Harry Lee (sheriff) - Early Years

Early Years

Lee was born in 1932, the son of Chinese immigrants. His birth occurred in the back room of the family's laundry on Carondelet Street, in the part of New Orleans known as Central City. When they were old enough, he and his siblings, eventually numbering eight, were given jobs in the laundry and later in the family's restaurants, including the House of Lee in Metairie.

He got a firsthand taste of politics early, at age 12, when he was elected president of the newly formed student body government at Shaw Elementary School. Each year after that, he was elected to class office. During his senior year at Francis T. Nicholls High School (now Frederick Douglass Senior High School), he was president of both his senior class and the student body, a school first.

He earned a bachelor's degree in geology from Louisiana State University, served in the Air Force in Texas and married Lai Lee, then returned to Louisiana in 1959. That was the year when the family began construction on the House of Lee, where Mr. Lee would meet the man who became his political mentor, Hale Boggs. For six years he worked as Boggs' driver and confidant when the congressman was back home in Louisiana.

Soon, Lee decided that public service was the career for him and saw law school as an entree. He took classes at Loyola University School of Law while working 12-hour days at the family's restaurant.

After law school, he set up a small practice with classmate Marion Edwards, now an appellate judge. With Boggs' help, he was appointed the first magistrate for the U.S. District Court in New Orleans, and in 1975 he became chief attorney for Jefferson Parish.

Four years later, with Sheriff Al Cronvich embroiled in a wire-tapping scandal, Lee saw a chance to plunge into electoral politics. Assailing the corruption and inefficiency of the Sheriff's Office, he ran as a reform candidate, led the five-candidate primary and took 57 percent of the runoff vote to defeat Cronvich.

He immediately gave deputies raises and poured money into the Sheriff's Office, computerizing it for the first time. He also began to build a political machine that would become one of the largest in southern Louisiana, although his record of getting others elected was spotty.