Magyar News, 2003. szeptember-2004. augusztus (14. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

2004-04-01 / 8. szám

Just mention Rózsika Deutsch's name to someone who knows her, and all you will see is a bright smile and hear words of inquiry and concern. To know Rózsika is to love her. To be in her company is a delightful experience. Her enthusiasm about the events in her life as well as others, her stories about her life, and her storehouse of jokes are unbeatable. We in the Bridgeport vicinity have been so privileged to be a part of Rózsika's life. We have listened to her magical violin renditions of Hungarian songs at our church functions, charity affairs, and in local restaurants. On Sundays for thirty-six years, we invited her into our homes with her beloved husband Laci as we turned on our radios and listened to their radio program. As we flip through our photograph albums, we are sure to come across a photo of our favorite violinist playing at one of our parties, which was in celebration of a special birthday or an anniversary. Just by having Rózsika play her violin made any party memorable.

On March 31, 2004 Rózsika will celebrate her 90th birthday. She has given the Hungarian community so much joy throughout the years that it is our time to honor her not only on this very special event but to thank her and tell her how much she is loved and admired.

Indeed she should be admired. Her journey to her ninetieth year has been filled with adventures. Rózsika was bom in Budapest, Hungary. At the age of two her mother died. When her father left Hungary to work in Cuba to make enough money for the both of them to eventually go to the United States, Rózsika was taken care of by a couple who ran a music school. It was at this very young age that Rozsika began her life-long love affair with the violin. Her father knew how to play two instruments so the genes for this talent were already in place in his daughter. Rózsika once remarked that she always felt that she and the violin were attached to the umbilical cord, still wondering which came first.

When she was six and half years old, she traveled to Cuba alone on a ship to join her father. She only spoke Hungarian and a little German, but she soon realized that her universal language would be her music. There were still plans to emigrate but this time to Canada because there were family members there. Yet, when Rózsika was nine, her father met and married a Polish immigrant who had arrived in Cuba. His plans to emigrate to Canada changed, and Rózsika continued her musical education in Cuba. By the time she was eleven, she was recognized as a child protégé, and by the age of 19 she had soloed with the Page 4

Havana Symphony.

Realizing that her father was in no position to earn the passages to America for her, his wife, and Rózsika's half-sister and half-brother, she decided to be the one who would go to America and be the one to bring them to America. Although this did not happen, she embarked on a new chapter in her life. From her musical engagements in Cuba, she earned enough money for the ticket that would bring her to Key West, Florida by boat and then transport her to New York City by train.

In 1934 at the age of twenty, Rózsika arrived in New York with a steamer trunk, a tied-up suitcase that had fallen apart prior to her final destination, a violin, and herself, a non-English speaking girl who now spoke Spanish fluently. She stayed with her aunt and cousins in a fifth floor railroad flat had one bathroom down the hall for four families. Her elderly aunt was completely deaf and was on state assistance. Due to her talent and the help of a friend from Cuba, Rózsika got her first job in American playing for Zimmerman's Old Budapest restaurant receiving $3.50 a week plus dinners. Her violin lessons cost $5.00 a week that she paid for from the $20.00 a month her father sent her from Cuba. Her big break came when she received a job at the famous Tokay Restaurant on 52nd St. and 7th Ave. While she remained in New York, she continued to add more and more Hungarian songs to her repertoire while meeting well-known Hungarian musicians.

It was at a Benefit Concert for a Hungarian musician who was stricken with Tuberculosis that Rózsika met the man that she would be married to for fifty-one years. László Deutsch had come to the United States from Hungary in 1938. He too spoke no English at his arrival. Rózsika asked him if he would be her pianist at a substitute job that she had learned of, and he accepted. That was the beginning of a wonderful relationship on and off the stage. He was her perfect musical match.

Rózsika did indeed live in Canada for two years which fulfilled the plans that her father once had. She and Laci worked together, yet at this time they were only musical partners. It was only when Laci had to return to the United States to enlist in the Army that they realized that they were in love, and the natural next step was marriage. While her husband was stationed in South Carolina, Rózsika joined the National Symphony. She was sent to Michigan. When Laci was discharged, he joined his wife in Michigan. In 1945, their first son Joseph was bom.

After a while Rózsika and László

decided to return to New York. They missed their relatives in Bridgeport, but their work was still in Manhattan. Yet it was much easier visiting their relatives from New York than from Michigan. In 1952 Rózsika gave birth to her second son Bobby. Her life at this point was not easy. With two boys to take care of, she soon found her work at the restaurant too demanding and draining. So when Reverend Nagy engaged them to perform at the First Hungarian Festival in Connecticut in 1952, her life started another chapter.

Because 1-91 was being built, the Hungarian Church on Pine Street was being demolished. The festival was a fundraiser to earn money for the congregation. The festival lasted three days and was held in the Ritz Ballroom on Fairfield Ave. in Bridgeport. When Rózsika and Laci were offered a job at the Tokay Restaurant on State Street in Bridgeport with lesser hours and a verbal guarantee that Laci could get a job to supplement their income, Rózsika realized that this is what the family now needed.

Even though Laci did not get the jobs he was promised, Rózsika had always stated that Bridgeport has been very good to the Deutsch family. Their relationship with our Hungarian community began at the Tokay. Then it continued at Barna's Restaurant in Westport until it closed in 1969. Soon, their friends and followers could hear them play at the Continental Restaurant in Fairfield.

Needless to say our love for Rózsika began when her husband and she came to Bridgeport. Ever since, we have thrilled at listening to her classical pieces, her continental music, and of course her Hungarian tunes. She has made music her life. Her dedication to her art demanded that she practice everyday of her life. Never for one moment did she ever take her talent for granted. She continued to increase her virtuosity by working diligently at it.

We have much to learn and admire from the way Rózsika has led her life. She has traveled through these ninety years with grace, integrity, determination, humor, perseverance, love, loyalty, and kindness. She has given us the gift of music. She has shared her talent with us, and by doing so she has given each and everyone of us, who have heard her, a musical memory that soothes the mind and enriches our hearts.

On this joyous occasion, we, Hungarians, wish our dear friend Rózsika Deutsch a happy 90th birthday.