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From: "dmingesz" <>
Subject: [BANAT-L] Notes of a Hungarian childhood
Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2001 23:39:27 -0600


I recently came across some notes made by my father when he was 82. Born in
Moritzfeld Hungary, he spent much of his early youth in Karansebes and
started an apprenticeship in Temesvar. I thought the notes would be of
interest to some others and have included them below. They are unedited.
There are a few words that I would like to get your help on. For example, he
writes of "Menes and Tokay" - what could Menes be? This may of course, be a
misspelling or something other than English but what could he be referring
to? Also, is anyone familiar with mannliga and brinza?

Don Mingesz
Lombard, IL



Hungary was a very nice country and a very fertile land with large rivers.
The fertile plain ranked high in wheat production on the very fertile
plains. It ranked among Europe's best. Maize was good and abundant. There
were very few factories and the machine age with its blessing had not
arrived yet. Their world famous wine produced Menes and Tokay on the sunny
side of the Carpatian and adjacent hill sides plum trees were the source of
many excellent brandies. In Transylvania there were government monopolies
for sugar, salt, tobacco, cigars, cigarettes, coffee, matches. Most people
had a large garden where they raised vegetables. Most people bought on or
two small pigs in January or February. They were fed cornmeal mush and all
kinds of cooked vegetables.

My childhood was wonderful. I often try to recall memories. My grandfather
had a baker shop. I woke up with the smell of fresh bread and rolls. At
Easter time streusels were baked of a special bread of sweet dough. My
grandfather brought me a special streusel still warm and round that was
wonderful. Often my grandfather took
me along in the morning when he made his deliveries to taverns and stores in
the nearby villages. All tired from working all night, he soon fell asleep.
There was never much traffic on the road. The farmers all had ox teams. They
were very strong and very slow, but there were no hurry and the weather
usually good. There were many
courtesy stops. Just riding past was very rude. The Roumanians in their
sheepskin coats, with the fur inside when it was cold and outside when it
was warm. It was said that the sheepskin kept the cold out and the warmth
in.

No one worked by the hour. There was enough food. All meals were prepared in
an open fireplace with a kettle hanging in three chains. Cornmeal cooking. A
mush of cornmeal called mannliga was eaten with sheep cheese call brinza.
Fast days were many and they were much more severe than the Roman Catholics.
They were very lenient and no corporal punishment. The Roumanians were very
lenient with their children. They considered them immature and said that
they will know better when they grow older, and it seemed to work out that
way.

We lived at the edge of the city and there was a good clay deposit for
making bricks. This was all handwork and the kilns produced fine bricks and
a house built with them lasted for several generations. The clay deposit was
about 6 feet deep. The spring floods from the Temes river filled those
excavations. Rushes grew and it was soon filled with little fishes, and we
boys had a wonderful time with our bamboo poles that had just started to
come into use.

A shirt and a pair of knee pants and bare feet and a straw hat, what finer
vacation could we wish for. We had no school from the middle of June to the
beginning of September. In February 1905 my father died at the age of 42 of
what they called throat cancer. It started about two years before it became
painful. My father suffered much.

On the first of March 1905 I started my apprentice time. I was under a
three-year contract because I had some experience. Otherwise the-regular
apprenticeship was four years. We had to start to work at six in the morning
and worked until seven in the evening. We did not have to work overtime. In
my eighty-second year after a long and at times hard life, I have not done
any work for about four years and the feeling of being useless asserts
itself more and more.

I have many memories, good and bad, and not much to regret. These memories
help a lot to ease.my feeling of uselessness. It makes me feel that I was
not always useless and doing my work as well as I could in return for what
received from the work of others.

Large shops and factories were very few as machine production was just
beginning. All work depended on manual skills and no one was considered
better than the work he did. This feeling I have still persists. It
always was a wonderful feeling at the end of the day. You felt tha.t you had
done a good job and what you profited by was secondary. You slept well and
earned your food and rest.

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