November 10, 2013

Henrietta Glass

Henrietta "Hetty" Glass was born in 1920 in a small, heavily Afrikaans village in South Africa. Her parents were both Jewish immigrants from Russia, with her mother said to have come from Vilna and her father from another Russian town. Growing up in a community with very few Jews, she spoke only Dutch as a child and did not learn English until she reached university, where she took English as a subject. She recalled facing anti-Semitism during her schooling, remembering being told by classmates to stay away because she was Jewish.

She attended elementary and high school in her home village, matriculated, and then went to Cape Town to study at the University of Cape Town. There she trained as a pianist and became a schoolteacher. She taught high school, including language, and continued teaching for most of her life in South Africa. She met her future husband at Muizenberg, a seaside area popular with the Jewish community, and after courting they married and had a son named Jeff.

Henrietta and her husband later moved to Dallas to be near their only son, choosing America over England, where they might otherwise have gone given South Africa's ties to British rule. She has said she is not sorry for the choice and feels she made the better decision. In Dallas she taught for about five years and remained an active pianist, still playing works by Beethoven and Wagner. Living at a retirement community, she gladly performs when a pianist is wanted. She kept some family traditions alive, treasuring candles her parents had brought from Russia.

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