Nagymama's Italian Angel

Nagymama’s Italian Angel

The blood of Hungary flows through my veins. It’s liberally mixed with a British Isles blend and there’s also a touch of Swedish—and my children have a large dose of German added to theirs—but the power of the Magyar is undeniable in my family.

My grandmother, my father’s mother, came to the U.S. from Hungary back in 1920. I was her first grandchild, born 37 years later. When I was young, she told me stories about her life back in “the old country” and I listened with a child’s ear, my attention easily distracted by any opportunity to run off and play.

Recently, after some online digging, I found Grandma’s Ellis Island record. It lists Kassa as her town of origin, but her nationality is written in as Slovak. It was a slip of the pen, or the politics, that irritated Grandma every time she mentioned it. I found the Hungarian spelling of her name—Margit Jagacs—and that she emigrated when she was 21. The document also records that she had blonde hair and brown eyes; I’d only seen her with grey hair and glasses.

I can remember her telling me that she was actually from a village near Kassa, though the exact name of it bounced off my brain all those years ago. Most Hungarian words did.

Grandma adopted her new country whole-heartedly and raised her two sons to be Americans and speak English. She really took the melting pot ideal seriously and was friendly with all her neighbors, the Hungarians as well as the Italians, Poles, Irish and other immigrants who settled on the south side of Chicago. She married another Hungarian—György Takács, who’d also emigrated from Kassa—but her two boys were encouraged to marry for love; there was no issue with their wives’ nationalities. However, all that didn’t mean she wasn’t proud of her heritage.

In her later years, Grandma tried to teach me some Hungarian phrases and my pronunciation was painful to the ear. Boldog Karácsonyt [Happy Christmas] became Bulldog Cucaracha. But I learned that she was my nagymama [grandma] and I was her kisci unoka [little grandchild].

Once, she managed to teach me a rhyme, and I still have the first few words of it rolling around in my head— répa, retek… Letting those r’s roll from my tongue takes me immediately back to the late afternoon I curled beside Grandma on the backyard glider, watching her hands twirl wool around a crochet hook while I tried to mimic her sounds and recite the little poem.

As an adult, I asked her about it, and she wrote down the rhyme for me: Répa, retek, mogyoró, mind a három nagyon jó. [Carrot, radish, hazelnut, all three are delicious.]

My brother has mentioned that he’s noticed our Hungarian relatives have a fondness for vodka and Italian food. If he’d have told that to Grandma, she’d have piped up immediately with, “Hungarians had spaghetti first.” I hadn’t really thought to question any of her claims about the Hungarian origins of most foods and fashions, though I remember my first skeptical moment when she flipped some crepes in a skillet. I asked where she got a French recipe and she, very matter-of-factly, corrected me. “The French got crepes from us,” she snapped.

But Grandma always did have a soft spot for Italians. One of her stories—one I remember well—starts with her stubborn pride after the First World War. Grandma’s family endured a lot of suffering from the war—as did her hometown of Kassa. Grandma had lost her brother in the fighting and her boyfriend, a shoemaker named Berti, was gravely wounded.

Kassa, located in the northwest section of the Kingdom of Hungary, had a history that could be traced to 1230 and there was even evidence that it extended back to the Paleolithic era. Once the Great War ended, the city was part of the northern section lost to Slovakia by treaty. It was undergoing a change in name, to Košice, and in inhabitants. Russian and Czech soldiers, as well as an international peacekeeping force, occupied the city as Czechs and Slovaks were being moved in even before the Treaty of Trianon made the whole affair official.

Grandma—or Margit, as she was called then—was opposed to the politics that were altering her beloved hometown. Her father had been a railway worker who helped connect Kassa to Miskolc and other Hungarian cities. Now she was watching as the trains brought in soldiers and settlers.

To demonstrate her loyalty, Margit handknit a Hungarian flag—the red, white and green stripes—and pinned to her coat. She wore it proudly on her chest as she went around town on her daily errands. It was a dangerous thing to do.

One afternoon, as she marched along the road toward a line of shops, still sporting the flag, two Russian soldiers spotted her. They began moving toward her ominously, she told me.

Before they could reach her, a quick Italian soldier boy, part of the peacekeeping force, trotted up to her and embraced her as a compatriot. He began babbling to her loudly in Italian as he pulled off the flag and flipped it, reattaching it sideways as an Italian flag—green, white and red. After escorting her away from the other soldiers, he cautioned her to keep her flag and political opinions out of public view.

Our family’s continuity was most certainly helped along by an Italian angel in a soldier’s uniform—and his warning was part of the reason that Margit chose to make the long trip to a new life in a new country. She was a strong-willed young woman who was adamant about wanting the freedom to express her love for her country and her heritage.

Then came the final straw—Margit’s family opposed her marriage to Berti due to his failing health. So she wrapped up a few things, set her resolve and started off on a voyage to stay with her uncle, Andy Pastor, in Chicago. She was eager to get to a new world and start a new life. Berti, Grandma told me sadly, died shortly after she’d left, but she shared no more details. She died, herself, at the age of 91, several years after holding her great-granddaughter and trying to teach her the word ‘Nagymama.’

Though she never regretted leaving, Grandma also never stopped loving her home country. Here in America, she was more fiercely proud of her Hungarian background than ever and she passed on that pride to all her progeny.

I remember, as a teen, coming into the kitchen one morning to see her hunched over a map she’d carefully spread across the table. I asked her what it was.

“A map of old Hungary,” she told me. “And new Hungary.” Her fingers ran over the markings of where the borders had been, and where they are now.

“What does that say?” I pointed to some Hungarian words along the top of the map.

She answered quietly, “Pray that the Kingdom of Hungary regains its former glory.”

I believe it’s a prayer that’s already been answered—but not by armed conflict or expanded borders. Hungary’s glory has never been lost and stays strong through the iron resolve and quiet pride of every person who has even a drop of Hungarian blood in them, whether they’ve remained in their homeland or carried it with them to new lands.