From Marta . . . A Letter Describing

Her Life in Hungary

1903 - 1924

Called "Morning" by her grandchildren

Morning's letter.......dated January 20, 1976

Translated from the Hungarian 

by 

Dorothy Padányi-Gulyás Bartlett

Morning & Joker

Dear Dorothy.......I am writing my memories as you asked me to do.  I am not sure if it will interest Susanne because they are not always funny or happy, but I am going to write them as I remember them.   My very first memory, I must have been two years old [1905], because I know that when I was three, we moved to the 11 Orlay street house.  So, at about two years old, I remember crying because I could not find a little doll that I loved.  We were living in the Lonyai Street house at the time, where I was born, and my mother, Bumi, took my hand and we looked for my doll.   First  we looked in the living room, where there were beautiful palm trees, then in the library, and finally in the kitchen and pantry, looking in the drawers where flour and sugar and other things were stored.  I am not sure whether we ever found my doll, but I know that soon after that we moved to the Orlay street villa.  This villa was built by Bumi's father, my grandfather as a gift for us.  My mother, Bumi (flower in German) wanted a house on Gellert Hegy (fort hill) where there was a yard.....Do you remember that a little?..... If I was three years old, my brother Miklos was 13 and my sister Mady was 9.

I liked the Orlay Street house, because it was large then; where the dining room was later, a large, wide staircase led to the upstairs where the bedrooms were. My brother Miklos played the piano beautifully.  His room was next to mine, and so every night I went to sleep to him playing Beethoven or Wagner.  I will always be grateful to him for this.   Everything was large.  When we had guests and I heard the bell, there was a place upstairs where I could see who the servant was letting in, by laying on my stomach and peering down. In the spring, I got a long haired goat with a cart, and that was how I got around Gellert Hegy for years.   In the summer we were at  Lake Balaton, where we had a summer place.  Lake Balaton is the largest fresh water lake in Europe.  

My father  was Secretary of State for Hungary at that time.  I loved him, and I believe he loved me, too.  Each evening he read to me while we both sat in a large easy chair.  He still did this, even after I learned to read, because it was nicer this way.  He always read Hungarian patriotic stories from the time the Turks came into Hungary and my grandfather Zrinyi fought against them.   My father's salary was 40,000 forint at the time, which was equivalent to $40,000 at the same time.  But it was my mother's father who was the "well to do" one in the family.

At Lake Balaton, our place was called Fonyod, and I had a lot of friends, boys and girls there.  Our Villa  was on a hill, and when we wanted to go swimming in the lake, there was a nice, winding path that led down.   We children were smart, and found a place where there was fine sand on the hill, where we could sit down and slide to the lake in seconds.  When coming back up, we used  our two donkeys with a pretty wagon and red haltars on the donkeys to take us back up. 

We had a beautiful life.  In the fall, before we went back to the Orlay Street house, we spent two weeks with our grandparents (Omama in my picture) in Domyan.  Domony was a 300 acre little estate,....but it had everything:  a comfortable house, good horses and a nice carriage with a special driver.    My Grandfather wanted to be a painter when he was young, but his parents did not allow it.  Therefore, it was not until he was older that he built a studio on the top of the steer barn and painted there.  He was talented, but was not a trained painter.  So, what he did was invite poor, talented painters to stay with him.  He watched how they painted and learned.  The picture of Omama was painted by him....it hangs here in our dining room.  We think that you look much like Omama.  She was beatiful, too.  I am sure that Laszlo Fulop, who was Europe's best painter of portaits at the time,  helped him to paint this picture.

In Domony there were 10  bedrooms, so it was not just us who were there, but  also many cousins.  We played very well together.  There was a large doll house for us in the garden, but when I was there, I did not play with dolls, but live bunnies, chickens and puppies.....and any other critters I could get from the village.

