Family matriarch Mary Atlas dies at age 104

SUZANNE BELLING

Regal, strong and the family matriarch, she was known, not only for her communal work, but for her creative writing and study of positive thinking, on which she wrote several booklets.

She used to visit ill, depressed and bereaved people on a voluntary basis, reading them positive affirmations to help them cope, until a few years ago when she lost her hearing.

With an active mind, right up until her peaceful passing, Mary was buried in Pinelands Jewish Cemetery last Sunday. Rabbi Matthew Liebenberg, of the Claremont Wynberg Hebrew Congregation, said in his eulogy: “I believe that if we had asked Mary what the secret was to her longevity, she would have said it was her philosophy of positive thinking…”

Mary wrote poetry and speeches on her birthdays and other simchas, which she continued to deliver as a nonagenarian up to her 100th birthday. She was also in demand for many years for composing rhyming greetings for friends and acquaintances to use at simchas.

But she was best-known for her script and staging (with Bernice Borok) of a mock wedding “Reid Mir a Shidduch”, the story of a matchmaker “Shadchan Shmendrik” which they produced in 1951, 1963 and the early 1970s as a shul fundraising effort.

It was so successful that there were repeat performances and the show went as far afield as Stellenbosch. Mary wrote it for the Wynberg Hebrew Congregation (which has since merged with Claremont), where she was active in the Synagogue Guild and the shul.

She was, for many terms, chairman and treasurer of the Wynberg branch of Bnoth Zion Association (now Bnoth Zion Wizo).

She was a recipient of the BZA Rebecca Sieff award for long service to the organisation.

Her legacy is recorded in the congregation’s centenary book, as her life revolved around the shul and the BZA.

Born in Johannesburg in 1913, the elder of two daughters, she became a shorthand teacher at the age of 25. After meeting her husband of 40 years, Maurice, she relocated to Cape Town where the couple was married in the Wynberg Shul.

In those days, few women drove cars, but she was then the epitome of a liberated woman, fetching and carrying children and her friends who did not drive.

In her latter days, her writing was featured in Highlands House publications, in which she quoted her philosophy: “Life is a big adjustment; the past is history; today is a gift; though tomorrow is a mystery. So, we live day by day and make the very best – with good health may we all be blessed.”

Although devastated by the loss of her high-achieving grandson, Zalman, at the age of 19 through a serious illness, Mary applied her positive thinking and was a tower of strength to the family.

She leaves her sons, Ivan and Alan Atlas; her daughters-in-law Miriam and Vicky Atlas; her grandchildren Seymour and Lisa Atlas; Janine and Daniel Silke; Jacques Atlas; Julia Atlas and her great-grandchildren, Kayla Silke and Jaden Atlas.