William Penn Life, 1986 (21. évfolyam, 1-6. szám)
1986-03-01 / 2. szám
Continued from page 2 column 5, President’s Remarks homeland on a violin while you sang together. Songs of love and lost love, roses, sweethearts and a yearning for your faraway home such as: Csak Egy Kislány Van A Világon (There Is Only One Girl For Me In the World), Akácos Ut (The Road Lined With Acacias Trees), Már Megettem A Kenyerem Javát (Bachelor’s Lament—I Have Seen The Best Years Of My Life), Szeretnék Mégegyszer 20 Eves Lenni (I’d Like To Be 20 Years Old Again), Szép Vagy, Gyönyörű Vagy Magyarország (Beautiful, Beautiful Hungary). . . etc. These were also opportunities to talk about serious subjects such as your working conditions in the mines and fellow workers who were victims of maiming accidents, illness and death. Your thoughts were occupied with how to cope with these misfortunes since most of you were alone and could not survive if you were disabled. There were no laws requiring coal companies to pay disabled miners nor were there governmental agencies to provide assistance. Coal miners especially could not buy insurance. You were abandoned in a strange new world. As the number of your maimed and disabled helpless friends increased, you sought a way to help each other. You had many discussions culminating on a fateful day when Pálinkás Mihály called you together, in the Village of Mt. Pleasant near Hazleton, Pennsylvania on Friday evening of February 20, 1886 at a secret meeting to discuss solutions to your problems far into the night. The meeting was continued next day, Saturday, February 21, 886 where you made the final decision to organize your friends and establish the Verhovay Mutual Aid and Sick Benefit Society whose purpose was to provide sickness and death benefits and help to needy members. Most of you were subscribers and incorporators of your charter which was signed on November 8, 1886 and recorded in Luzerne County on November 29, 1886. That charter provided in part as follows: The purposes and objects of said Association are beneficial to their members, viz., a secret beneficial organization paying weekly benefits to the sick, funeral benefits in case of death, and donations in case of need, and every other act and thing pertaining to a secret beneficial organization. The place where the business of the said Corporation is to be transacted in the Borough of Hazleton, Pennsylvania. The Corporation is to exist perpetually. The names and residences of the subscribers are as follows: Name Residence Kriszt Ferencz Hazleton, Pa. John Németh Hazleton, Pa. John Bugely Hazleton, Pa. George Chollak Hopeville, Pa. Michael Pálinkás Mt. Pleasant, Pa. John Eckbauer Mt. Pleasant, Pa. Joseph C. Schwartz Mt. Pleasant, Pa. The Corporation has no capital stock. The Corporation is to be managed by a Board of Directors or Trustees consisting of five members and the names and residences of those chosen as Trustees for the first year are: Name Residence Michael Pálinkás Hazle Township, Mt. Pleasant, Pa. Franz Christ Hazle Township, Mt. Pleasant, Pa. Charles Juhász * Hazleton, Pa. Andrew Makkay Frenchtown, Pa. John Eckbauer Mt. Pleasant, Pa. You visited your friends and relatives in other mining towns, told them about your new legal charter from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and your plans to help each other. They joined your cause and mission by establishing lodges in their communities. You started to grow and expand and by July 1901 you had lodges in Hazleton, Harwood, McAdoo, Mt. Carmel, Johnstown, Weston and Freeland, Pennsylvania. You amended your charter that year to change the name in English to the Verhovay Aid Association, which reads in part: AMENDMENT NO. 1 BE IT KNOWN that the subscribers having associated themselves together for the purpose of forming a beneficial Society for Hungarian American Citizens and being desirous of becoming incorporated agreeable to the provisions of the Act of General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania entitled an Act regulating the Organizations and Incorporations of Fraternal Societies, Orders or Associations and protecting the rights of members therein approved the 6th day of April, 1893, and supplements thereto, do hereby declare, set forth and certify that the following are the purposes, objects, articles and conditions of the said Association, for and upon which they desire to be Incorporated. At that time the Treasury had $3000 cash in the bank for benefits. Word of your benefits spread and you continued to grow. No one could dream that