Zelda Sokal

Zelda Kaufman Sokal, age 96, died peacefully at her home in Newton, MA on August 5, 2025. She had previously lived in Lexington, MA for 54 years.

Zelda grew up in New York City with her parents, brother and sister, and a large extended family of aunts, uncles and cousins. She took piano lessons throughout childhood and attended the High School of Music and Art (now LaGuardia High School). She was a die-hard fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers and regularly skipped school to attend home games at Ebbets Field. She was proud to be the first in her extended family to go away to college, attending Radcliffe College, where she received her degree in biology in 1950, and switched her allegiance to the Boston Red Sox. In Cambridge, Zelda met Nathan (Nat) Sokal, a fellow New Yorker and student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and they married in 1952. After spending most of their married life and raising their three children in Lexington, in 2010 they moved to Lasell Village, an active senior retirement community in Newton.

Zelda began her career as a biology lab assistant at Mass General Hospital. When she became a mother, Zelda devoted herself to raising her three children – Alan, Karen and Diane – while also getting a Masters of Education from Boston University. When the children were all in school, Zelda returned to work part-time, then full-time, first in labs at Radcliffe and Brandeis University, then as a science textbook editor at Houghton-Mifflin, and later as a manager of technical writers and editors at Honeywell. Zelda served as a role model for her children and other young people that she mentored, emphasizing the importance of balancing time between family, career, personal development and volunteer work, and always being open to finding opportunities for a non-linear career path.

Throughout her married life, Zelda enjoyed socializing with friends, ballroom dancing, traveling around the world, and attending performances of ballet, classical music and theater. Zelda maintained her longstanding friendships and adored the new friends that she made in her 15 years at Lasell Village, which she compared to the excitement of college life, ""taking courses, dining with friends, and being involved in activities."" Over the last five years, Zelda was assisted by many loving caregivers and enjoyed learning about their lives and sharing her own life experiences.

Zelda always enjoyed puzzles and games, including the Sunday NY Times crosswords, Scrabble, 1000-piece jigsaws, and at Lasell Village adding to her weekly rotation Mah Jongg and RummiKub. The week before her passing, Zelda was thrilled to share with her family that in an after-dinner online Scrabble game, she had finally achieved the ultimate Scrabble challenge – a bingo play using all 7 letters in her rack, spanning across two Triple Word squares by connecting with one letter on the board, for a single-play score of 122 points.

Zelda was pre-deceased by her husband Nat in 2016, and leaves her children Alan Sokal (Marina Papa-Sokal) of London, England, Karen Sokal (Jeffrey Allen) of Oakland, CA and Diane Sokal (Randolph Meiklejohn) of Brookline, MA; eight grandchildren -- Seth and Lia Gutierrez; Elizabeth and Henry Meiklejohn; and Serena, Julia, Elisa and Nathan Papa-Sokal; two great-grandchildren, and a large extended family.