As a lawyer, C. Lois Samuelson Kriebel was analytical and proper, believing that there were procedures that must be followed and going out of her way to make sure they were done correctly. In her personal life, however, she shunned the expected, surprising people with her sense of humor, lamenting that she never grew to be as tall as her 6-foot-2 father, and indulging her sweet tooth by ordering dessert first–never mind the entree.
Ms. Samuelson, 76, of Oak Park, a past president of the Women’s Bar Association of Illinois and an attorney at a time when women were rare and often unwelcome in the profession, died Jan. 5 in Loyola University Medical Center, Maywood, after a long illness. A memorial service will be held at noon Friday in the Women’s Bar Association office, 321 S. Plymouth Ct., Suite 4S, where Ms. Samuelson served as president from 1957 to 1958.
During law school, Ms. Samuelson worked at the Commerce Clearing House, a law publishing firm where many female law students and lawyers worked away from the discrimination inherent in the courtrooms.
After she was admitted to the state bar in 1949, Ms. Samuelson joined other lawyers in front of the bench. For 15 years as a lawyer for a city land commission and later as an attorney in her husband’s law firm, she greeted judges’ condescending remarks with a shrug and a smile.
“She was a very petite woman, very pretty, and she had a marvelous sense of humor, so she’d always make some joking remark or smile,” said Ann Lutterbeck, a longtime friend and fellow lawyer. “She usually treated it in an offhand way.”
When she was elected president of the Women’s Bar Association, Ms. Samuelson reinstated an annual dinner given in honor of Illinois judges to give female lawyers informal access to the justices.
Ms. Samuelson was born in Chicago and raised in Oak Park. She graduated from the University of Chicago and received her law degree from Chicago Kent College of Law. From 1950 until 1965, she was an associate staff attorney for the Chicago land clearance commission. In 1965, Ms. Samuelson, who went by her maiden name professionally, joined her husband’s law firm, Kriebel & Jorgenson, and remained there until her husband’s retirement, when the couple moved to Florida.
She returned to Oak Park around 1980 after her husband’s death and worked part-time as a librarian for the American College of Surgeons.
Though she did not return to law, Ms. Samuelson never stopped thinking like a lawyer. When asked to be on the board of the condominium where she lived, she went to a seminar on condominium management so she could learn to do it right and could advise other board members, Lutterbeck said.
Ms. Samuelson was an avid golfer who started playing when she was 3 years old. She was a master bridge player and loved fishing, dancing and traveling, most recently visiting Antarctica.
She “brought her critical legal mind to bear on whatever came before her,” said Irma Parker, a longtime friend and former editor at Commerce Clearing House. “She had the makings of a good bridge player with her analytical mind. Same thing with her travels; she had to examine everything very closely but without letting it interfere with her enjoyment.”
“She was rather quiet, but she had a sense of humor that would come at unexpected moments,” said another friend and fellow lawyer, Olga Jurco. “It would surprise you.”
Survivors include two cousins.
