Dana Hlavac-Winsor Scholarship
This scholarship was established to commemorate the life of Dana Hlavac‑Winsor, a remarkable woman and mother, whose life was cut short by brain cancer at age 43, and Emilia Dlouha, a fiercely independent grandmother who instilled a sense of social responsibility and work ethic in her daughter Dana and grandson Patrick.
While some people are fortunate to have 15 minutes of fame during their lifetime, a vast majority of people are a blur on the minds of their relatives and offspring. As a single child who is unlikely to carry on the family history, I want future generations to remember the lives and experiences of the two most remarkable people I had the pleasure of loving and being related to.
Emilia was born into a large family in the Czech Republic. Her mother died shortly after her birth. Emilia had to forego formal education in order to take care of her siblings and left home at an early age to start a life in Prague. She met her future husband, Arthur, there and after several miscarriages gave birth to Dana. Arthur, a Jew by birth, was imprisoned in a concentration camp during WWII. Emilia's perseverance with the authorities kept Arthur from execution. After the war ended, Arthur resumed his accounting profession, but soon found himself imprisoned by the communist regime for questioning their ideology. Emilia once again persevered with the authorities for her husband's release, knowing that Arthur only had a short time to live due to his terminal cancer. She raised Dana on her own after Arthur's death.