BY BRENDAN BROSH - DAILY NEWS WRITER
At 86, Gert Hendry sure knows how to stay on her toes.
The Queens great-grandmother has taught generations of kids to tap and pirouette — and still puts on a tutu twice a week to pass on everything she knows about dance.
"Life didn't start until I was 50," said Hendry, who began teaching in 1973 after raising her family and working as a bookkeeper. "The Lord is good. He keeps my legs going."
Her legions of former pupils started a Facebook fan site for the neighborhood legend.
"Basically, if you grew up in Breezy Point, you took one of her classes," said Joseph Murray, a 25-year-old musician who learned gymnastics from Hendry. "I love her like a grandmother."
She even has a street named after her in the small Queens beach community.
Hendry was born Gertrude Mazza in 1923, and grew up in Parkville, Brooklyn.
Her first dance teacher was a Rockette, and by the time she was 5 years old, Hendry was gracing the stage at the Paramount Theatre in downtown Brooklyn.
She met her husband, Andy Hendry, at 13 and married him when he came back from World War II in 1945.
The couple is still together 64 years later — with three children, eight grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
"Some people have ups and downs," said Andy Hendry, 86, a retired insurance salesman. "We were lucky. We've had all ups."
Hendry's family said she can tumble and do a high leg kick and still shovels the snow — against their wishes.
"She's in better health than all of us put together," said her daughter, Laura Jean Nelsen. "She has a lot of advice but no vices."
Gert Hendry started teaching in the 1970s when times were tough and her family needed the extra cash.
Her first classes were at the Dayton Towers in the Rockaways, and she later moved on to local studio Dance Dimensions for 10 years. Hendry packed her dancing bag and set up shop closer to home at St. Edmund's Church hall in Breezy Point in the early 1980s.
She's famous for sending her former students birthday cards every year, spending a fortune on stamps.
"I was one of her first students 37 years ago, and she still sends me birthday cards," said Mary Erhard-Moran, 42, from Westchester, whose six nieces have also been taught by Hendry.
"She never misses a year."
On top of everything else, Hendry writes a column for The Rockaway Point News.
"I will never end an article without talking about drugs," said Hendry, who still writes her columns longhand. "Children need to be aware about things that aren't good for them."
The humble Hendry said there's no secret to staying in good shape. She stays fit by hanging around so many young people and chaperoning teen dances.
She's cut down her number of classes at St. Edmund's, but still finds time to teach 3-to-7-year-olds ballet and tap.
"My dad always taught us, 'Everything in moderation,' " said Hendry. "My song has always been, 'Young at Heart.' "
