Sara Gaíl de Farber and Bess de Farber Papers

Sara Gaíl de Farber, mother of Bess de Farber, grants manager at University of Florida's George A. Smathers Libraries, was born in Banfield, Argentina, a suburb of Buenos Aires, in 1918. She earned degrees in music theory, early childhood education, and medical social work in Buenos Aires. It is also where she met her future husband and second cousin, Joseph Farber, who was born in what today is Bielsk-Podlaski in north-eastern Poland. He arrived in the United States in 1912, at the age of eleven, and travelled to Argentina as an adult to live and work in Buenos Aires near his brother's and cousin's families. Sara joined Joseph when he returned to the United States. They got married in 1955 in New York City. Shortly after they moved to Florida; their daughter "Bessie" was born in Miami Beach the following year. Sara served as one of the first Spanish-speaking medical social workers at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, just as the Cuban immigrants were arriving in 1961. Her work focused on assisting Spanish-speaking family members diagnosed with tuberculosis who needed to be quarantined in A.G. Holley State Hospital, in Lantana, Florida. Bess became a classically trained clarinetist and as such, in 1995, she co-produced a performance piece with composer and pianist Craig Ames, titled Composing A Heart. On stage Bess played a musical score composed especially for this solo performance and narrated family stories about growing up in Miami with Jewish immigrant parents who spoke Spanish in the home. This performance was later revised by Bess de Farber in conjunction with Rebecca Jefferson, curator of the Price Library of Judaica. In its renewed version, Composing A Heart tells immigrant stories from the Price Library as well as that of Bess de Farber's family, which are now included in the Price Library's collections.