Hungary was 60% Catholic, and the people in Komony were Catholics.  It was the custom that the church advertised and held an annual "bucsu", which meant that whoever went to the Domony church mass on fair day  and prayed there would have all of their sins forgiven.  It was really quite beautiful as people came from other villages, on foot, the men and women in separate groups, carrying flags and singing on the way.  At the same time there was a fair in the village and vendors came from long distances and set up tents along the road.  You could buy all kinds of things: lace, boots, dishes and cookies called "mezeskalacs" made in all kinds of shapes: hussars (soldiers) babies, very pretty, even flower garlands made of cookie!  Do you remember the cookies we used to make, hussar, and hearts with a little mirror in the middle, and we hung them on the Christmas tree.  My grandmother, Omama, gave me money to go to the fair to buy "mezeskalacs" cookies.  I was happy to go, and came home with two white mice.  As things go, my two white mice turned into twenty four white mice in two weeks.  We took them home to the Orlay Street house; I made them a castle out of a big box. I don't think I built it very well, because pretty soon there were white mice everywhere. 

I would like to write some about my father's father, my grandfather, and your great grandfather.  He was the president (chief justice) of the Hungarian "Curia", which is the highest court. He was the first official in Hungary after the king. At State functions, he sat at the right hand of the king.  The Prime Minister came after him in priority.  The protrait of him, dressed in  "diszmagyar" (formal attire?) hangs in our dining room  (Kata has that portrait now)  His portrait was painted by Laszlo Fulop, Europe's best known portrait artist.  The broad red and white sash

Ottó von Habsburg  beneath portrait of  Morning's Grandfather, Billings

across his chest in the portrait means that he received one of the highest awards, The  Large Cross.  (The order of Lipot Large Cross).  Later he received the order of St. Istvan (Steven)  Large Cross, also, which carried with it the title of "baron".....he declined the title.  I quote from his autobiography: " I am an old aristocrat....I don't want to be a new Baron".  There is a biography of my grandfather, in which it is written that the king was very fond of him.  It just came into my memory that at the royal dinners, at each plate there was a little golden basket with wrapped candies in it.  On each candy wrapper, there was a picture of the king  or the queen. My grandfather, and later my father brought these little baskets home to us children.  We brats used to say that the candy was no good!  We visited these grandparents a lot, and I remember that my grandfather sat in a big chair, and I was on his lap.  When we went home,  he gave each of us a gold coin.  At that time gold coins were still in circulation.

I was at Fonyod at Belatelep,the part of Fonyod where our villa and our friend's villa was, when a pilot named Bleriot, from France, was the first to fly across  Lake Balaton.  That was a big accomplishment at the time. This same pilot was the first to fly across the English Channel.  I remember Lindberg, though I never saw him, but read about him flying across the ocean.  I was at my friend, Roesele's house in Billings, watching on TV when the first man walked on the moon.  In my long life, so many things occurred!

I was at Fonyod in Belatelep when we got the news, in September of 1914, that the First World War had erupted. At that time, the "hussars" (soldiers)  still fought with swords on horseback, dressed in red  trousers with red caps.  One of the first casualites of that conflict was was my great uncle Percel. 

My father studied to be a physician, although his family was very much against it.  He never did practice medicine,  but as Secretary of State and Minister of Religion and Education, he established and  built schools for the  deaf  and mute,  deaf and blind, and retarded.  I don't remember why, but I remember that as an adult I toured several of the schools and saw my father's statue there.  When WWI broke out, because my father had a medical degree,  he would go to the University (the same one where Nagyapa got his architectural degree later) which was being used as a treatment center for the wounded soldiers.  He helped treat the wounded.  We felt that he was exposed to  (sharlacht ?) and diphtheria, and died after a three-day illness.  He was 54 years old.  I was 11 years old, and according to the European custom,  my sister and mother and I wore black dresses for a year in mourning.   My brother Miklos was a soldier (so he wore his uniform) and Bumi, my mother wore a long black veil.  My sister Mady was being courted by  Balas Jozsi, and during that year married him. 

