100 Years in America

Bokréta: Reconquering culture one folk dance at a time

2009-12-15T00:00:00.001-05:00

If you are a regular reader of 100 Years in America, you know the appreciation that I have for the heritage and culture of my Hungarian and Croatian ancestors. Living far from their homelands, however, it is not always easy to retain a part of those cultures within the life of my own family, even though I am only a few generations removed from my immigrant ancestors. As stated so well by the famous Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály:

"You cannot inherit culture.
Ancestral traditions disappear rapidly unless
each generation re-conquers them for itself."
~ Zoltán Kodály

One aspect of culture that I would love to "reconquer" in my family is the folk dance of my ancestors. Along those lines I am happy to help announce the Bokréta Hungarian Folklore Ensemble's Winter Workshop in Montreal. The workshop, now over ten years old, will run from February 12-14, 2010 and will for the first time also include a concurrent children's workshop.

As the website states, "Hungarian folk dance and music enthusiasts have been gathering in Montreal every Valentine's weekend to learn to improvise folk dances and music. This year, the Montreal Winter Workshop is pleased to once again present some of the best dancers and musicians directly from Europe." The 2010 workshop will also feature a new twist: it will introduce Gypsy dances, music, and songs from Moldava nad Bodvou (Szepsi), Slovakia, which according to the Bokréta website, have never before been seen in North America.

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Love Hungarian and Slovakian music but don't want to dance yourself? Plan to attend the Bokréta Gala Concert on February 11 featuring the workshop musicians from Europe.

For information, workshop registration and/or concert tickets visit the Bokréta website.

Image of the Bokréta Hungarian dancers thanks to Sergui Popa.

Thanks to Folklor Digest for announcing the event.

A Hungarian boy's 1st Christmas in America, 1923 (Advent Calendar: Holiday Travel)

2009-12-12T00:00:00.019-05:00

I enjoyed reading the beautiful memoir written by Richard Bujaki about his father, seven years old at the time, and his first Christmas in America in 1923. "This may be the greatest Christmas present you will ever receive," Bujaki's grandmother told her children. The "gift" that this little boy and his siblings received that year was to make it the most memorable Christmas of his life. You can read Bujaki's story, Twas the night before Christmas, 1923 on The Christmas Archives website.

This article is part of a series written in celebration of the Advent and Christmas seasons. It is included this year as part of the GeneaBloggers Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2009 Day 12 Holiday Travel. Make a visit to Thomas MacEntee's GeneaBloggers website for some additional inspiration to get yourself in the holiday spirit!

The article originally appeared here at 100 Years in America and was included in Thomas MacEntee's Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2007.

A pot of pšenica for Sveta Lucia (Advent Calendar: Other Traditions)

2009-12-11T00:00:00.001-05:00

One legend about the Holy Family's flight to Egypt tells of a miracle that occurred to protect them from danger. One version of the story is retold in Frederick Hackwood's Christ Lore: The Legends, Traditions, Myths, Symbols, Customs and Superstitions of the Christian Church. The story is also illustrated within the beautiful 15th-century illuminated manuscript Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry painted by the Limbourg brothers. (See the bottom frame of the image below. You may click on it for a larger view.)

According to the Christus Rex webpage about the manuscript and the Christ Child's flight into Egypt, the story goes like this:

"While fleeing Herod's men, the Virgin and Child met a peasant sowing wheat. Jesus reached into the bag of seed and threw onto the path a handful, which immediately sprang into wheat as high and as ripe as if it were a year old. When Herod's soldiers arrived and asked the peasant if he had seen a woman carrying a child, he answered, 'Yes, when I sowed this wheat,' whereupon they gave up the pursuit."

This legend may have inspired the origin of one of my favorite Christmas traditions that I mentioned earlier. It is perhaps the most distinctly Croatian of all Christmas traditions: Bozicna Pšenica.

On December 13, Sveta Lucia Dan (St. Lucy's Day), wheat seeds are placed in small round bowls or dishes of water (no dirt is needed). If all goes well, the wheat will grow to about 6-8 inches tall by Christmas Eve. When it is tall enough, a red, white and blue tri-colored ribbon representing the Croatian trobojnic is tied around the wheat. The wheat may be a symbol of the soul's rebirth in Christ. This tradition also represents the hope that the new year's growing season will be a good one.

A candle is sometimes placed in the middle of the pšenica. The candle may symbolize Christ, the Light of the world. According to Christmas in Croatia by Andrea Janekovic, in some regions "a small glass with water and oil is placed in the center of the wheat, on which a floating wick (a dusica - from the word for soul, dusa) is placed. Its glow can be seen through, rather than above, the wheat. The glow represents the soul within each of us."

According to Adriatica.net's Croatia's Christmas Traditions in the Past & Nowadays, the wheat is planted or given to birds after Christmas. Croatian tradition dictates that nothing from Christmastime should be thrown away.

