Finally the last two. Irma and Sandor stand to the left of Hermine. Her eyes are close-set and her mouth is large with wider lips than her sisters. Sandor is to the right of frma. He is just fourteen years old. He wears a dark striped suit, without a vest, and the trousers come down to the knees.
There is a medallion on his lapel and he also wears a bow tie. Now it is one hundred years since that cleverly posed picture was taken. It was a good time, , for Bertha, a recent Hungarian immigrant She had settled with her family in the Bronx suburb. Bertha had heard from neighbors of a wonderful park, in the middle of Manhattan. One Tuesday, after Bertha had finished her ironing, she decided to take her three and a half year son, Feri, to visit this highly recommended park. Dressed in her best ankle length dress and fruit adorned hat she held Feri by the hand and walked four blocks to the now 10 year old Rapid Transit.
Feri refused to walk up the two flights of stairs leading to the station platform. The subway was above ground in the Bronx. Feri screamed as if he was being kidnapped. Bertha, in order to avoid a scene, carried Feri up the two flights of stairs. Bertha was strong, having worked hard in Hungary.
On the train Bertha and Feri sat down next to a priest. The ride was not smooth and the hard straw seats did not help make it more comfortable. Feri began to get nauseous. The train had stopped at a station. Bertha grabbed Feri by his arm and they quickly exited.
They waited until the next train came along and continued on their safari. Bertha and Feri finally disembarked at the 58th street station. The train was slow and it was a long ride. It was a typical beautiful sunny June afternoon. The cloudless azure sky was brilliantly set off by the warm green of the grass. Women seated on benches, with Japanese parasols to protect them from the sun, were dressed in the most expensive and modem fashion of the day.
The children romped and played games, laughing, having fun. The boys were dressed in natty white sailor suits and the girls wore pretty pink outfits. Young men, with their girl friends, rowed in a magnificent lake. The men were well-dressed; many wore bow ties, straw hats or bowlers. Bertha sat on the grass, under a large white pine tree, where she could keep an eye on Feri and also enjoy watching the rowers. Feri played by him self but kept annoying his mother by asking questions about the unusual surroundings.
Feri was astounded by the statues of men on horses, the Essex House, and other very tall buildings, visible from where they sat. After a while Feri came to his mother and told her he had to make wee wee. Feri had been toilet trained and did not wear diapers. Bertha did not know what to do. She spoke only one or two words of English and there did not appear to be any Hungarians around.
Feri kept on complaining and crying. Suddenly, a big, stout, six foot tall, pound policeman appeared out of nowhere. Fed stopped peeing, began to cry and ran to his mother who was also crying.
Dalma Takács
Hungary was allied to the dastardly Huns who had raped Belgium. Hungarians were not too popular in the US, and Bertha was in deadly fear of deportation. The policeman escorted the two criminals to 60th Street and Fifth Avenue where a Paddy Wagon was parked. They were driven, along with two female Bloomingdale shoplifters who had been caught earlier, to the 77th Street police station. The police station was dimly lighted, stuffy and filled with cigar smoke.
The two shivering crying culprits were seated on an old worn mahogany bench in front of a police sergeant, sitting at a high desk, calling out orders to his men. After 30 minutes he was able to find time to talk to these two notorious foreigners. He did not know Hungarian and the desperadoes did not know any English. Fortunately a Hungarian interpreter was finally obtained. The two crying prisoners were informed of their crime. Bertha had the interpreter phone her brother-in-law, Gulya, who worked, as a linotype operator at the Hungarian Magyar Weekly paper.
Gylya came running to save his relatives. Although Bertha lived to a ripe old age she never again stepped a foot in that Central Park.
The tree, a maple, came with the Bryant Avenue house. It was a fairly young tree and stood on the sidewalk about a foot from the gutter.
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The house was purchased in , in New York City suburb, the Bronx, by my Grandfather and his family. It was a three story 20 room brick house with a small yard in front and a beautiful garden in the back. There were fireplaces on every floor and the electric outlets were combined with gas lights. The buildings in this area were of this type. There were numerous lots, which we called fields. One of these fields was a grazing area for a flock of goats.
