In 1955, Lloyd M. Bellis and C. H. Willier felt compelled to provide readers of the Gratz Sesquitennial Book with a brief biographical anecdote of Rebecca Gratz (1781-1869), the sister of Simon Gratz, the founder of Gratz, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania.
The picture of Rebecca that was used with the sketch was of a painting by Thomas Scully.
Rebecca Gratz
In honor of Simon Gratz it is proper that we relate something about his sister, Rebecca Gratz. Rebecca was born in 1781 and died in 1869. She was never married.
Rebecca was a beautiful, talented and well-known philanthropist in Philadelphia. She became secretary for the Orphans’ Society in 1819 and served in that capacity for forty years. She helped established the first Jewish Sunday School, was secretary of the Female Association for the Relief of Women and Children in Reduced Circumstances, and was the first president of the Jewish Foster Home and Orphan Asylum.
One of her best friends, Matilda Hoffman, was engaged to Washington Irving, the writer, but died of tuberculosis before the marriage took place. While nursing Matilda, Rebecca became well acquainted with Irving. Broken-hearted, Irving made a trip to England. While there he visited Sir Walter Scott, who was then planning the novel Ivanhoe. Scott told Irving that one of the characters in the novel was to be young Jewess of more than average beauty and charm, and asked him to give him a word picture of one of his Jewess friends in America. Irving thereupon gave Scott a character sketch in great detail of Rebecca Gratz for use in his new novel
When Scott had completed his new novel he sent Irving a copy with the query, “How do you like Rebecca?”
Rebecca accepted the acclaim with the expected modesty. Years later in a letter to her sister-in-law, Mrs. Benjamin Gratz, in Lexington, Kentucky, she acknowledged that she indeed was the prototype of the Rebecca in Ivanhoe.
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