Ruth Hendlin

Ruth Maltz Hendlin of Springfield died Aug. 18, 2013. She was born in 1920.

Mrs. Hendlin taught at the Lower East Side’s Henry Street Settlement and The 18th Avenue School in Newark. She was employed by the Springfield Board of Education, first at the Thelma L. Sandmeier School and then, for nearly two decades, as an award-winning kindergarten teacher at the James Caldwell School.

She attended The Julliard School of Music while a student at Newark’s Weequahic High School and went on to receive a bachelor of science in music education from New York University, where she served as accompanist for the NYU Chorus as well as several chamber groups and soloists in New York City. She later earned additional certification for teaching grades K-six from Kean University.

Following her retirement, she accompanied her husband to Tokyo during his four-year tenure as a liaison in microbiology. While residing there, she was a volunteer tutor for The Children’s English Circle, a language program sponsored by The College Women's Association of Japan, and became a student of oil painting, Japanese flower arranging, and the Japanese tea ceremony.

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Locally, she was a Girl Scout leader, a volunteer English as a Second Language instructor, and a member of Temple Sha’arey Shalom’s sisterhood and Renaissance Group, Women’s ORT, the League of Women’s Voters, and National Council of Jewish Women.

Predeceased by her husband, David, in 2006, she is survived by two daughters, Susan Mooallem and Harriet Hendlin; a sister, Eleanor Plotkin; two grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.

Services were held Aug. 22 with arrangements by Bernheim-Apter-Kreitzman Suburban Funeral Chapel, Livingston.