Hungarian Heritage Review, 1987 (16. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1987-02-01 / 2. szám
Dear Mr. Pulitzer: My dear mother died on Saturday, January 3, 1987. Her Hungarian heritage has meant the world to her. She gave my son, Miklós Attila, a subscription to the Hungarian Heritage Review last year. Your magazine is a wonderful way to help keep our Hungarian heritage alive. In lieu of flowers, as per the enclosed Memóriám Card, I've asked people to send a contribution to your magazine. I THINK THAT WOULD BE IN KEEPING WITH MY MOTHER’S WISHES. If you do publish the donations you receive on my mother’s behalf and the names of the donors, please add the name of John Arnold, who contributed $30. Please use $25 of that to renew my son# Miki’s subscription and keep the $5 as a donation. Enclosed is the article the San Jose Mercury News did on my mother, for your information. God Bless You for your work to keep the HUNGARIAN HERITAGE REVIEW alive. Sincerely, Ildikó Segesvary Oyler Los Gatos, California (EDITOR’S NOTE: Thank you from the bottom of our hearts, Mrs. Ildikó Segesvary Oyler, and God Bless You, too. The depth of our graditude to you and to your late beloved mother is difficult for us to describe in words. All we can add to what we said in our Editorial on the preceding page is that we will never forget your gesture on behalf of your mother and that it will sustain us through all of the trials and tribulations we must face up to and overcome to keep the HUNGARIAN HERITAGE REVIEW alive and well. Not for ourselves, but for our readers.) San Jose Mercury News * Friday, January 9, 1987 5B Obituaries Irene Segesvary, 70, San Jose schoolteacher Funeral services were held Wednesday for Irene Segesvary, a 70-year-old San Jose schoolteacher who emigrated from Hungary with her family and with a love for her native country 35 years ago. Mrs. Segesvary retired from teaching in the Alum Rock School District in 1985 but had continued working as a substitute teacher until she was diagnosed with colon cancer in September. She died Saturday. “To her, life was not life unless you were accomplishing something and doing something worthwhile,” said her daughter, Ildikó “Koko” Oyler of Los Gatos. Doing that was not an easy task, either, for the woman her daughter likes to call a “human fireball.” She lived in near poverty as a youngster in Dunaszerdahely, which is now part of Czechoslovakia. Her father died when she was 4; her mother died when she was 20. When young, she studied in a Catholic convent to become a teacher, “to try to make her mother proud of her,” her daughter said. War separated her and her infant son from her husband, Lewis, a chaplain in the Hungarian army. They were reunited in a refugee camp in West Germany in 1946 and lived there for five years, scouring the nearby forests for berries and mushrooms to eat. Their daughter was born there. Finally, in 1951, the family was able to immigrate to the United States. They first lived in Chicago and later moved to Iowa and Minnesota, and the father of the family later wrote a book, “I Give You a New Land,” which chronicled their move. In Minnesota, the schoolteacher studied to earn her teaching credential, taking just two years to qualify to teach youngsters how to read a language that she herself did not understand when she moved to the United States. “It was amazing what she did,” said her son, Louis Segesvary, who is the American consul general in Zurich, Switzerland. Teaching jobs brought the family to California, first to Delano and later to San Jose. Mrs. Segesvary moved here first and never was reunited with her husband. On his way to San Jose to join the family in 1964, he was killed in an automobile accident on Pacheco Pass. “Finally, mother and father, after strug-Irene Segesvary .. .Native of Hungary gling and struggling, had achieved something in this country. Then, this tragedy. It was very sad,” said her daughter. “Father was her soul mate in life.” It was Mrs. Segesvary’s struggle for survival that perhaps contributed to her strong sense of loyalty for both her native homeland and her new country. And it was that patriotic spirit that contributed to her passion for teaching. She liked to assign her first-, second- and third-graders on San Jose’s East Side to write essays about their country and patriotism. And she would often inject geography lessons into her teaching, too, especially cultural trivia about Hungary. She liked to do things like ‘Christmas around the world,’ ” said her daughter, a counselor for high school students with hearing impairments. “And she would always sneak in a good deal about Hungary.” Mrs. Segesvary visited her hometown twice, in 1968 and in 1972. One sister, Edit Szeher, still lives there, in what is now called Dunajska Streda. Mrs. Segesvary was a member of the Delta Kappa Gamma sorority for women educators. That organization sponsors a fund to help deaf people moving to the area, and last year, the sorority named the fund for Mrs. Segesvary. 2 HUNGARIAN HERITAGE REVIEW FEBRUARY 1987
