When Pauline Gale Dahne was a girl living in Houston, she boarded a segregated city bus and saw an elderly Black woman standing without a seat.

Dahne got up and offered the woman hers.

Instead of praise, Dahne, a young Jewish immigrant from Cuba, was scolded by other passengers. She went home crying, unable to understand what she had done wrong. Her mother had to explain segregation to her.

“She didn’t understand,” her daughter Tracey Sacks said. “If she saw somebody in need, she was just caring.”

That instinct to look after other people — particularly her family — remained central to Dahne throughout her life. Her children describe a lively, determined woman who called constantly to make sure everyone was safe and gathered relatives for Jewish holidays.

Dahne, a longtime Pikesville resident and member of Beth Israel Congregation, died Sept. 2 at 90.

She was born Pauline Gale Rudd in Havana, Cuba, to Norman and Rebecca Rudd. Her parents had emigrated separately from Poland to Cuba because restrictive U.S. immigration quotas sharply limited immigration from Eastern Europe. Unable to enter the United States at the time, they settled in Cuba, where they met.

When Pauline was about 8, the family left Cuba for the United States, flying to Miami and traveling by bus to Houston, where relatives had settled. Her pierced ears, commonplace in Cuba, fascinated her American classmates.

The family eventually moved to Baltimore after a relative offered to help Norman Rudd establish a grocery business. Dahne’s parents worked together in the store.

Dahne attended the University of Baltimore. She later met Barry Dahne through her brother Leon Rudd, who suggested that Barry call his single sister.

The introduction worked. Pauline and Barry married in September 1959 and were just days short of their 67th wedding anniversary when she died.

They raised three children — Tracey, Pamela and Robert — in a Jewish home in Pikesville.

“We kept a kosher house,” Sacks said. “We all went to Hebrew school.”

Dahne lit Shabbat candles every Friday evening and hosted family for Rosh Hashanah, Passover and other holidays.

“She was the center of the Judaism in our family,” Sacks said.

Dahne’s childhood in Cuba had been more secular, and she attended a Catholic school. Her Jewish observance deepened after marrying Barry.

Beth Israel Congregation became an important part of family life. Pauline was involved in its sisterhood and volunteered at the Hadassah resale shop in Pikesville.

Dahne’s adult life centered on her home and children. Later, she worked about 15 years as a receptionist at an electrolysis practice.

Rob Dahne described his mother as “fierce, stubborn and unstoppable.”

Even as knee problems made walking difficult, he said, she refused to sit things out.

“She would complain, but she would never stop,” he said. “She would just keep going through whatever it was. She never quit.”

That determination was especially evident when it came to her children. Sacks recalled her mother pushed her toward a math-related profession because she worried teaching would not provide enough financial security. Sacks initially became an accountant before eventually becoming a teacher.

“She always wanted what was best for us,” she said. “And she would push for it, whether we thought it was best for us or not.”

That protectiveness did not diminish once her children became adults.

During the filming of the television miniseries “Lady in the Lake” at Pimlico Race Course, Sacks was working as an extra when a severe thunderstorm passed through Baltimore. Cellphones were not supposed to be used on the period set.

Dahne kept calling anyway.

Sacks repeatedly told her she could not talk, but Dahne called back, determined to make sure her daughter was safe. Eventually Sacks had to text her father and ask him to stop Pauline from calling.

“That’s what she was,” Sacks said. “She was very persistent just to make sure everybody was OK.”

Dahne maintained friendships and family connections with the same persistence. Rob said his mother seemed to know someone wherever the family went.

“She knew everybody,” he said. “She was really friendly, gregarious.”

Neighbors sometimes brought chairs over in the evenings and gathered in the driveway of the family’s Pikesville home.

Dahne was also a talented cook. Her matzah ball soup became a family tradition that she passed to her daughter and granddaughter.

She loved music, and even after moving into assisted living, she responded enthusiastically when musicians performed.

“Her arms were always bebopping and her shoulders were moving,” Sacks said.

One entertainer jokingly called Dahne his manager because when he finished playing, she insisted he keep going.

Her grandchildren became a central focus of her life. She helped care for them and taught them to cook. Granddaughter Marla Myerberg remembered how much Dahne enjoyed having her grandchildren around.

“She doted on us,” Myerberg said.

In later years, Dahne lived with dementia. Still, her family remembers the forceful, energetic personality that had defined her for decades.

Rob Dahne said his mother organized family dinners, kept relatives connected and drew the extended family together.

“She was kind of the glue that brought everything together,” he said.

Asked how she would describe her mother to someone who never met her, Sacks did not hesitate.

“She was a ball of fire who doted on her family.”

Ellen Braunstein is a freelance obituary writer. She welcomes suggestions for individuals who had meaningful ties to the Baltimore Jewish community. Email csix@midatlanticmedia.com.