Alexandra Chappell Cole

Alexandra C. Cole died on July 22, 2026 at the age of 87. She was passionate about her family, friends, Africa, and work. After a lifetime of study concerning the connection of all humanity, her chief joy was giving individually to others so they could realize their dreams. Her well-being was wrapped up in the well-being of everyone else. She was curious and questing from birth, wanting to know the “Why” of everything. Consequently mystery novels were her favorite read. Independent and self-sufficient, she nonetheless enjoyed conversation and wit amongst friends, where her contagious laughter at a story or bon mot made others smile.

She was born in Massachusetts on May 19, 1939. From her father, a scholar and Episcopal minister, came her love of learning, the concept that service was a calling, and a sense of the spiritual in all. Studying came easily to her and she appreciated the opportunity to have graduated from Smith College, Columbia University Library School, and the University of Vermont Historic Preservation program. Her work as a reference librarian and as an architectural historian provided her with great joy.

Her three boys Luke, Peter, and Thomas were the light of her life, and she enjoyed every sort of childhood adventure with them, from collecting matchbooks in New London bars with Luke, finding beer paraphernalia in abandoned breweries with Peter, and going to annual freestyle Frisbee events with Thomas. She welcomed their wives, Nancy, Jarka, and Linda into her life, and had a special relationship with each of her grandchildren Zane, Allie, Tobias, and Charlie, and was proud of all their endeavors.

Although born in Cambridge, she spent her adult life in California, casting off her stoic New England upbringing by flinging off the Christianity of her childhood to embrace Buddhism and Unitarianism, just as she flung off her clothes to enjoy the Mountain Drive hot tubs of the 1970s.

Predeceased by her eldest son Luke, she is survived by Nancy, Luke’s widow, of San Francisco, Peter, Jarka, Charlie, Zane and Anh Thu of Brooklyn, and Thomas, Linda, Allie and Tobias of Santa Barbara. She was predeceased by her beloved partner Frank D. Dobyns.

Alex wanted people to know that she wrote this obituary herself.