It was at that time that Bumi remodeled the Orlai street house, and Mady and her husband lived upstairs and Bumi and I lived on the main floor.  Everything became very different.   

Kata at Bumi's Entrance  1997

Meanwhile, my grandparents sold the estate at Domony; my grandfather was getting old and did not want to have to deal with the workers, and for some reason the house would have to have been remodeled.   I think it is important for me to tell you the following, because there has been criticism of how the old aristocracy worked their help very hard: when my grandfather sold the Domyon property he gave his long term workers the house they lived in, as a gift.  I remember those houses well...there was a whole row of them, all white washed, with one or two rooms, depending on how many childrenwere in the family.  We went back to visit them occasionally with my mother, Bumi, because, for instance, the daughter of the estate manager was Bumi's god child.  So....my grandparents sold Domony and bought Besnyot, which was closer to Budapest.  This is the place that I loved so much.  It was only 60 acres, but the whole place was beautifully landscaped and maintained with trees, flowers and roadways.  The house was not architecturally attractive....it had a tower where my room was. 

When Bumi and I went out there in early spring, there were so many birds singing that it was really loud.  There were bushes under my window, which had been trimmed into a ball shape, and a meadow lark built her nest there.  I used to watch very carefully for the baby birds to be hatched.  And in the evening and early morning the adult birds sang beautifully.  I will never forget that. 

Bumi

It was so beautiful there, no one could disturb us, and I felt as if the world were mine.  On one side of the property, our land adjoined the king's forests.  For hundreds of years, the kings used this forest for hunting.  At the time I was there, there was no hunting going on, but there was a great deal of wildlife.  We had permission to walk and to ride horseback in the royal forest.  It was mainly me who enjoyed that a lot. 

Meanwhile, the elderly king (Joseph Ferenc) died, and Karoly IV was crowned.  My family received an invitation to the coronation, but Bumi, my mother, was still in mourning for my father and could not go anywhere.  Therefore my sister Mady and I went; Miklos, our brother was still at war.  Initially he fought as a "hussar", then later they did not use horses any more and he was trained to fly airplanes.  The coronation was beautiful, everyone came in Hungarian  formal dress.  The king and queen, and between them the three year old prince Otto who would be the next king were all dressed in snow white Hungarian formal dress.  

Prince Otto had long, blond, wavy hair down to his shoulders.....he was adorable.   Dorothy, do you remember, he came to Billings and had dinner at our house.  Time had passed and he was no longer blond at the time, he had a very high forehead and was most pleasant and intelligent.  So....back so long ago....the royal family came in a gold and glass carriage pulled by six snow white horses.   After the king and queen were crowned in the Matyas Church, the king mounted his horse and rode up to a small hill which had been built for this occasion in front of the church.  The king drew his sword and sliced it through the air to the North, South, East and West, which meant that from whatever direction an enemy might approach, he would protect Hungary.  The poor man was not successful in doing this.  The enemy soon came from all directions.  This ceremony that I have described is hundreds of years old, and must seem very strange to you.  But it was very beautiful.  I believe that  people enjoy this kind of pomp and ceremony, and I don't think that American parades can take the place of them.  The Hungarian crown, at least the lower portion of it, was given to the first Hungarian King, Saint Istvan, by the Pope.  In return, St  Istvan converted the Hungarian people ( who were pagans) to Christianity.   The top part of the crown came from  "bizanc"  (Bizantine?) . At a later date the two parts were welded together.  When we fled Hungary, the crown was also brought out, and eventually came to the United States.  The Communists want the crown returned, and I am often afraid that it may be given over to them.

We sold the Belatelepi estate in Fonyod, because my sister Mady's husband could not travel that far on the weekends.  Now it was just me and my mother, Bumi.  Before we sold Fonyod, I spent one more summer there by myself, with an English  teacher by the name of  Miss Aggie, a cook and a maid.  Oh the happy olden times......situations like that could not be imagined now. 

