Founding editor of Catholic newspaper in Missouri dead at 79

Published: 2003-11-18

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (CNS) -- Robert G. Lee, founding editor in 1965 of The Mirror newspaper in the Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau, died of congestive heart failure Oct. 31 at Cox South Hospital in Springfield. He was 79. A memorial Mass was said Nov. 3 in Springfield's St. Agnes Cathedral for Lee, who donated his body to the St. Louis University Medical Center. During his 22 years with The Mirror, Lee was responsible for everything from finding offices for the fledging newspaper and keeping up with technological advances to gathering news, taking pictures, processing and printing film, writing articles and editing and pasting up pages. He was hired in 1965 by then-Bishop Ignatius J. Strecker, who later became archbishop of Kansas City, Kan.; Archbishop Strecker died two weeks before Lee, on Oct. 16.

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