Henrietta G. DePass

Bound Brook- Henrietta G., DePass, passed away on Friday December 17, 2010 surrounded by her loving husband and son. Born in Winthrop, Massachusetts to the late David and Elizabeth Green, Henrietta later moved to Manhattan where she met her husband, Ernest T. DePass, of 62 years. They went on to live in Brooklyn before moving to New Jersey in 1961.
After receiving her Masters Degree from the New England Conservatory of Music, Henrietta began her professional career by singing with the Boston Symphony under Charles Munch. She sang with such notables as Robert Merrill and Richard Tucker, and appeared as soprano soloist in the Verdi Requiem with the New Jersey Symphony under Henry Lewis, as well as being a frequent guest artist on WNYC radio in New York. During the last functioning years of her life (1998-2008), Henrietta went from the great opera diva she had always been into a true miracle, giving some of her finest performances well into her 80’s, mostly at St. Mary’s Church in Bound Brook.
June 17, 2008, she went into the hospital for a minor treatment, but after a series of events, was forced into a vegetative state by being given inappropriate blood thinners. Always keeping her wit and mental faculties into her final day, she finally succumbed to the iatrogenic illness that comes inevitably to the bedbound.
Henrietta is pre-deceased by her Brothers David Green Jr. and Irving Green and her sister Winnifred Green. She leaves behind, to cherish her memory, her husband Ernest DePass; her son Paul DePass, whose only desire is to carry on her work of recognition of the fact that many senior citizens are capable of their fully functioning abilities, which no one has the right to deny them until the last possible moment.
A Funeral Mass will be celebrated at St. Mary’s Church in Bound Brook at 9:30 AM on Thursday, December 23, 2010. Entombment will follow at Resurrection Cemetery in Piscataway. Visiting hours will be held on Wednesday, December 22, 2010 from 2-4 and 7-9 PM at the Bridgewater Funeral Home, 707 East Main Street, Bridgewater NJ 08807.

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