It’s Not Everyday You Turn 135

Celebrating Sigmond Sanger’s Legacy

Ina press release, the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library has announced that this year marks the 135^th anniversary of Sigmond Sanger’s birth.  The late Toledo attorney’s legacy lives on at the branch that bears his name, Sanger Branch Library, located at 3030 W. Central Ave., Toledo.

The Toledo-Lucas County Public Library invites the public in celebrating Sanger’s life and his contributions to the library with remembrances and photographs from 2-3 p.m. on Saturday, July 19, 2008, at the Sanger Branch. Birthday cake will be served at this free and open to the public event.

Sigmond Sanger

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Sanger, (1873-1946), was born in Szeben, Hungary and was an influential law partner in the Toledo firm (Walter Folger) Brown and Sanger. He served for 28 years, beginning in 1918 until the time of his death, as a member of the Library’s board of trustees. He served as trustee president for all but one year of his full tenure.

During Sanger’s trustee years, many of the city’s branch libraries were established, along with libraries in schools, which fostered cooperative programs. His biggest accomplishment was the establishment of Main Library’s present-day location along Michigan Street in downtown Toledo. For 20 years Sanger campaigned for the building, which he saw completed in 1940.

When Sanger began his trustee tenure, the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library contained 118,000 volumes. At the time of his death in 1946 there were 500,000 volumes, and by comparison, today the system contains more than 2.9 million volumes (includes all materials – books, DVDs, videos, etc.).

Erin Connolly, manager of the Sanger Branch Library, said she believes Sanger would be amazed by the growth of the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library system, which includes Main Library, 18 branch locations, and Outreach Services (bookmobile and book hauler).

“Mr. Sanger had a very generous spirit.  The length of time he volunteered his leadership to promote the library makes this obvious.  He believed in helping the working class and I think he would be especially proud of what we accomplish in Lucas County, let alone the 265,000 people who visited the Sanger Branch last year.  We help people from all walks of life,” said Connolly.

Sanger married Margaret Heyn (Margot) Sanger (1890-1967), an entertainer. The couple adopted a daughter Mary Ruth Wotherspoon, (1924-2008) who died this month (on July 7) at the age of 84 in Sante Fe, New Mexico.

Sanger Branch Library was established in a storefront in the Colony in 1953. It moved to another location in the Kenwood Shopping Center in 1959. Over the next 40 years, the branch was enlarged twice, and finally, thanks to the generosity of Lucas County voters who supported a capital improvements levy, a new facility was built. That was opened in March 2000 at its current location along West Central Avenue.

For more details, call the Sanger Branch Library at 419.259.5295.