My Grandfather, Nagy Papa, in Hungarian was a 59 year old retiree when the extended family moved from Manhattan and occupied the Bryant, Avenue house. It was a little Hungary. My Nagy Papa loved the tree in front of the house and he took care of it as it were a baby. This infuriated my grandfather and he made the vendor move. To heal the wound made by the horses he made a paste of earth and plastered it over the wound.
My Nagy Papa would frequently go in the street with a dust pan and broom and scooped up the horse manure and place it at the base of his tree. When my Grandfather grew older, on a nice summer day, be would sit on a chair on the platform at the top of the steps and enjoy looking at his tree. He usually wore a brown cardigan sweater and rested his left arm on the brass step railing.
Neighbors would stop by and converse with him. The children gathered the seeds from the tree, removed the seed from the casing and stuck the tail of the seed on their noses One day our cat ran up the tree and was afraid to come down.
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No coaxing would get it to budge. I went to the second floor room facing the street and straddled the window. I pointed a broom, bristle first toward the branch that the cat was on. The cat ran down the broom handle nght through the window into the room. Street cleaners would eat their lunch, sitting on the curb in the shade of the tree. The tree outlived my Grandfather, who died m I am told that the tree had been cut down.
It was still there when the family sold the house m I try to imagine that somewhere my Grandfather is enjoying his tree. My grandfather was very frugal, evidently a DNA factor which was passed down to his children, in particular the females. My mother would embarrass me when it came to paying the butcher, grocer or shops in the Jenning Street market.
My grandfather was really frugal. However this extra ordinary good fortune was not without strings.
We were instructed to go to the corner candy store and buy a stick of chungum chewing gum. After we grew tired of chewing we were further instructed, not to spit out the gum but to return it to Grandfather. He would roll the well chewed gum into a spaghetti shape and stuff it into the cracks that had formed between the steps of our outside stairs.
This would prevent rain water from damaging whatever had been stored under the stairs. The outside stairs, about thirteen steps, lead from the front door to the sidewalk, a playground for as little kid. At first I was restricted by my mother, to the sidewalk. By the time my mother came out I was innocently on the sidewalk. I was never called Fred or Freddie, it was always Feri, or at times, when I was good, it would be Ferika, or little Feri.
Some of my American friends, hearing Feri, would call me ferry boat. Good does not always mean good. Hemorrhoids are called the golden vein. The doors throughout the house were never closed. We played stoop ball by bouncing a ball against the steps, then run and tag the bases chalked out in the street.
The sidewalk was our miniature tennis court. The court was two adjacent squares and the crack between the squares was the net. It was called box ball. When we tired of box ball we would put a penny, or bottle top, on the crack and take turns trying to hit with a ball. Money was scarce and we could not afford Pokey Mon Cards. Our cards were free as they came along with chewing gum. And we played odds or evens and flipped them on the sidewalk till one player had all the cards. That is where stock market day traders came from.
They would cut off the brim of discarded fedoras, scallop the edge and fold up about two inches. Immies, aggies, glassies and his shooter, which he would commit suicide if he ever lost it. Marble games were very serious business. The curb was also part of our playground. One day, the assistant principal, a tall Viking like woman, made an announcement at the close of general assembly.
She dismissed all the girls but asked the boys to remain seated. She explained this unusual request by telling us the principal had received a complaint from one of the home owners in the vicinity of the school. The complaint was that on the way home from school, five or six of the younger children would form a straight line on the curb facing the street.
A contest would then be held to see who could pee the furthest. The assistant principal commanded the children to stop this practice immediately. I had inherited a strong bladder and frequently won the contest. No gold medals or Oscars were given to the winner nor did it become an Olympic Event. It was satisfying to be good in at least in one area and be a champion peeyer. The curb was also used as bleacher seats for the little kids to watch the older kids play stick ball.
