The Bethlen Home Messenger, The Messenger, 2003 (1-5. szám)
2003-07-01 / 3. szám
glctüritteő LOOK BACK WITH LOVE “Look Back with Love” is the continuing essay written by Ligonier Gardens resident, Julianna DeTilla. The following is the fourth installment of Julianna’s essay. There was a dear gentleman named Mr. Gönczi, who came to this country as a teenager. He had a job as a motorman on a trolley that ran past Johnston Avenue, on Second Avenue. Mr. Gönczi didn’t have enough seniority to have Sundays off. As he let passengers off his trolley at the corner of Second and Johnston, he told us he could hear us singing in Church, 3 blocks up on Johnston Avenue. On summer days, when the windows were open, everybody for blocks around heard hymns. There were two gentlemen, a Mr. Lenart and Mr. Andre, who both came from the same village in Hungary, called Szurnyeg. Above all, they loved to sing in church. They led the singing by sheer force of their lungs. In the hymnal, the hymns are inscribed in half notes and whole notes. When Miss Ethel Kalassay or Mrs. Varga, wife of Rev, Varga, played the organ in church, they played the hymns slowly and majestically to everyone’s satisfaction. As the years passed and we got younger organists, there was grumbling from the older Hungarians that they were playing the hymns too fast. The parents did tell their children about their journeys across the Atlantic. One ship was frequently mentioned in later years. When the great ship, the Titanic, sank in 1912, the Carpathia was the first ship to go to her rescue and save many of the passengers. A lot of Hungarians were proud that “their” ship saved some lives. The first Hungarians known to settle in this certain community were the Monar family and Galvacs family. Later came the Darnay family. This was about 1185. After that, there was a surge of immigrants. There was another Hungarian immigrant who came to America in 1874, but no on knows where he went. His name was András Papp. He came from a very small village located between Mezocsat, Mezokovedzsd and Mezőkeresztes in the province of Borsod. His father left him 10 holds of land, and he had a wife and four children. He wasn’t interested in working his land, but spent his time going to Vienna and Budapest. At that time Vienna was the greatest musical center in all of Europe. He spent his time on the fringes of the musical circles of that time. He also was a talented musician, and wanted to be part of the musical scene. It was his undoing. He wasted and lost his patrimony and was thought a fool by the villagers, who worshipped the land. He decided to try to make a fresh start in the new world and wanted to bring his wife and children with him to America. Julianna’s essay will continue in the next issue of “The Messenger”.
