Magyar News, 1994. szeptember-1995. augusztus (5. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1995-06-01 / 10. szám
FROM GRANDPARENTS TO GRANDDAUGHTER The Mary Katona Scholarship applicants are required to write an essay on their Hungarian experience. This is written by one of the applicants. My grandparents have been the basis of my knowledge of my Hungarian heritage. Their story, as told to me by my grandmother, is unique and yet at the same time typical of the struggles of identity and community which have affected the Hungarian people living in America. My grandmother’s parents left Debreczen, Hungary after the First World War. Although they had initially planned on coming to America directly, they found an Eastem-European immigrant community in France and decided to settle there instead of making the expensive and dangerous journey across the ocean. It was in this ethnic community that my grandmother and my great-aunt lived. My great-aunt purports to have been treated well in France, although she did remark to me that the Hungarian/Czechoslovakian/Polish/Rumanian ghetto in which they lived was referred FLY THE BEST YOU ARE WORTH IT! Piper Flight Center Dealer for Piper and Aerospatiale Trinidad & Tobago Maintenance and Avionics 3W Blue Hangar #1 Flying Club and Reception 3W Blue Hangar #2 THREE WING CORP. EXCLUSIVE FLYING CLUB SINCE 1974 Sikorsky Memorial Airport Main Terminal Side Stratford, CT 06497 203-375-5795 FLYING CLUB-PILO I SHOP- PILOT LOUNGE • AVIONICS AIRCRAFT SALES • LEASEBACKS ■ MAINTENANCE ■ FUEL Demo 1/2 Hour in Warrior $50 Plus Tax THE FIRST/THE FINEST HOWE DRIVING SCHOOL JOYCE HOWE - SPEAKS HUNGARIAN 2318 MAIN STREET STRATFORD, CT 06497 (AT THE FLAG POLE) 375-HOWE 588 MONROE TPKE. ROUTE I I 1 MONROE, CT 06468 261-0500 to, disdainfully, by the French as “Hunktown.” In the midst of the chaos of war, she claims that she felt at home there, knowing that the other immigrants were strangers there as well, and feeling the community spirit that can arise out of seemingly hopeless situations. It was among these people that my grandmother grew up and lived until the Second World War brought the American troops, including my grandfather, to France. My grandfather grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania. One of eleven children, he was first-generation American. Most of the older boys were coal miners, as were many of the German and Hungarian immigrants in Pennsylvania at that time. When the war came, all who were old enough enlisted in the United States Army. While stationed in France, my grandfather inquired as to whether there were any Hungarian families in the area in which he was stationed. Upon hearing that there was indeed a Hungarian community nearby, he made further inquiries which led him to my grandmother’s family. There, as she put it, “love bloomed.” My grandparents were married in France, and their first daughter, my mother, was bom there a year later. After the war, my grandfather brought my grandmother and his baby daughter to Fairfield, Connecticut, and they settled down in a primarily Hungarian neighborhood. The community had its own church, with services in Hungarian, and most of the street names are still of Hungarian derivation. For many years, my grandparents had a vast amount of property on which they farmed. My grandfather was also a carpenter, and in the 1960s, he helped to build Calvin Hall— the annex to the Calvin United Church of Christ in Fairfield. My grandparents’ ties to their Hungarian heritage remained strong. My grandmother’s house is still wall-to-wall Hungarian embroidery and ceramics, and they had both been back and forth to visit cousins in Debreczen, Hungary, and had received visits by many of the relatives who stayed behind. Both spoke fluent Hungarian, and it was through them that I began to understand and to speak the language. From my earliest childhood, I could speak fluent Hungarian. Since then, I have broadened my knowledge of the Hungarian language and history on my own. I have also attended Hungarian embroidery classes, and Huagarian cooking classes in which I learned how to make real stuffed cabbage. I am extremely proud of the richness of my heritage. Kathryn Gilliam Count István Tisza as a young politician. The home, theRoheim-Villa.inBudapest on Hermina Street, where Count István Tisza was assassinated. 6 Count Kalman Tisza.
