Magyar News, 2001. szeptember-2002. augusztus (12. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
2001-11-01 / 3. szám
Part One, by Robert Kranyik John LaBarca, popular host of the Italian Houseparty radio program, has a heartwarming narrative in which he talked passionately about growing up in the Italian cultural melieu which pervaded areas of Brooklyn before, during, and directly after World War II. John referred to three generations - Italians, Italian- Americans, and American Italians. The Italians were from Italy and strongly reflected the old country's flavors, customs, and mores. The Italian-Americans were the sons and daughters of Italians. And, the American Italians were the granddaughters and grandsons. Like John, I knew all three generations - but in Connecticut and of the Magyar persuasion. I remember the Hungarians, with their accents, their smells, their sense of humor, and their customs. My parents' generation were the Hungarian-Americans, the first generation to be born in the U.S.A.. I am an American- Hungarian, one of a privileged generation to recall the courageous folks who left family and friends on the banks of the Duna and the Tisza, the farms of the Alföld, and the valleys of the Carpathians to seek a new life. At the same time, I am fortunate enough to be here to see my grandchildren beginning to grow up. They are not American-Hungarians, but rather American-Hungarian-Irish-Lithuanian- German bundles of energy who make my head spin with their speedy operation of the computer. The Hungarians For their benefit, and for all of you readers, I would like to share some of my recollections of the Hungarians, and a few regarding the Hungarian-Americans. For it was truly a gift to have had the opportunity to know some of these strong, hardworking immigrants and their equally strong and hardworking children who bequeathed to my generation the American dream with an overlay of Hungarian perspective. My family names were Krajnyik, Tobis, Mato and Mazalin. The Krajnyiks hailed from Ung County, in old Hungary (The name Krajnyik became Kranyik in my father’s generation, but even this did not eliminate the almost perennial question:”How do you spell that?). Paul Krajnyik left there at age 50, bringing his wife and four children to Bridgeport. They were likely of Carpatho-Rusyn, or Ruthenian stock, whose ancestors predated the Magyars along the south slope of the Carpathian Mountains. History tells us that there were good reasons to leave there - poor economic conditions, oppressive political conditions, and descriptions of a new land where "the streets were paved with gold". Paul had been a seminarian, cantor, and schoolmaster in the Greek Catholic Church. He was soon to become a factory worker at Bead Chain in the West End of Bridgeport, Connecticut. Paul's son, Imre, was my grandfather. He was bom in Gáva-Vencellő on the river Tisza not far from Tokaj, arriving here at about age twenty. Several years later, he married my grandmother, Agnes, a blueeyed blonde who left a tiny village in Borsod to find her father who had come to America earlier. She, her brother, and her cousins were Tóbis family members, sev-The earliest known Krajnyik family photo. In the center Paul and Anna who immigrated from Hungary in 1902. Also Agnes, Nicholas and Imre are shown. eral of whom lived in "Hunktown", that Magyar enclave south of the railroad and in the West End of Bridgeport. My maternal grandmother, Maria Mato, grew up in a quaint hilltop village near the Aggtelek Caverns, part of a prosperous farm family which maintained orchards and groves of nut trees. Yet, she left for America in 1906 at the age of 17, where she married my Grandfather, István Mazalin, who hailed from Győr Megye, near the famous Pannonhalma. For many of the "Hungarians", Fairfield was truly the promised land. Although virtually all of them began their American lives in "Hunktown", living in multi-family frame houses with addresses on Spruce Street, Cherry Street, Wordin Avenue or Bostwick Avenue, they worked and saved to buy a piece of land over the line in Fairfield (and sometimes Easton, Trumbull or Stratford) .For the Fairfield transplants, the future lay in places like Karoly Park, Villa Park or Lenox Heights. There they could have their own gardens, a cow, some chickens perhaps, and the obligatory grape arbor. Often they had a Hungarian version of the Yankee "bam raisings" to construct their modest homes and bams. My grandfather Imre built his house with the help of the "Hunktown" and West End relatives. On Sunday mornings, the men would At a Hungarian celebration riders on horseback in front of the Greek Catholic church in Bridgeport. Robet Kranyik ’s grandfater, Stephen Mazalin is marked +. Page 4
