Aaron Lee Trueblood Lehr, 1988-2024

Aaron Lehr, who overcame dyslexia and ADHD to found two businesses and become a skilled interior architectural designer with a passion for woodworking, died Nov. 30, 2024, surrounded by friends and family at Cooper University Hospital in Camden, New Jersey, after a long illness. He was 36 years old.

From a young age, Aaron was drawn to building with his hands. Lincoln Logs, Legos and Duplo gave way to designing structures for student housing, 3-D models, and furniture from dining room tables to chairs and cutting boards. He had a keen eye for structural detail.

Doctors diagnosed him with dyslexia early in life. His mother Suzanne C. Trueblood — with whom he was close — started her own school at their home in Delaware, where she taught him with alternative forms of learning to help him adapt to a world that demands literacy. He eventually became a Cub Scout in Pack 99 and then a Boy Scout in Troop 99 in Bellefonte, Delaware, earning the rank of Eagle Scout after building a wooden shelter to keep firewood dry near a bonfire pit at Brandywine Creek State Park in Wilmington, Delaware. The structure still stands today.

"He'd want to be remembered as a friend. He really liked helping people," said David Zipf, a childhood friend from Wilmington.

Aaron Lee Trueblood Lehr was born January 30, 1988, in Delaware to Suzanne, a teacher who earned her doctorate in education after running a custom black-and-white darkroom photography business from home in Wilmington, and Gary Lehr, a chemist who worked for years at DuPont.

An avid hiker, mountain biker and road cyclist, Aaron Lehr gained an appreciation for the outdoors at a young age. He regularly spent time exploring the woods and sledding down hills with friends near his childhood home in Wilmington. When he was a teenager, he backpacked and mountain biked for two weeks at Philmont Scout Ranch for nearly 70 miles in the high desert mountains of Cimarron, N.M., accompanied by his father, who was an assistant scoutmaster. In the summers, he visited Block Island, Rhode Island, with his friend Stephen, Stephen's family and their many dogs. Aaron would often lead group bike rides and card games, bringing laughter to the gathering. Despite the cold water that surrounded the island, no one could keep him out of the ocean.

In the winter, he snowboarded in the mountains of Vermont and Colorado, more so after his family relocated there from the East Coast in the last few years.

Aaron graduated from the Cab Calloway School of the Arts in 2006 before attending the Rhode Island School of Design, following his mother, who had earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in photography in 1977. There, he received a BFA in interior architecture in 2010. Shortly after graduating, he met his wife Lisa Petty-Lehr — a textile designer who also graduated from RISD a year after he did, though they hadn't met while in school — at an Oktoberfest party at a mutual friend's house on Cape Cod, Mass.

They connected immediately over their love for dogs — his family had bred golden retrievers, and she had grown up in a house with a veterinarian for a mother. At the party, Aaron came down with hiccups that wouldn't dissipate. Lisa had heard that drinking vinegar would cure the problem and suggested he try it, but Aaron hated the taste and smell of vinegar.

He drank it anyway. It didn't work.

I noticed that he was charismatic and easy to talk to, and we talked the whole time," Lisa recalled.

They started dating in 2012. About a year later, they relocated to New York City so Aaron could go to graduate school. Aaron earned a master's in design and technology at the Parsons School of Design two years later. Then, in 2016, he co-founded Tangible Creative with two classmates to deliver custom 3D printing and design services to clients around the world, including Lululemon, Nokia, Blue Apron and the American Natural History Museum.

Aaron eventually proposed to Lisa at Geneva Lake in the Finger Lakes region of New York, and they married in 2019 at Taughannock Falls State Park in Trumansburg, New York, near Ithaca. They chose the place because of its natural beauty and because they could celebrate simply among their closest family and friends at a place they loved. For the occasion, Aaron built and designed the wooden bar that dispensed four types of beer that he had brewed at home. They honeymooned in Kauai, Hawaii, where they hiked, snorkeled, surfed, rode a helicopter along the Nāpali Coast and watched the sunset on a remote beach.

Aaron eventually left Tangible in 2019 and went on to work for several architectural firms in New York and Denver. Last year, he struck out on his own again, founding Deep Roots Woodworking to design and sell furniture, at first, to family and friends, specializing in working with live-edge wood. He opened a shop in Flemington for himself and made all of the furniture for the couple's apartment. In his spare time, he gardened, growing a variety of plants and making hot sauce and salsa from the tomatoes and peppers he grew on the balcony of their apartment.

The couple relocated to Lawrenceville, N.J., in late 2022 after spending several years in Montclair, N.J. That year, as a housewarming gesture, they hosted Thanksgiving with their friends, but they didn't have a big enough banquet table. So, Aaron decided to build one.

He procured a large slab of wood, cut it down, sanded, epoxied and finished it. A welder whom Aaron knew cut, bent and welded the table's legs. And despite weeks of work, the project took longer than expected, as home projects often do. Guests began arriving at the apartment Thanksgiving evening, with no table (or Aaron) in sight.

He finally brought the table into the apartment, screwed on the legs, and apologized that some of the oils on the tabletop hadn't fully dried by mealtime. The episode captured Aaron well — a little overoptimistic in planning, but eager to host and provide for his family and friends. "It was a beautiful piece of furniture," his friend David recalled.

Aaron was predeceased by his mother Suzanne and father Gary, who died of complications of glioblastomas in 2021 and 2023, respectively, and whose deaths deeply affected Aaron. He is survived by his wife, Lisa, and brothers Jacob (Katherine), J. Tyson and nephews Milo and Quinn.

"Aaron would always say that his grandmother, Nano, could talk to a rock," his wife said. "But Aaron was exactly the same way. He would make friends everywhere he went and had no problem talking to strangers."

A memorial service will take place at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Princeton on Jan. 24 at 11 a.m. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made by check to:

Boy Scout Troop 99

Presbyterian Church of the Covenant

503 Duncan Road

Wilmington, DE 19809