When my father passed away, each of us received 25,000 forint......the rest of his money was invested in [war bonds?].  We never got anything from the war bonds, since we lost the war.  Sooo.....we started to be less wealthy.   I  was home-schooled at Orlay street with a governess during the school year, and in Besnyo from early spring until late fall. 

In Besnyo I did not have anyone to play with, but I had my little horse named Judka and a small dog.  I was totally content.  I must have been about Susie's age at the time, about 13.  I took walks, rode horseback and took the carriage into the woods, which in March were absolutely, totally full of  violets.  I loved them and their scent.....in Hungary they had a wonderful scent; here they don't seem to have a fragrance.  When the lilacs bloomed, our estate was full of lilacs. On the narrower paths on the estate, the lilacs almost blocked the path, they were so heavy with blooms, they bent down and almost closed the way....I had to push them aside with my hands to get through.  This even though  the paths and the bushes were very well kept up.   Every day three or four peasant girls, dressed in full skirts and bright scarves on their heads, did nothing but weed, rake and sweep the paths.  The fruit trees were beautiful in bloom. too.  Oh how I wish you could have seen it !

Once, when I was in my little carriage pulled by the horse in the king's forest, I found six little bunnies.  The mother must have died and the poor little things were helpless.  I took them home and raised them.  When they were grown and getting fat, the cook started giving them strange looks and even my grandmother made some comment that scared me.  The next morning I got up real early and took them back to the forest where I had found them in my little cart and set them free.  At home, I left the cage door cracked and everyone thought they had escaped from there.  I didn't say a word. 

Once I caught a peacock by hand.  The silly thing had gotten tangled in a wire fence, and was not smart enough to back up to get free.  He was so beautiful.....I petted him for a while and then let him go.  In the evenings, about sundown, I would lay on my stomach under a bush and wait, sometimes for hours  for the deer to come out in the clearing and graze.  They were beautiful.  While my grandfather was alive, we put salt blocks under the window of his studio (he had a studio in Besnyo) so the deer would come to the clearing and graze.  When they came to lick the salt, my grandfather would draw pictures of them.  I was very happy with my animals, but it may not have been so good, because I became less used to being around people.  When Bumi wanted to take me to dance lessons, I cried and did not want to go.  She would say, "that's the Spanish in you, and you have to fight it",  when I did not want to be around people.   But that was later.  

Meanwhile, we lost the war which was a great tragedy for the country and for us.  I was young, so I did not understand the national implications, but I began to see that as the soldiers came home from the war, especially if they had been prisoners of the Russians, they came with communistic ideas.  They were rough.  In the front of our Besenyi house there was a life-sized statue of an stag.  The returning soldiers used that as a target to shoot their pistols....they never hit it, but it made it dangerous for us to come out of the house. 

In Budapest, the revolution began.  The king with their six small children were at their country castle near us, and they were barely able to get out of the country.   There was Communism in Hungary for half a year.  There was barely any peace time.  We were fine in Besnyo, because we had vegetables in the garden and fruit, but if we needed meat or salt or other things, they sent me to the nearby village, Godollo, to buy things. They sent me, bacause I would not let anyone else drive my horse with the carriage.   She was the only horse left, and one cow....they took everything else.  Once when Bumi was not at home, I heard that they were coming to take our cow and my little horse.   I could not have stood that.  I was very scared.  I got the cow and my little horse out of the barn and brought them up to the house.  No one saw me.  I brought them into the wash (laundry) room and they stayed there for a week.  That was how I saved them.   Later on, the mood of the country improved some and I could use my horse and carriage. 

Godollo was a half hour from our house by horse and carriage.  If I walked, cut across the forest and climbed two wire fences, that was also about a half hour.   When I took the carriage, at the border of the village everyone had to stop for the communist soldiers and show them your passport....even for traveling such a short distance.  I had a passport, I had been given one, but I was so insulted by this idiocy that I would drive my horse by very fast - by the time they looked for me I was gone.  Judka was a good little horse.  Once they caught me, and one of the soldiers told me, "little lady, if you drive by the border one more time, I am sorry, but I will shoot you, because those are my orders."   After that, I went to the village on foot, through the forest. 

