Glass Manufacturing in Wise County

Austrian-born Herman Rosenzweig (1901-1965) was raised by affluent Jewish parents in Vienna. His father owned a manufacturing company which made hand-carved furniture. While Herman studied the chemistry of glassmaking, he married Alice Fischer and they started a glass factory. When the Nazis invaded Austria in 1938, Herman and Alice fled to Greece, where Herman worked in glassmaking and helped fellow Jews escape Nazi Germany during World War II. Their Austrian Glass Company was confiscated by the Nazi Regime (his widow later received reparations from Czechoslovakia). The couple immigrated to the U.S. in 1943 and lived in New York, where Herman traveled the globe for work. Sadly, Alice passed away in New York n 1946. Two years later, Herman married Bertha Heiden (1905-2001) and they lived in Montreal, Canada, and Mexico City, Mexico. Herman continued his career in glass manufacturing, and while working in Azcapotzalco, Mexico, he discovered talented and dedicated glassblowers. Looking for a place to start a new glass factory in Texas, the Rosenzweigs moved to Athens (Henderson Co.) and were invited by 1957 to Decatur, where local merchants invested in their business. They employed skilled Mexican artisans in their new factory named Texglass. The company went on to contract with top American and Parisian department stores offering hand-blown glass of the finest quality. Herman died at age 63 and was buried in the Jewish section of the Greenwood Memorial Park in Fort Worth. Bertha continued to operate Texglass for four years after his death while working to acclimate their Hispanic workers and families into U.S. society. She sold the company to Decatur Glass Works, which operated until 1979. Today the Texglass brand is appreciated for its appearance and as a reflection of ancient and traditional art.