Magyar News, 2005. szeptember-december (16. évfolyam, 1-4. szám)
2005-12-01 / 4. szám
a Hungarian Settlement Excepts from an article by Lajos Sylvester, editor - Kolozsvár While participating in the Conference of the Hungarian Communion of Friends (MBK), I elected to visit Kongo (Congo), a village whose name I could not initially interpret to my satisfaction. How is it possible to have a settlement exist in the northern part of the United States with such a designation? I could have easily accepted the name Kongo (Congo ) if it was located near New Orleans or in the vicinity of Salveston, a city well-known for its role in the slave trade, and later destroyed by a hurricane in the beginning of the previous century. These cities are located in the South - the ancestors of their Afro-American population could have brought the Congo name with them - although I know or rather suspect that the designation with its present connotation did not exist in those days even in Africa. A small caravan of cars started out to visit the location of the Hungarian settlement named Kongo. Those who have been previously acquainted with the existence of the community proceeded to explain to me during our trip, that Kongo was established by Hungarian miners and dated back to the 19 century, while the name "Kongó" was a "recreation" of the hollow sound footsteps produced, due to the excavation of the mines below ( Kongani, kong. ..in Hungarian indicates the sound resonating over a hollow space-sic.) This way, it became obvious that the name had no connection to Congo in Africa whatsoever, since it was related to the original folk linguistic creativity that exhibited a tendency to create words based on acoustical characteristics of natural phenomena. We may place the name "Kongó" into a group of definitions popular in our land (Erdély, sic.), such as the geographically oriented Súgás, Súgó, Szélkapu or Vonyító. We located the cemetery of Kongó in the state of Ohio at the wooded outskirts of the village of Coming. Without the help of a generous local resident Gladys Conway, it would have been extremely difficult for us to reach the cemetery through the complicated maze of roads, quite similar to that in the Transylvanian countryside. The cemetery is situated on a treelined, rather large parcel of land; it is maintained meticulously and immaculately. The majority of the tombstones is made of granite and had been carefully prepared. Magyars no longer live in the village : the locals are aware of only two Hungarian Page 6 families that had moved elsewhere some time ago. We located two tombstones belonging to Irene and John Tóth that did not indicate the dates of death (Dates of birth were 1918 and 1922, respectively.) It was quite moving to locate the oldest burial site with the indicating the year 1812. There are multiple gravesites dating back to the 1800's. The cemetery, as it is commonly believed, acts as a mirror of the past; true enough, the majority of the transplanted Hungarians had originated from the regions of Szabolcs- Szatmár, Békés and Zemplén counties described as the "stormy comer" ("Viharsarok") -inhabitants of these poverty-ridden areas left their nativeland to seek a life of hope and promise. It was quite poignant to witness the palpable struggle with the rules of the Magyar grammar and language, in order to recreate the difficult Hungarian words and etch them on the hard stone, to immortalize them for centuries to come. It is sobering to consider the fact that we present-day Hungarians driving powerful vehicles, have so much difficulty in locating and identifying the cemetery in Kongó. What could those people who have arrived in a immense, unknown land, and settled in a faraway small mining commununity, have felt, as the sound of the church bells of their native villages could only be heard in their dreams? Let us examine some of the mementoes of the Kongó cemetery : ^ Erzsébet Fekete rests here ^ Bőm 1852 Died Oct. 4, 1907 Was married to István Tóth , for 18 years, and to Mihály Sipos for 11 years. Fater Charles Porkoláb Jan 1, 1854 Dec. 17, 1917 V ___________________J ^ Here lies ^ Mihály Jesso Nagyraska, Zempl. Bom in the year of 1872 Died Feb. 10, 1924 V J ^ István Soos and ^ Esxter Csöngető Siblings Irén, Lina, Irma, Lajos The above map shows the area of the state Ohio where Lake Hope and Congo are. Both are marked with an X. Lake Hope is where the Hungarian Communion of Friends hold their Conference every year. I have copied the descriptions on the tombs most carefully, so the name "Esxter" is not a mistake. The noble reality of the stone manifests itself in its natural beauty; the volcanic granite continues to resist the attacks of time and nature for centuries. The year 1812 written on the tombstone is still easily readable. During our return to Lake Hope from Kongó, we were musing over the fact that the great majority of Hungarians in present-day United States have established an above-average or, at least average, standard of living. We concluded that our pioneer predecessors who had arrived in North America, having escaped difficult problems of survival at home, deserved the recognition of a bouquet of flowers, of a visit to the cemetery of Kongó. They had labored in the hollowed depth of the mines, and contributed with buckets of coal and struggled in other ways, in order to create the comfortable warmth of democracy. Gladys Conway and the residents of Coming deserve our heartfelt respect and gratitude for maintaining the cemetery of the mining settlement that has lost its Magyar population. We have heard a great deal about the patriotic spirit of Americans. The "Stars and Stripes" have never faded while flying next to the graves of veterans. The respect for our forefathers who have arrived from the European continent and, subsequently, contributed to the establishment of a "modem" America should be the complementary manifestation of the same spirit. (Translated by Dr. Balázs B. Somogyi)
