Leonard "Lenny" Nissenson (April 4, 1940 - February 3, 2026)
Lenny Nissenson passed from this world on Tuesday, February 3rd, 2026. He was 85 years old. He was surrounded by people he loved and in the warmth and comfort of his home, as he wished.
Lenny was born with the auspicious birthday numbers 04-04-‘40 in Bronx, NY, the second son of William Nissenson & Diana Wajsfisz. He grew up enjoying handball, stickball, kick the can, ring-a-levio, and other street games, hustling pool, playing baseball on the local team “Billikens”, and play-acting in the street with his boyhood friend & teammate, Al “Sonny” Pacino.
He attended Bronx High School of Science, graduating in 1957. At 16 he left home at his parents’ request and spent time at various odd jobs in NY & Florida working as an assistant dock manager & bellhop. It was here that he expanded and deployed his lessons in capitalism, buying bottles of liquor at the package store and delivering them to hotel and travel clients at a higher price to make extra cash. This entrepreneurial spirit was present throughout his life and led to numerous (sometimes zany) business ventures including: a Children’s Book Garden gift program, running a pizza shop and an oil distribution company, having a mail-order dental kit supply business, and doing clothing imports. His crowning glory was a game he titled “Slap Map”, where players had to be first to slap their hand on a state when a card revealed one of its features (like the state capital).
After returning home at 17, Lenny enlisted in the Navy (not a common Jewish career choice). He often mused that he was lucky to receive a fleet appointment to the US Naval Academy before his desire to punch out an officer became a reality. He attended the Navy Prep School and then college in Annapolis, graduating in 1962. While there, Lenny was the undefeated handball champion, a “career” that ended with a broken collar bone. He ironically recounted that his only active-duty injury occurred in a gym, despite serving in Vietnam in the U.S. Marine Corps.
Upon graduation from the Naval Academy, he married Betsy “Speck” Schlesinger and took a commission with the Marine Corps. His first duty station was Corpus Christi, TX where he trained to become a Marine aviator. Aircraft carrier landings proved to be his nemesis and led him next to the Monterey Language School to learn Vietnamese. During his 1 ½ tours in Vietnam he served as an infantry leader and then as an advisor in the Pacification Program, traveling all over, making numerous Vietnamese friends, and learning to play a mean game of chess. It was there he was also exposed to Agent Orange, the presumptive cause of his prostate cancer. His final duty station was Subic Bay in the Philippines. Lenny often referred to his military days as, “that was another time and I was a different person then”, which his later years certainly demonstrated. Lenny, Betsy, and their three children returned to the U.S. where Lenny entered the MBA program at Cornell University, obtaining his MBA with a specialty in healthcare administration. His first post-Vietnam “civilian” job was with the Southern Tier Health Care Corporation, coordinating health care efforts across the region. He continued to serve in the Marine Corps Reserves, retiring with the rank of major, and moved on in civilian life to become the Administrator at Cornell’s Gannett Health Center, retiring at 56 in 1996 after 21 years.
Though “retired”, Lenny continued to find numerous ways to fill his days, referring to himself as a “professional volunteer”. He worked as a consultant in a friend’s business and gave back to the Ithaca community, serving on boards, volunteering, and giving financial support to causes that were important to him. Golden Opportunity (GO) tutoring/mentoring program, Friendship Donations Network (FDN), Suicide Prevention, Hospicare, Red Cross (where he served over 15 years as a Red Cross national disaster specialist, including for 9/11 and Katrina), Visiting Nurse Service, CU Humphrey Fellows, Gadabout, the Daycare Council, Tompkins County Public Library, the SPCA, Planned Parenthood, KIND, Heifer Foundation, International Rescue Committee, and Doctors Without Borders, are among the many organizations he supported. Lenny also greatly enjoyed serving as an interim executive director for 9 months at both Hospicare and Reconstruction Home (now Beechtree) during their searches for new executive directors.
Lenny always said what is most important in life is our relationships. Despite any shortcomings, he tried hard to be a good husband, father, supervisor, and friend. After Betsy and he divorced, they retained a close relationship. Lenny later met and married Janet McKinnon Ranier and helped raise her 3 children, referring to himself playfully as their “wicked stepfather”. He and the children remained close after that marriage ended and family gatherings and holidays often included people from Lenny’s prior marriages. In 1996, his friend David introduced him to Linda Gasser, and love blossomed. They would marry five years later, and she survives him after almost 30 years together.
