her mother escaped to Sweden in early 1940 where she grew up in Lund. In 1954 she and her mother came to the United States to join her father and uncle in the Detroit area.

She graduated from the University of Detroit in 1960 Summa Cum Laude with a major in chemistry. The Local American Chemical Society (ACS) selected her as the top Chemistry graduate from The University of Detroit. Then went on to marry Richard Edward Wartman that same year.

Her first employment was limited to work in a Clinical Chemistry Laboratory; as this was the only employment available to a female Chemist in Detroit at the time. A few years later she started graduate school at Wayne State University in Detroit and graduated in 1966 with a PH.D. in Chemistry and Biochemistry. Dr. Wartman was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Iowa Medical School and started teaching at Augustana College in 1968. She retired at the age of 57 having taught Chemistry and Biochemistry as well as being a freshman advisor for prospective science majors. During a sabbatical she was a Fellow at the Biochemistry Department of the University of Iowa.

She had two loves in her life; Classical music (opera since the age of 8) and animals of all kinds. She was rarely without any pets in her home. Her last two pets were Sampson and Delilah, two Siberian Huskies. She was preceded in death by her parents, husband and two infant daughters who she always hoped a merciful God would let her see upon death. Dr. Wartman’s only survivors are the families of her three nephews (The Zdun families) in Poland.