Alexandra Sara Toth Sax

1935 - 2022
Alexandra Sara Toth Sax, 86, a reference librarian and devoted wife and mother, passed away peacefully June 11, 2022. "Lexie," a resident of Rye, New York, since 1964, was born June 21, 1935, in Norwalk, Connecticut, to Rev. Dr. William Toth and Margaret Kalassay Toth. In 1957, she married Maurio Sax, who survives. Other survivors include daughters Dr. Athena Michael and Tamara Stuckey, and their husbands; and granddaughters Juliette Michael and Corrinne Stuckey.

Alexandra was accomplished both professionally and socially, loved by family, friends, and coworkers for her warmth, generosity, and helpfulness. She attended the School of Drama at Syracuse University and studied history at Columbia University. She studied drama at the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-on-Avon in England. In 1971, she accompanied her husband, children, and 27 high school students to the University of Nairobi, where they studied and toured Kenya and Tanzania, with the American Institute of Foreigh Study. She earned master's degrees from Manhattanville College (English literature) and the University of North Texas (library science).

Alexandra served as head reference librarian at the Mid-Manhattan branch of the New York Public Library. In response to the 2001 recession, she organized a job information center there, scheduling visiting speakers and resume-writing workshops. In 2003, she received the library's Maher Stern Award for outstanding service. Earlier, she helped a young Barack Obama, recently graduated from college, in his job search. He acknowledged her help during an American Library Association conference in 2005. "The librarian helped me find these lists of organizations, and I wrote to every organization," Obama told an interviewer. "One of them wound up being an organization in Chicago that I got a job with."

She actively supported her Rye community. She started a program to teach English to Russian diplomats and members of the Japanese community, and United Nations workers who lived in Rye. She served as president of the Evening Guild and the Rye Women's Club, where she started a theater group. She was also active in the Rye Forum. She belonged to Rye Presbyterian Church and served on the board of the Rye Historical Society.

An avid traveler, she arranged family trips to Europe and Latin America and across the United States. In Japan, she reunited with her Rye adult Japanese English-language students. She represented the New York Public Library at a celebration of the founding of the National Library in Sofia, Bulgaria. In 2006, she joined a U.S. delegation to China, that met with librarians at universities and public libraries.

Alexandra, whose family immigrated from Hungary, was proud of her family's tradition of public service. Her grandparents, Alexander and Elizabeth Kalassay, founded the Bethlen Orphanage in Ligonier, Pa. Her father, who chaired the history department at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa., had earlier been a minister at the Salem Evangelical and Reformed Church in Harrisburg, Pa., and also made broadcasts for Radio Free Europe.

Her legacy will live on in our hearts.