Although it is a small country, different areas of Croatia celebrate Christmas in many different ways. In fact, in some parts of the country, Sveta Lucia may deliver gifts to children on her feast day.

If you would like to grow your own Bozicna Pšenica, visit a local farm supply or similar store and purchase seed wheat. If you are reading this on December 13, today is the day. A happy Sveta Lucia Dan to you!

I'm off to go plant my wheat seeds...

Image of Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry courtesy of Christus Rex.

Image of Bozicna Pšenica courtesy of Roberta F. via Wikimedia Commons.

This article is part of a series written in celebration of the Advent and Christmas seasons. It will be included as part of the GeneaBloggers Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2009 Day 11: Other Traditions. Make a visit to Thomas MacEntee's GeneaBloggers website for some additional inspiration to get yourself in the holiday spirit!

The article originally appeared here at 100 Years in America and was included in Thomas MacEntee's Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2007.

Of falcons and family: Christmas greetings from Hungary & Croatia (Advent Calendar: Grab Bag)

2009-12-09T00:00:00.012-05:00

The joy-filled Christmas season is celebrated in so many countries on so many continents throughout the world. The merriment and hope of the season crosses borders and language barriers.

How much fun it is to learn how to wish others a "Merry Christmas" in a different language, particularly the language of one of our ancestors! In the spirit of the season, I'd like to share with you what I've learned about sharing holiday greetings in the languages of my Hungarian and Croatian ancestors.

In Hungarian, you may wish someone "Merry Christmas" by saying "Boldog Karácsonyt". Other traditional Christmas wishes are, "Kellemes Karácsonyi Ünnepeket " which means "Abundant Christmas Holidays" or "Karácsonyi Üdvözlet" which means "Christmas Greetings".
Adding a wish for a happy new year to your greeting, you might say, "Kellemes Karácsonyi Ünnepeket és Boldog Újévet!" which means, "Pleasant Christmas celebrations and a Happy New Year!". If you'd like to hear how to pronounce that last phrase, click here.

The Hungarian word for Christmas, Karácsony, has an interesting origin. According to Charles Dombi, webmaster of Hunmagyar.org, the story goes like this:

"The origin and meaning of the Hungarian word for Christmas, Karácsony, has its roots in ancient pre-Christian (pagan) culture and religious beliefs. It is associated with the most important celebration of pagan peoples, that of the winter solstice. It was an ancient Hungarian custom to celebrate the event with the releasing of falcons which were called 'kerecsen solyom' - 'solyom' means falcon, and 'kerecsen' refers to the type of falcon. Since ancient times, birds of prey have had special symbolic significance, and in the ancient Near Eastern civilizations, the falcon was associated with the sun or the sun-god. This tradition has been preserved by the ancient Magyars (Hungarians) and their ethno-linguistic relatives. The Hungarian word for Christmas, 'Karácsony' is therefore derived from the word 'kerecsen'."

For more on the origin of the word for Christmas in the Hungarian language, see the Hungarian article on the web entitled Karácsony szavunk eredetéről és jelentéséről.

If you'd like to learn how to celebrate the Advent and Christmas seasons in a traditionally Hungarian way, you might enjoy browsing the Cleveland Hungarian Heritage Museum's webpage on Christmas in Hungary. It includes an introduction to Christmas in Hungary and provides many links to explore.

In Croatian, the equivalent of "Merry Christmas" is "Sretan Bozic". If you want to get a little more specific, you might say, ""Sretan i Blagoslovljen Božić! Nadam se da ce vam nadolazeća godina donijeti mnogo radosti, mira i sreće." This means, "Have a blessed and joyful Christmas! Hope this coming year will bring you and your family a lot of joy, peace and luck."

If you are interested in learning more about the Christmas celebrations of the Croatian people, you might enjoy reading an article posted online on the Croatian World Network website entitled Croatian Christmas Traditions by James Monti. The article was published in the Advent 2006 edition of the Catholic devotional magazine Magnificat. The focus is on the faith traditions of the Croatian people of Bosnia-Herzegovina. As Monti states in his article, "The strong sense of family characterizing Croatian Christmas customs serves as a reminder of the joy of the Holy Family at the birth of Christ and the future joy of heaven."

In the tradition of my Hungarian and Croatian ancestors, I wish you...

Boldog Karácsonyt and Sretan Bozic!

This article is part of a series written in celebration of the Advent and Christmas seasons. It will be included as part of the GeneaBloggers Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2009 Day 9: Grab Bag. Make a visit to Thomas MacEntee's GeneaBloggers website for some additional inspiration to get yourself in the holiday spirit!

The article is based on several others that originally appeared here at 100 Years in America:

The first was included in Thomas MacEntee's Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2007.