After a while the Communists, who were hated by gentlefolk and peasants alike, lost power.  Horthy Miklos put together a  "white" (red was considered communist) government and congress and marched into Budapest.  They elected him governor.  In the summer he and his family lived at the beautiful Godollo castle, and I watched with an aching heart as he rode every morning with his guards and his daughter.    I outgrew my little horse Judka, and because of the financial strain after the war I did not get another horse.  I was alone, and as much as I loved the other animals and the forest I began to feel lonely.   Two days a week I stayed in Budapest with Bumi and took french lessons, history of art, and finally I even took (ballroom) dancing lessons.  It was hard to become reaquainted with the girls and boys with whom I had spent my childhood.  I was not interested in the things they talked about and they were not interested in my animals and trees.  

I was sixteen when I met a boy with whom I had much in common.  His name was Toni Lossonczy, and it turned out that his family also had a place in Besnyo, but quite a way from ours, so we never knew each other.  He came to our house a lot and he was a talented painter and could draw well, which interested me.  I learned a lot from him about painting and art appreciation.  Tibor Vamossy also came to our house a lot and we became good friends.  But I was in love with Tony, and he with me. The war finally was over, the situation became better, but the victorious nations and their politicians were discussing how the New Europe should be arranged.  

Marta & Gogo

I am always amazed how Americans, who hardly learn anything about European history in school, should decide the fate of nations and how the borders that have been in place for a thousand years should be changed.  In Hungary there are families who have lived and worked and  been productive in the same place.  And then, somewhere, there is a conference and the next morning these same people wake up to find that they are no longer a part of Hungary, but maybe Romania or Yugoslavia or Austria.  And then they lose their ancient lands. The young men, Tony and Tibor were studying at the Technical University.  A long time ago they had formed a club and called it the Hungarian Christian Royalist Club.  Tony designed a very nice badge that they wore.....I got one, too.   The club could not do much, but along with the girls they organized some dancing parties.  

Once there was a garden party on Margit Island that I went to.  There I was introduced to Jeno Padanyi Gulyas. Tony and Jeno were inseparable friends. We were all together a lot during that winter in Budapest and the next summer in Besnyo.  I was 18 years old, and the boys were 21, when the victorious nations gave western Hungary to Austria.  A Hungarian military officer by the name of Pronay, a patriot, organized the western Hungarian insurrection.  Many University and Technical University students took up arms and  went to western Hungary to show displeasure and to fight to prevent the change.  The Austrian papers called them "Bands of Aristocrats".  All the boys that I knew went, and on the third day, when Tony and Tibor where standing guard, they were shot down.  There is not much I can say about this.  I do not understand politics.  But I do know that what these boys fought and died for - a popular election –was granted by the Western powers.  The people wanted to belong to Hungary, and that is how they voted.  That is how Sopron and the surrounding area remained part of Hungary.  They did not hold popular elections anywhere else , and the powers took away Eldely, Felvideke, Delvideke without asking the people where they wanted to belong.   

My mother, Bumi, surrounded me with her love my whole life and did everything for me.  Her main concern was to ensure that I had everything I needed and to see me happy.  That is when she bought me my horse, Csipka,  who was a grey lipica mare that I liked very much.  I again rode a great deal in Besnyo, where we spent the greater part of the year.  In the winter we brought her in to Budapest where she was boarded at the National Equestrian Center. 

Time passed, the violets bloomed in the forests at Besnyo.  Many young people came to our house again, among them Jeno, your father, and we fell in love.  We were engaged for a year because he had to finish school and then he spent the summer abroad for his education.   We were married in January of 1924,  just 52 years ago. 

My dear Dora, you asked that I write about my      childhood.  

Then I grew up.  

Love and kisses,  your mother.