Lewis Goldman

Lewis H. Goldman, age 80, died on August 9th at the Hebrew Home of Greater Washington in Rockville, MD. Born on June 4, 1939 in White Plains, New York, and raised in New York City, he graduated from McGill University with a Bachelor of Arts in 1962 and earned a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Virginia in 1968. For a time when he was earning his law degree, he made money in the summers as a Good Humor man, selling ice cream from a truck. Upon receiving his law degree he practiced law from then on, and was helping clients even up to the month of his death. 

He was admitted to the New York Bar in 1968 and the District of Columbia Bar in 1970. He specialized in the fields of communications law and federal administrative practice. He was particularly knowledgeable in the areas of cellular communications, land mobile radio and low power television. He authored a number of papers on communications. He served as General Attorney, Federal Communications Commission, 1972-1982, and Chairman, Federal Communication Commission Interconnection Negotiations between Telephone Companies and Radio Common Carriers, 1975-1976.

After 1982 he opened his own practice, the Lewis H. Goldman Professional Corporation, and found he was happiest as his own boss with an office in Greater Washington. He represented medium-sized and small communication businesses before the Federal Communications Commission.  

He loved animals and was a dog owner much of his life, and was especially fond of cocker spaniels, inspired in that by Countess, the black cocker spaniel with which he grew up. He was the youngest child of Julian and Lillian Goldman, growing up with an older sister and three older brothers. His father founded a large chain of retail clothing stores.

Raised in a Jewish home, he became an Episcopalian and was baptized on March 2, 1968 at St. James Episcopal Church on Madison Avenue in New York City by his friend, Reverend Fred Hill. His baptism was witnessed by Margaret Mahon, whom he married shortly afterwards. They were later divorced. He subsequently married Alice Palmateer, a marriage which also ended with a divorce. Alice remembers him as a kind-hearted, generous man who always worried about her safety and who “stuck up for me when I would not stick up for myself.” Alice kept in touch with Lewis and visited him from her home in Florida even up to the end of his life.

In the 1970s when living in Washington, he attended St. John’s Church, Lafayette Square, where he met Carter Keithley, who became a lifelong friend. During his last years, Carter visited him almost weekly at the Hebrew Home.

He is survived by his ex-wives, two brothers—Douglas Gorham of Florence, Italy, and Robert “Bo” Goldman, of Rockport, Maine, and eleven nieces and nephews. He valued contact with family members and enjoyed phone calls with them, and letters. 

He could lose his temper easily, but would also readily ask for forgiveness. He had a delightful sense of humor and always had jokes and funny stories to share. In his professional life he enjoyed helping others. At the Hebrew Home where he resided during his final years, he always tried to encourage the staff. He was interested in their lives and became fondly attached to those who cared for him.

He battled loneliness and in his personal life endured many setbacks, but he was strikingly optimistic in the face of numerous adversities. He faced declining health with little complaint and exhibited a kind of tenaciousness and courage in his outlook even up to his very last days.

Lewis Goldman’s ashes will be interred beside his parents and his late brother, Chester Goldman, at Sharon Gardens Cemetery, Valhalla, NY. Please send any gifts in his honor to the Montgomery County Maryland Humane Society, c/o MCHS Honor/Memorial Department, 601 South Stonestreet Avenue, Rockville, MD 20850 or contact their donations department at donations@mchumane.org.