Eva Hindus, 94, librarian and faculty wife at Brandeis

Eva (Tenenbaum) Hindus always had a strong survival instinct, her family said.

As a girl in the 1920s, she survived anti-Semitism. After graduating from Brooklyn College, she was diagnosed with tuberculosis, and "nobody thought she would last long," her grandniece, Nina Berg of Cambridge, wrote in an oral history on Mrs. Hindus for a church project.

Mrs. Hindus not only lasted, she thrived. And as the wife of Milton Hindus, a scholar of US and European literature and one of the original 13 faculty members of Brandeis University, she supported the fledgling college as it grew from humble roots into an internationally known institution.

Mrs. Hindus died of a stroke May 31 at Newton-Wellesley Hospital. She was 94 and would have observed her 95th birthday July 10. She had lived in Newton for almost 50 years.

"Even though she was ready in the last few years to leave the earth many times, she struggled valiantly on," said her daughter Myra, of Jamaica Plain.

Jehuda Reinharz, the president of Brandeis, praised Mrs. Hindus's devotion to the university through the years.

"She and her husband, as a couple, were taking a big risk in coming to an unaccredited university," Reinharz said yesterday. "I am sure she was part of that decision-making process. Even after her husband passed away, Mrs. Hindus continued to be very much attached to Brandeis, coming to events and participating in the university's life."

As a faculty wife, Mrs. Hindus had a variety of responsibilities. One of them, Myra said, was to be hostess at their home while entertaining the many famous writers Milton brought to Brandeis, including e e cummings, Robert Frost, Isaac Bashevis Singer, and William Carlos Williams.

She also helped new and young faculty members adjust to life on campus. One of them was Michael T. Gilmore, who arrived in Waltham in 1976 as a young assistant professor and who still teaches American literature there. He recalled Mrs. Hindus as "warm and welcoming."

"She was extremely reinforcing and encouraging," Gilmore said. "She was a presence."

California novelist Merrill Joan Gerber, who had known Mrs. Hindus since Gerber was a graduate student at Brandeis in 1960, had kept in touch with her through the years. She recalled Mrs. Hindus's sharp mind and her unflagging support for her husband.

"I think she protected and enhanced Milton's career," she said, by freeing him up to work and encouraging him.

Of Mrs. Hindus's longevity, Gerber recalled her once saying: "I think I'm made of steel and I can't die."

She was born Hala Tenenbaum in Warsaw. According to Berg's oral history, her father had come to America in 1923 in hope of acquiring citizenship, leaving her, her mother, brother, and sister in Poland until he could bring them here.

One thing that helped her pass the time, her family said, was her talent at the piano.

"At a young age, she was thought of as a prodigy," Berg said. At age 10, she joined older youngsters in auditioning for the Warsaw Conservatory and was one of four to be chosen. She took piano lessons there for five years before the family was able to join her father in America.

She was 16 when her family left Poland for the United States. In America, Berg said, Hala's name was changed to Eva. The family rented a small apartment in Brooklyn, and the children went to school.

Mrs. Hindus never forgot the joy of coming to America, her family said. In the oral history, she summed it up in an analogy to ice cream.

"In Warsaw . . . you could get a thimble-sized cone," she said. "And since it was like your allowance, you wanted to savor the taste and keep it as long as possible."

But in America, a wealthy aunt took her to an ice cream parlor in New York and ordered sundaes. "And then I saw it, this boat of ice cream," she said. "It had chocolate syrup, cherries, the works. And, I said to myself, 'This is America!' "

"Eva took accelerated classes in English, chemistry, and biology and finished high school in three years," Berg wrote. Graduating in the top 10 percent of her class enabled her to get into Brooklyn College.

Mrs. Hindus recovered from tuberculosis after a year in a sanatorium, her daughter said. Mutual friends in New York introduced her to Milton Hindus, who was teaching at Hunter College at the time. The couple married in 1942.

They then moved to Chicago, where Mr. Hindus became a professor at the University of Chicago and Mrs. Hindus worked as a proofreader and editor for a publisher.

In 1948, Brandeis's first president, Abraham Sachar, asked Milton Hindus to join the founding faculty. For about 20 years, Mrs. Hindus worked as librarian at the public library in Newton.

Mrs. Hindus had open-heart surgery at age 86 and "mentally remained clear as a bell," her daughter said. She seemed to have lost some of her spirit, her daughter said, after the death of her husband in 1998 after 55 years of marriage.

"They were very much a team," their daughter said. The last words each had said to her before dying were the same: "I send you my love."

Services have been held.