Kifli again: Hungarian Christmas Cakes revisited (Advent Calendar: Christmas Cookies)

2009-12-08T00:00:00.002-05:00

Some of you may have read this article when it was posted last Wednesday, December 2, and are wondering why it has reappeared this week. It was posted earlier on Day 2 of the GeneaBloggers Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2009 (theme: Holiday Foods) and also submitted to the GeneaBloggers Holiday 2009 Recipe Contest and Holiday Cookbook, but I couldn't resist sharing it again this week to be included within the GeneaBloggers Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2009 Day 8: Christmas Cookies. And by the way, if you haven't gotten around to trying your hand at making your own kifli, here's one more reminder before Christmas Day!

One of the most enjoyable holiday treats in my childhood memory (counting all the holidays) was one of my grandmother's specialties. Everyone in our family calls them "Gramma's Christmas Cakes". When I was a child and the Christmas season rolled around we could always be sure that these delicious treats would make an appearance. Sometimes we would hear in advance that Gramma was working on them. (Later in life I learned how labor intensive they were.) Other times we would be surprised by the sudden appearance of a pretty doily-decorated plate loaded with the apricot jelly-filled crescent-shaped goodies. Every now and then Gramma's beloved Christmas Cakes would make an appearance at Easter, to the great delight of those who enjoyed them the most.

Inspired to carry on the tradition of baking these holiday goodies, I invited Gramma over to my home one day to have her teach me how to do it. I learned that day just what a labor of love Gramma had performed for her family for so many years. With my own small children causing distractions underfoot throughout the whole process, I gained a new appreciation for my dear grandmother and her patience and dedication to Christmas Cakes and her role as grandmother and great-grandmother.

Gramma had learned to make Christmas Cakes by watching her mother-in-law, who had immigrated to America from northeastern Hungary. Because of this I assumed that the recipe was probably something from that region. It was only a few short years ago that I learned, thanks to a letter from a family member of my grandmother's generation, the true identity of these goodies. Like so many of our ancestors who emigrated from their home countries and found it more convenient to Americanize their names, the Christmas Cakes had done the same. Their Hungarian name was Kifli. I was thrilled to learn this and also to find that recipes for them were found in many Hungarian cookbooks and orders could be placed for them with Hungarian bakeries even in the U.S.

Of course, nothing can replace the taste of Gramma's own version of kifli. With the understanding that written directions can never replace watching and learning from an expert like Gramma, here is my version of Gramma's recipe for those of you that are interested in giving them a try:

100 Years in America's
Family Kifli Recipe
Otherwise known as "Gramma's Christmas Cakes"

Apricot Jelly

3 lbs. apricots
1 1/2 cups sugar
Cinnamon

Put them in a pot with enough water to cover them plus about 1 inch more
Cook for about 45 minutes until soft, stirring frequently
Mash the apricots
Add sugar
Cook about 1 1/2 to 2 hours until very thick (the longer the better), stirring frequently
Sprinkle the jelly with cinnamon

Christmas Cakes

4 cups flour
1/2 lb. sweet butter at room temperature
6 eggs - separated - at room temperature
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
8 oz. sour cream at room temperature
4 tablespoons sugar
1 packet of yeast (prepared by mixing with 1 teaspoon sugar & about 1/4 cup milk)
Homemade apricot jelly
1 lb. walnuts (add 4 teaspoons sugar to each lb. when chopped)
Confectioner's sugar

Mix flour with butter and then salt and sugar
Make a well in the middle - add egg yolks, vanilla and sour cream gradually
Mix and kneed until smooth (keep working the dough until ready)
Use flour to make it not too sticky (can freeze - wrap in freezer paper and cover with flour)
Roll out dough
Cut the dough into 4 pieces
Chop walnuts and whip egg whites
Roll out one of the 4 pieces of dough
Cut into individual 3 1/2 x 3 1/2 squares and fill with a heaping teaspoon of homemade apricot jelly
Roll each into a horn (crescent)
Top each with egg whites and nuts
Bake in the oven at 350 degrees until light brown (about 30-35 minutes)

Kifli may also be served with a prune filling (prepared similarly to the apricot filling) or a walnut filling, although the apricot kind has always been the favorite in my family. If using walnut filling, add boiled milk to the nuts until pasty, then grated lemon rind.

I am always happy to hear that family members are baking a batch of Christmas Cakes and continuing to keep them in the family for the future generations to enjoy and remember.

