Aunt Manyi 's story

Walker and my mom"s Hungarian family, from left to right, aunt  Manyi,
uncle Jozsi, "big" Kati, "little" Kati, and Laci

Of all my mother's siblings I only got to know Aunt Manyi (Mary). My first memory of her was during a memorable trip that my mother took with her American husband and myself around 1968. There will be time to speak more of Walker, but at that time my mom was married to him and wanted to present him to the family (I am guessing). I have very hazy memories of the trip, but I do remember the trip to the vineyard of Aunt Manyi and her husband Jozsi (Joe). Not far from Szentendre, my mother's birthplace, it occupied a hillside close to a military training field. The house had cracks because of the explosions during those trainings, and the dirt road leading  up the hill was often criss-crossed by deep marks by armored vehicles. When rained, the marks would fill with water. The trip took pace in one of those Russian motorbikes with sidecars, and we got stuck in the mud. I remember the vineyard well because I visited later several times. I also remember that  Walker was received with authentic Hungarian hospitality, which means lots of food and lots of alcohol. Poor Walker got drunk, and my mom was mad. The picture shows from left to right, Walker, my Aunt Manyi, her husband Jozsi, then the 2 Catherine's (Kati), "big" Kathy and "little" Kathy. Big Kathy was the wife of aunt Manyi's son Laci (Stanislaus), the man to the far right, and little Kati their daughter. This ruddy, weatherbeaten woman is how I would know aunt Manyi. But she was not like that when she was young.

Manyi and her first husband

"Manyi was so beautiful," my mom would sigh for many years. "But she was so...unlucky." 

Manyi was the eldest sibling of my mom. There was, if I remember well a difference of 10 years between them. In a way, Manyi was like a mom to my mom. And Manyi was, indeed, beautiful. So beautiful- and I guess attractive in other ways too, but let's not forget that we are talking here the late 1920's- that in spite of being from a poor family she got married. Her husband was a young and well-to-do young man, who loved and cherished her. Except that his family would not accept the marriage and threatened to disinherit him. He could not bear it and committed suicide. Aunt Manyi was heartbroken. And then cousin Laci was born.

According to my mom, because my grandmother was still in child-bearing age, she took Laci as his own to spare Manyi the disgrace. There was very little age difference between my mom and Laci, and they grew up more like brother and sister than aunt and nephew.

A recognition of Uncle Jozsi for new grape varieties

Eventually Many got married again, this time to Jozsi, of whom I know very little, except that he had one of those natural talents for grapes.  His vineyard was famous for his grape varieties, and he won many prizes over the years. He was great at grafting and creating new varieties, and he was also very fond of the products of the grape juice. Their vineyard, at the top of the hill, was quite away from Szentendre, and Manyi became a hard worker for her husband. I do not know much more- Manyi would visit my mom regularly in Budapest, and we would go in harvest time. When uncle Jozsi died, Manyi tried to keep the vineyard, but it was hard. Besides being a lot of work, somehow the genius of Jozsi was missing- the ability to graft and create all those exciting varieties. She sold the farm, and settled down in town with Laci and her children. I cannot help but think how critical those 10 years of difference were for the future of the two sisters. My mother had the opportunity of getting an education, which later led her to Medical school, and later to an exhilarating life of travel and adventures. Manyi did not have many choices. I am not saying that her life was better or worse- just the options were very different. 

And the story of Isabelle starts...

My mother was born the 9th child of a poor family in Szentendre, Hungary, on February 8th 1928. She was a child of Second World War, who survived the bitter cold and the hunger of 1944-45. She 

 was also a bright young woman who made it to Medical School and graduated summa cum laude in 1957. She had a rich and adventurous life, lived in Cuba and Algeria, married three times, had oodles of admirers and many friends. And she loved to work: she taught for many years, was known for her excellence at physiology experimentation, and even in her 60s and 70s she was still active as a the head of the Clinical Lab at a Budapest hospital. She was, in summary, larger than life.

My mother and grandmother

After she died in 2009, I had to go through her belongings. Turns out, she kept everything- each and every paper, bill, picture, postcard, note- from probably the past 50 years. Finally, I just put everything that seemed personal in boxes and brought them with me to California. The boxes have sat there now for almost 2 years, and I know the memories they contain have to be sorted out. And as I embark on this journey into the past, I want to share this experience (or at least part of it) with others: mainly family and friends. This way, I hope to have an incentive to keep scanning pictures and commenting on them: an Ariadne's thread back into the labyrinth of the past. I do not intend to go in a strict chronological order, for the simple reason that the pictures and papers are not organized. I have started with those pictures that look the oldest, but I may find others later in small envelopes and inside folded papers. 

This one seems to be among the oldest. I just confirmation from a cousin living in Canada that indeed, this is my mother and grandmother after the first communion. I never met my maternal grandparents, as both died in the 1950s. According to my mother, my grandfather came from Serbia and my grandmother was Swabian, part of a German-speaking population in Hungary. He had some small land, and she was a homemaker. That is all I know about my maternal grandparents. They had nine children, two of them girls: Mary the oldest and my mom, the second youngest. I do not recall meeting any of my uncles: some died during the war, one emigrated to the US, and I do not know about the others. The only cousins I have contact with are the descendants of my aunt Mary. But she deserves her own posting, my next one.