Tribute: Lettie Burgett ’71

BE PATIENT: “Don’t become a grown-up,” Burgett would whimsically advise her young patients as a pediatrician in her Los Angeles practice. (Photograph: Courtesy of the Burgett family)

Lettie Burgett ’71 was seven when she announced her career goal: pediatrician. She was inspired by her own doctor in St. Louis, Helen Nash, a pioneer in the history of Black women physicians.

Burgett was true to her word, making an impact on thousands of children and parents in a 47-year career as a pediatrician in southern California. She died in August 2022 at her home in Palos Verdes Estates, California, at 73.

“My mom was greatly influenced by Dr. Nash,” her son, Ben Cowan, said. “Even as a little girl, she perceived pediatricians as people who made others healthy, happy, and more whole.”

Burgett was born in St. Louis in 1949, the third of Arthur and Ruth Burgett’s six children. Older brother, Paul Burgett ’68E, ’76E (PhD) served as a teacher and University leader at Rochester for more than half a century before his death in 2018. Lettie followed him to Rochester, where she majored in biology and served as a senator in the Students’ Association government. She was a member of the Black Students Union when that group staged a protest in 1969, demanding improved opportunities for Black students, staff, and community members. When the University announced in 2014 that the Paul J. Burgett Intercultural Center would be housed on the third floor of what’s now Frederick Douglass Commons, Paul noted with emotion that it was the same floor Lettie and others occupied during the BSU protest.

Burgett earned her medical degree at Harvard University—one of only five Black women in a class of nearly 150. She began a residency in Los Angeles at Harbor–UCLA Medical Center and met Benjamin Cowan in 1975, when both were interns. The couple married in 1976 and had two sons, Ben and Christopher. Humble but driven, Burgett also taught for decades as an assistant clinical professor at Harbor–UCLA.

But her greatest joy was as a pediatrician. She would whimsically advise her young patients, “Don’t become a grown-up!”

“The way that my mom loved and was loved was fierce and beautifully uncomplicated,” her son Ben said. “She loved wholly, without reservation, and she taught those around her how to love unconditionally. This was such an incredible gift. I don’t have the words to describe what it felt like, how unusual it was, or how inspiring.”

—Jim Mandelaro