so many of our Hungarian- American brothers and sisters would join together to make the great society we are. When you signed your charter, you didn’t dream that your Society which started its work one hundred years ago in 1886 could celebrate its Centennial in 1986 as the largest fraternal organization in the State of Pennsylvania. On this 100th Anniversary we look to the future, carried by the inspiration of the past. No words could be more appropriate about our growth and heritage than those spoken by Joseph Darago, President from 1932 to 1942 on our fiftieth anniversary when he said: “Two score and ten years ago, 13 immigrant Hungarians consecrated their lives to the realization of a great ideal. This year, in 1936, we pause to do honor to these courageous pioneers, and to celebrate the tremendous victory they and their loyal followers have won. For in these long, yet short two score and ten years has been erected a tremendous structure . . . that of a fraternal association acknowledged a leader in its field of sound insurance and community progress. Time waits for no man, though the pyramids of his efforts endure. As the twilight of life descends upon the creators pf Verhovay, the torch of Life, Progress and Pursuit of Happiness must be passed on to younger, more expectant hands. The fathers and grandparents of you young Americans have amassed* a Great Inheritance; it is now up to you to see that it never dies, but attains greater prestige, stronger sinews, and wider spread through the next half century . . . and more ... to come. The material and spiritual values created in our fraternity are dependent on the young American branches for their perpetuation through time to come. We oldsters have run our race, and pass the baton into your outstretched hands. Will you keep the faith? No greater deed can be done than to build still higher this memorial to the brave Hungarian pioneers who contributed virile life streams to the upbuilding of America. President Darago, wherever your soul may be in the heavens above, you will be smiling, for we have kept the faith. Our Society has attained greater prestige, stronger sinews and spread further during the last fifty years; growing in assets from 5,286,561 in 1936 to 73,800,000; membership from 49,174 to 68,450 and licensed in 14 states in 1946 to 19 states in 1985. We are again preparing to pass on the torch to younger hands in a New World to keep building a greater, better fraternal society for our members. BRANCH 37 — New York, NY By Albert J. Stelkovics During our Centennial Year, we hope to publish news items about Branch Officers who for decades have toiled diligently and faithfully to carry on the Hungarian, fraternal activities of our Association. One such person is an Illustrious Member of this Association, Mr. Stephen Novak, Coordinator of Branch 37, Hudson, New York. Mr. Novak became a Rákóczi member in 1929; Mrs. Novak in 1928. They were married May 11,1929, almost 56 years ago. We extend our best wishes to them for a healthy, long life together. Mr. Novak was first elected as Treasurer of Branch 37; he became Branch Secretary, then Branch Manager. He was particularly successful in enrolling more than 200 new members in the 1950’s with the assistance of the late Mr. Branch 15 Chicago, III. By Andrew Risko Ernest C. Taylor, the One- Man Event Winner at the Bowling Tournament in 1952, Columbus, Ohio, was the first Manager of Branch 15. This past January, Mr. Taylor celebrated his 75th birthday and in September, he and his wife will celebrate their Golden Wedding Anniversary. Congratulations comes from all of their friends. John Hegedűs, New York District Manager of the Association. In good times and bad, Mr. Novak called on members to provide the servicing of their policies and also collecting their dues. From 1935 on, Mr. Novak was a delegate to the Rákóczi conventions in Bridgeport, CT. After the merger of Rakoczi- Verhovay, he represented his area at the William Penn Conventions. In April 1947, the Rákóczi Aid Association Board of Directors honored him with an Illustrious Member Citation for his dedicated services to the branch and the Association. It is with pride and appreciation that we greet Mr. Novak in this Centennial Year of our Association for still carrying on as Coordinator of Branch 37. Mr. & Mrs. Novak have a son and daughter, and six grandchildren who are also members of the Association. It is families such as the Novak Family who helped to build this great Association into what it is today. Mrs. Margit Novak and Mr. Stephen Novak. 3
