William Penn Life, 2010 (45. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

2010-08-01 / 8. szám

his father's office. Growing up with a father who would take him to work sites and took the time to show him how to draw up plans for a house, made a lasting impression.

In fact, while Gus was in college, his father asked him to draw plans for a new house for their old friends, the Nemeth family.

It appeared that the natural thing for him to do would be to follow in his father's footsteps. “In life, you have to have a trade," his father had told him. "You can always use a trade because you never know what will happen."

So, he apprenticed as a bricklayer and worked as a laborer as time permitted throughout high school. "I worked for six years and ended up with my bricklayers union card.

I could have gone on, but I was also planning to go into architecture."

Although he aspired to become a builder or an architect, an opportunity arose for young people with Hungarian backgrounds like his. In the early 1940s, Elmhurst College in Illinois had introduced its Hungarian Studies Department, the only one of its kind offered in the United States. Dr. Barnabas Dienes, who was President of the Magyar Synod of the Evangelical and Reformed Church, accepted Elmhurst's invitation to head this program. Not only did Dr. Dienes develop Elmhurst's Hungarian Studies curriculum, he instructed and also promoted the program and openly recruited students. It was not uncommon for Dr. Dienes, accompanied by students, to visit Hungarian congregations and other social events throughout the Mid- West, recruiting prospective students. It was Dr. Dienes' honorable duty to personally correspond to young people interested in Elungarian Studies at Elmhurst and to reveal their accessibility to scholarships. He also undertook the responsibility of soliciting donations for funds from various organizations. The Verhovay Aid Association (now WPA) generously responded to Dr. Dienes' request, providing funds for Elmhurst's Hungarian Studies scholars.

Prof. Molnar's father learned of Elmhurst's program and felt that his son could benefit from such an education. "At that time, parents made decisions for their children, and you didn't question it very much. We honored their decisions. He felt that is was more important that I go to a school like Elmhurst College that had a program in Hungarian studies where you could learn your Hungarian background and everything else....And, of course, he was paying the bill for me to go, so...."

It turned out to be the right decision. He enrolled in Elmhurst, studying history and the Hungarian language, as well as studying for the ministry of the Reformed Church in America. He met Dr. Dienes, who quickly became his mentor and immersed him and his classmates in the Hungarian culture. Dr. Dienes took the students on the road, performing plays and poetry recitations to promote the Hungarian studies program.

It was during one of these recruiting visits when Gus Molnár may have had first contact with his future wife, Priscilla Arvay. As a sophomore, he performed in an Elmhurst-sponsored play to a Hungarian congregation in Toledo, Ohio, where Priscilla was in attendance. As a junior the following fall, Gus Molnár was a member of the freshman orientation committee. He remembers walking over to a table of freshman girls from Toledo and actually meeting Priscilla. "It was probably love at first sight," he fondly recalled, "and from then on out we became a couple: Priscilla Arvay and Gus Molnár." As Priscilla com-August Molnár with his wife Priscilla and their children August John Jr. and Katherine in 1964.

pleted her studies in elementary education, Gus Molnár graduated from Elmhurst and completed his graduate studies at the University of Michigan, Lancaster Theological Seminary. Afterwards, he was ordained Minister of the United Church of Christ (Calvin Conference). Throughout all of this, Priscilla and Gus remained a couple and planned to marry.

In 1952, their lives were steered onto a path that led to the Cleveland area, where Priscilla had accepted a teaching position and Prof. Molnár accepted a ministerial position. Everything appeared to be set, but their destination together would soon change.

Gus was visiting the Elmhurst campus when he decided to say hello to college president Dr. Henry W. Dinkmeyer. What was intended to be a quick greeting ended up changing Gus and Priscilla's plans. Extremely happy to see his visitor, Dr. Dinkmeyer proceeded to ask the recently ordained Reverend Molnár if he would consider returning to the college. He explained that Dr. Dienes had left Elmhurst to aid Hungarian Protestant refugees in Europe after the war, then went on to serve his mission in South America. After Dr. Dienes' departure, the Hungarian Studies program had begun to flounder. It was Dr. Dinkmeyer's hope that Gus Molnár could return as a "world history professor/head of the Hungarian Studies program/ admissions officer." "What to do?" Gus Molnár pondered. "It was a great dilemma." Both he and Priscilla were about to marry and begin their new life together in Cleveland, when suddenly this fell into his lap. He sought advice from several people, and, in the end, it was the words of his former dean at seminary which held the answer. The dean put forth a simple question: "Where can you serve your people best?"

So in this question came the answer. The newly-married Molnars would return to Elmhurst. They lived in faculty housing, with Priscilla teaching in Illinois and Gus chairing the Hungarian Studies Department. Giving credit to his mentor, Dr. Dienes, who died suddenly while in South America in 1950: "I walked in his pathway."

18 ° August 2010 0 William Penn Life