Alexandra Lee Levin (1912–1997)

Alexandra Lee was born and raised in Washington, DC, a descendant of the famous Lee family of Virginia. Her great-grandfather Edmund Jennings Lee II was a first cousin of Civil War general Robert E. Lee. Edmund Jennings Lee was the brother of Lighthorse Harry Lee, Robert E. Lee's father. She graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1933. In 1934, she married M(arcus) Jastrow Levin, a biology teacher at Baltimore Polytechnic Institute. Mrs. Levin's extended family history provided material for some of her works. In the mid-1950s, in a trunk in the basement of her home, she found the papers of her husband's aunt, Henrietta Szold, founder of Hadassah, the Jewish women's service organization, and an early settler of Israel. Using those papers, Mrs. Levin wrote The Szolds of Lombard Street (1960). In 1972, she wrote "Dare to Be Different" about her father-in-law, Louis H. Levin, executive secretary of Federated Jewish Charities, who is credited with initiating social work in Baltimore. Mrs. Levin's other works included "Vision," a biography of Baltimore ophthalmologist Harry Friedenwald, a leading Zionist. "The Awful Drama," published in 1987, examined the career of Edwin Gray Lee, head of the Confederate Secret Service. Mrs. Levin also published a collection of letters written by D. H. Lawrence. She was a prolific contributor to the Baltimore Sun op-ed page and other publications, including American Heritage, the Maryland Historical Society Magazine, and the Jewish Historical Society journal.