He and Linda enjoyed many adventures together, traveling frequently to see friends and family, visiting national parks, making yearly trips to the Adirondacks to canoe, and traveling internationally, visiting 67 countries and all 7 continents. They made lifelong international friends around the world through connections from Linda’s work in Central & Eastern Europe, and as Friendship Partners for the Cornell University Humphrey Fellows Program. They had an enduring, special friendship and a deeply special love. And, in marrying Lenny, Linda also was gifted with his loving extended families.
So many friends have expressed their enjoyment and gratitude for knowing Lenny. They knew of Lenny’s golf pursuits, especially playing with his close friends Frank and Art and his 2 “holes in one”, his love of a good story, and his ability to look up and retain facts to be shared endlessly. They remember his ability to listen well, to cry in movies, his realistic self-appraisal and understanding of emotions, his deep care for people and service, his generosity, and his sadness at some of his own failings, and at “human’s inhumanity to each other”, and our current distressing political climate domestically and around the world. Lenny also constantly shared a very playful and fun side and an ever- apparent sense of humor which he kept until the end. For example, after deciding against further treatment, Lenny would wake from sleeping surprised and saying, “I woke up! I’m not dead! Why aren’t I dead yet?” He was able to enjoy a final root beer float, and pass on his own terms, comfortably and without pain, wearing a t-shirt that said “LOVED” on it. His sadness was in saying goodbye to loved ones and not knowing what will happen in their lives in the future.
His grandchildren – Logan, Ethan & Mariah, & Toby--and step-grandchildren-Isabel & Calvin, Hannah & Ethan, and John & Libby – will always remember fondly Lenny’s annual “Holiday Quiz” that would challenge them every Christmas on topics of history, geography, government, climate change and sustainability, or politics or with riddles and brain teasers to engage with them and encourage valuing learning and giving back. Though the questions were perpetually difficult and Googling was never allowed, the goal was to get enough questions correct to earn a monetary reward, or to learn something new, and donate any “lost” winnings for incorrect answers to a charity of one’s choice. His Holiday Quiz turned out to be the highlight of many Christmas and Hannukah celebrations in both families.
Lenny is survived and will be missed by so many he knew and cared about. In addition to his wife, Linda, and his grandchildren, among these are: his three children: Scott (Laura), David, and Deirdre (Todd), all of whom are living in Ithaca for the first time in 40 years and were able to spend time by his side; his three stepchildren Megan (Greg), Anne (Chris), and Matt (Nina) with whom he was very close and who were able to be present during his final week; his nieces Bonnie (Bill), Melanie (Jim) and Anita (Richard), Emily (Matt), and Sarah; his grandnieces and grandnephews Burke, David, Clay, Jin, Lindsay, Grace, and Aya; his brother and sister-in-law Ray & Maria, with whom he was also very close, a sister-in-law Terry, nephew Liam and niece, Lisette in Illinois and his previous wives, Betsy Schlesinger (David) and Janet Ranier. Lenny was also fond of his remaining cousin Seymour Kaufman and wife Rose, numerous Humphrey Fellows he was fortunate to meet, including several that held special places in his heart (Ruhsan, Milica, Darin, Ece, Chin, and Ackson), and the countless close friends he and Linda shared throughout Ithaca, the U.S., in Sweden, and elsewhere around the world.
Lenny wanted to share a “big thank you” to his doctors and their staffs, and the Visiting Nurse Service, Hospicare, and a few added caregivers who provided incredibly warm and skillful support and care. For those wishing to honor Lenny’s memory, we do not need flowers, donations can be made in his memory to any of the causes listed above that were special to him, or to a cause of your choice. Lastly, a believer in our need for extending our humanity, Lenny wanted to share his enduring wish for us all “Be kind to each other”.
Please come to a celebration of Lenny’s life on Saturday, May 9, 2026 from 2:00- 4:00PM at the Foundation of Light (391 Turkey Hill Rd.) in Ithaca, NY. Feel free to check the Central NY Cremation Service website (https://www.centralnewyorkcremationservice.com/ for this information or ask Linda to be added to a mailing list for a reminder or more information.
Central New York Cremation Services
22 Church St.
Moravia, NY 13118
(607) 423-3830
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