M. Drue Lehmann

Cincinnati M. Drue Lehmann, who lived by the lyricist's words that, "the love in your heart wasn't put there to stay because love isn't love 'til it's given away," has died. A speech pathologist and central Ohio farm girl who made Cincinnati her home, she added immeasurably to the city's professional, social and cultural life. She was 76 years old.

A clinical speech-language pathologist for nearly half a century, including 33 years at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Drue Lehmann was dedicated to patient care, training new speech pathologists and teaching medical students and medical-surgery residents. She maintained a full case load of patients throughout her UC career, treating every type of speech, language, voice, cognitive and swallowing problem, as well as hearing-impaired infants and children.

An associate professor at UC, Miss Lehmann also developed the prototype diet for head and neck cancer patients with swallowing difficulties, and the first swallowing screens for neurologically impaired patients. She also participated in a number of research studies in speech pathology to improve patient outcomes. She was a member of the adjunct faculty of UC's Department of Communication, Sciences and Disorders.

Upon her retirement from UC in 2003, Prof. Lehmann was awarded emerita status and continued to practice speech pathology in Cincinnati-area nursing homes. When patients lacked personal items that could make their lives easier, the love in her heart led her to reach into her own pocket to fulfill those needs.

A determined optimist, she loved people, art, travel, gambling and cats. She was a generous donor to the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and a season-ticket holder from the time she came to Cincinnati in 1974. As a healthcare professional, she recognized the importance major donations play in medical research. In 2021, Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Harvard

University's medical school teaching hospital, welcomed Drue Lehmann to membership in The Phillips Society, whose members have designated the hospital as a philanthropic priority. Phillips Society members are "visionary benefactors who are ensuring the hospital's future."

A member of the Greater Cincinnati Junior League for decades, Drue was a long-time volunteer for the Cincinnati Civic Garden Center. She was the last chairman of the Friday Nighters, a group of enthusiastic and entrepreneurial women who supported the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (CSO). Later, the CSO reorganized the volunteer structure to harness more of the Friday Nighters' energy throughout the organization.

With her welcoming smile, Drue was poised, gracious, generous, creative and eager to entertain. She worked at maintaining a wide circle of friends and each year sent hundreds of birthday and anniversary cards to friends and family.

One friend since childhood, reflected on Drue's "admirable verve and stubbornness and will:"

"How she buoyed up so many of us through her almost miraculous approach to friendship simply by embracing the practice of JOY as the most practical way of being. In this she has always displayed the wonder and delight of a well-loved child-which, as we know, she was. I know adults consider Drue's kind of positive thinking to be an almost studied optimism, but ever since I first met her when I was nine and she was, technically, only TWO (if you take leap year birthdays seriously, as nine-year-old girls are wont to do) I recognize that her JOY was always going to be radical, it comes naturally to her, and it's contagious. Even when life's challenges want to sober us up."

Another friend who knew Drue as a businesswoman told her, "Your strength, resilience and positive attitude speak volumes about your character.

You are a Fierce and Amazing woman."

Miss Lehmann was also a spiritual woman and a member of Our Lord Christ the King Catholic Church in Mount Lookout in Cincinnati. She also believed in the value of exercise, working out regularly with personal trainers, including Pat Woellert and Paige Parkhouse.

A natural leader and astute business woman, she was president of her condo association for over 30 years.

In 2002 Drue succeeded her late father as managing general partner of the 1200-acre family farms in Lockbourne in northern Pickaway County where she grew up. She managed every aspect of the farms that by then were two-miles long and one-mile wide. She loved every moment of it. A farm girl at heart, she made no secret that her "happiest days were spent on the farm, out in the fields, watching over the planting and harvesting of the corn and soybeans." She loved talking with farmers and learned all she could about plowing, planting, fertilizing, spraying and harvesting. And she became highly proficient in marketing crops in the commodity futures market. But most of all she enjoyed farm life -- the beauty of the land, the freedom in her youth to ride her horse, to hunt, the privilege of enjoying the wonders of nature and the joy she had in seeing the awe in her friends' eyes when she brought them home to meet her parents and see life on the farm.

Her father's vision was that in time the farm would be sold to realize a higher and better economic use for the land. It fell to Drue to make that vision into reality as leader of the farm's Marketing Committee.

Over her years as farm manager, Drue acquired legal, political, and marketing knowledge. She found a buyer for the farm and brought the buyer to the family. As part of the marketing process, she worked with local governments to change the farm's zoning from agricultural to industrial and residential. And once the farm was sold in 2018, Drue began the task of clearing the barns, outbuildings, tenant houses and homestead of four generations of memories, antiques and family history that reached back three-quarters of a century.

Miss Lehmann was graduated from the Columbus School for Girls, Bowling Green State University and received her M.A. from The Ohio State University. She was an enthusiastic and loyal Buckeye football fan and boasted that her claim to fame was that her maternal grandfather, Forest Guy Ketner, who was at the time chairman of the OSU board of trustees, recruited and hired the legendary football coach Woody Hayes.

She was predeceased by her parents, Selmar and Francie Lehmann of FranMar Farms in Lockbourne, and a sister, Jill Hardman of Coronado, Calif. She is survived by three sisters, Dr. Jane Dodson and Sue Munoz (Al) of Florida and Jean Paulini (Len) of West Chester; and by her significant other, Dr. Jerome D. Becker, a former editorial writer for The Enquirer, as well as many, many friends and colleagues.

Visitation will be at Geo. H. Rohde & Son Funeral Home, 3183 Linwood Avenue, Cincinnati, OH 45208 on Sunday, March 17, 2024 from 3-5 PM. A Mass of Christian Burial will be held at Our Lord Christ the King Church at 10:30 AM on Monday, March 18, 2024. Burial will take place on Tuesday, March 19, 2024 at 11 AM in Columbus at Saint Joseph's Cemetery on South High Street. Donations in her memory may be made to The Sean M. Healey and AMG Center for ALS at Massachusetts General Hospital and mailed to the Development Office, 125 Nashua Street, Suite 540, Boston, MA 02114-1101. M. Drue Lehmann