At times the ball would go down the sewer curb rain drain. Some of the stronger boys would lift the manhole cover and one of them would climb down the ladder to retrieve the ball. The curb taught me two important lessons. Respect and look twice before you leap. One sunny day my father asked me to sweep the stairs in front of the house. I imagine he wanted some peace and quiet. I took the straw broom, which was twice my height, and having a lot of energy I attacked the steps with vigor.
Out of a cloud of dust that I had created my very angry father appeared. That was about 80 years ago, but I never forgot the lesson. The other lesson involving the curb came in crossing Bryant Avenue alone. I took this advice to heart. One day l wanted to cross the street and following instructions I looked one way, nothing, then I looked the other way and saw a huge garbage truck coming down the street.
I impatiently waited till the truck passed and ran out into the street. I was hit by a second garbage truck, hidden from my view by the first truck. Fortunately I was running fast and was knocked away from the wheels. The driver jumped out of his truck and helped me to my feet. I was not hurt and be was more concerned than I was.
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I never told anyone about my accident. I was afraid if my mother found out I would be restricted to the sidewalk until I got married. This book will provide information about Hungary, back and forth and across. This book also invites you to travel in time. A new feature is that you may now discover Hungary in alphabetical order.
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In the Glossary you will find terms and expressions that characterise the country regardless of time and place. You can order here: The Blinkens alternate chapters to recount their years as the U. Together they breathed new life into U. Theirs is a candid behind-the-scenes look at the glamour and challenges of diplomatic life: The energetic narration moves seamlessly from historical to contemporary political themes to the more personal and particular highlight of the book—accompanying Vera Blinken as she rediscovers what remains of the Budapest of her childhood. The author, now living in the United States, describes with genuine humor the childhood of someone who would mature into an extraordinary man, providing us a highly readable account that elicits both smiles and tears.
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Cleveland, OH Year of Publication: These stories of coming to America, of being born in the old Buckeye Road neighborhood, of weddings, of Christmas and Easter traditions, of harvest festivals, were all transcribed and edited into a paperback book of pages, with over 60 older and newer photos of life in Cleveland's Hungarian ethnic community. The book is all in Hungarian, and includes background information about the group, as well as an introduction written by an professional ethnographic scholar from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest.
For a long time, leaders of Hungarian groups in the United States have urged that the responsible parties in Hungary undertake a scientific analysis of the current social and demographic conditions of Hungarian-Americans, their organizations, the way the organizations function, and the size and composition of their membership. After several years of discussions, the Government decided to fund the task of undertaking a comprehensive survey of Hungarian-American organizations in The book was edited by Attila Z.
The authors of the book are: The book is written in Hungarian, but it includes an introduction and a summary in English language. The book mentions a database of Hungarian American organizations in the United States. The database can be accessed at: The Association maintained a school and an oral history program, and published ten books. Its lecture series provided a forum for more than outstanding Hungarian writers, scientists and artists from Hungary and from the other countries of the Carpathian Basin.
Published by the Hungarian Alumni Association, To order, please write to the Hungarian Alumni Association, P. Box , New Brunswick, NJ Copies of this historical novel, written for young adults about the Revolution, can be ordered from the Coalition's Washington office. Original side-by-side with its English translation, this beautiful collection of poems, quotations and proverbs comes from the pens of Hungary's greatest writers.
Filled with romantic imagery, they provide a glimpse into Hungarian culture and its approach to affairs of the heart. You can obtain this book from the following website: This is the first time since the Treaty of Trianon dismembered historic Hungary that a scholarly journal published in the U. It also includes a chronology of recent events as they relate to the Hungarian communities of East Central Europe. The editor of this volume, Prof. The Coalition has purchased some copies of this volume for its work in educating and informing public officials.
If you would like a copy, please write or call the Coalition's office in Washington, DC. Download the book here. Read more about the Coalition's anniversary publication. Support the Coalition's mission by making a gift online!