Siegmund Joel Aronson, 94, died of heart disease Friday July 6, 2012, at The Austin Heart Hospital. Sig was born on February 9, 1918 in Sour Lake, Texas to Bernhard and Leah Aronson. During his childhood, Sig's family moved from Sour Lake to Orange Field and then to Beaumont where Sig graduated from Beaumont High School in 1934.
Following graduation, Sig left Beaumont to seek employment. After months of hopping freight trains and hitching rides all over the US to find odd jobs, Sig moved to southern Florida where he worked as a professional prize-fighter. Under the name "Jimmy Welch, The Texas Tornado," Sig boxed in thirty-six bouts, but by his own admission was "only third-rate." After his time in Florida, Sig lived in New York City where he worked as a clerk for Hearst Publishing.
The cultural life of New York piqued Sig's interest in literature and the arts, and deepened his desire to seek a college education despite lacking financial resources. Sig then hitched his way down to Austin where, in 1938, he enrolled in the University of Texas and worked his way through school. World War II cut Sig's education short. He served in the army for four-and-a-half years. In 1946, he graduated with a bachelor's degree after returning from service in the Far East. He then entered the University of Texas Law School, earning a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1948. Upon graduating, Sig founded a private legal practice. He waited six months for his first client, a man who paid his fee with a dressed hog (which Sig accepted, of course, even though he never ate pork). He later worked in partnership with Tom Long and Jack Maroney. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Sig served as the Assistant Attorney General for the State of Texas.
For many years, Sig was an integral member of the Austin Civic Theater (now Zachary Scott Theater). He served as the theater's president for three years and was a member of the board of directors in the 1950s and 1960s. He also directed and acted in many successful plays, several of which he wrote himself. Sig's playwriting specialty was melodramas, and he founded Melodrama Play Service to publish and license his plays, which were performed all over the United States as well as in Europe and South Africa.
While Sig was a bachelor for many years, he found love late in life when he met Jane Wallenstein, whom he married in 1975. He adopted the Wallenstein family as his own just as the Wallensteins and their relations embraced Sig. They all continued a close relationship. Although his wife Jane died in 1993, Sig is survived by her son Jim Wallenstein, his wife Marcia, their two daughters, Debbie and her husband Travis Turner, and Julie and her husband Scott Weiss and their daughters Chandler, Hannah, and Sophie. He is also survived by his daughter-in-law Randy Race, her husband Bill, and their sons, Ryan Race, Eric Wallenstein and his girlfriend Erica Lies, and Josh Wallenstein and his wife Luciana. Sig is also survived by another adopted family of over sixty years, the Winns: Windy (predeceased) and Babs and their three daughters Jill, Cindy, and Missy, and their families.
Sig's memorial service will be held on Monday, July 9, at 11:00 a.m. at Weed-Corley-Fish Funeral Home (3125 North Lamar Blvd.) with a reception to follow. His burial at Austin Memorial Park on Hancock Drive will be held at 10:00 preceding the memorial service. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the American Heart Association.