We join with generations of Hungarian families that have made and enjoyed these goodies. In fact, the origin of kifli may go back to the 17th century. According to The Urban Fakanál by Andrea Miklós on The New Hungarian Voice webpage, legend has it that Budapest was threated by Ottoman Turks at the end of the 1600's. Supposedly the Turks intended to capture the city by building tunnels under the city wall. Hungarian bakers, who worked the early shift, caught the Turks in action and the attempt failed. To remember their success, the city's bakers baked bread in the shape of the Turkish Empire's emblem: the crescent. Kifli immediately became popular in Budapest and Vienna. In the 18th century, Marie Antoinette may have brought kifli back to Paris, inspiring the French to make their own version: the famous French croissant.

If you're pressed for time or not brave enough to try making your own kifli, here are a few bakeries in the U.S. that offer them for purchase:

Dobo's Delights Bake Shoppe of Piqua, OH
Hungarian Bakery of Earlysville, VA

This article is part of a series written in celebration of the Advent and Christmas seasons. It is included this year as part of the GeneaBloggers Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2009 Day 2: Holiday Foods and Day 8: Christmas Cookies. Make a visit to Thomas MacEntee's GeneaBloggers website for some additional inspiration to get yourself in the holiday spirit!

The article originally appeared here at 100 Years in America and was included in Thomas MacEntee's Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2007.

Childhood memories of a Croatian winter's night (Advent Calendar: Holiday Parties)

2009-12-07T00:00:00.005-05:00

Marija Bango wrote a charming children's book entitled Kralj Drave (King of the Drava) about the lives of two young sisters growing up near the Drava River in the village of Legrad in what is now northern Croatia. Marija was born in the village in 1917 and became friends with my great-grandmother and her family (also natives of Legrad), visiting them in New York after her immigration to Canada in 1960. Marija went on to become an accomplished poet, and divided her time each year between her home in Montreal and her stays in her native village of Legrad.

Marija's book of children's stories gives a heart-warming glimpse into her childhood and the traditional way of life that was still common in Legrad and the rest of the Međimurje area during the early 20th-century. I enjoyed reading the chapter entitled Pod snijegom (Snow Bound). Her story makes it easy to imagine myself as the little girl Marica trying to keep awake to listen to the storytelling of the grown-ups as they gather at her family's home in wintertime for feather-sorting.

Enjoy this excerpt from Kralj Drave (King of the Drava) and a nostalgic trip back to Legrad's winters past...

Darkness came early; it crept across the garden and into the stables; the chickens were dozing in the coop; the Back Room (as it was called because it faced the kitchen garden, across from the Front Room which faced the flowerbeds along the street) was already dark. Marica and Klarica's mother Agneza lit a kerosene lamp and hung it on the wall by the window. Grandma was steadily stirring corn mash on the stove, corn flour mixed with a little melted lard in the pot; a sharp hissing sound could be heard now and then as the steam rose from the water sprinkled on the cooking mash. Its aroma filled the room... The table was set. The men, five of them (Agneza's brothers), bringing with them the smells of the stable. They were quick to eat their supper because family and neighbors were coming to help sort feathers collected all year in large sacks.

The muffled sound of footsteps could be heard, snow stamped from boots at the front door. The door to the room was opened to let light into the hall. The women were the first to come in from outdoors, wrapped mummy-like in woolen shawls from head to waist. They took seats around the table while the men settled on benches along the wall, on Grandma's chest of drawers, on the edge of the bed. Since there were unwed girls among the womenfolk, there were plenty of young men. This was to be an evening of singing, storytelling, jokes and laughter until late of night. These were evenings when Marica listened, all ears, while her younger sister Klarica lay fast asleep on the bed next to her.

I'm thankful that Marija took the time to turn her childhood memories into these sweet stories about Marica and Klarica. They are a treasure to those interested in life in Legrad and similar small Croatian villages in centuries past.

If you are interested in reading more of Marija Bango's writings (both poetry and prose), here is a list of some of her works in various languages:

Children's stories: Pinklec na panklec (English & Croatian)
Stories for the young: Večernje pripovijetke (French)
Poem cycles: Po naši poti (Kajkavian) & Po belem svetu (Kajkavian)
A collection of children's games, legends and beliefs: Kre Drave (Kajkavian)
Lyric and prose poetry: Poetska čežnja (French, English & Croatian)
A study of poetry and prose: Les Beautés de ce Monde - The Beauty of this World (French)

This article is part of a series written in celebration of the Advent and Christmas seasons. It will be included as part of the GeneaBloggers Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2009 Day 7: Holiday Parties. Make a visit to Thomas MacEntee's GeneaBloggers website for some additional inspiration to get yourself in the holiday spirit!

The article originally appeared here at 100 Years in America and was included in Thomas MacEntee's Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2007.

On the eve of Szent Mikulás (Advent Calendar: Santa Claus)

2009-12-06T00:00:00.003-05:00

On the eve of Saint Nicholas, December 5, Croatian and Hungarian children's homes fill with excitement. Shoes and boots are polished, then placed out in hopes that they will be kindly filled by Sveti Nikola (as he's called in Croatian) or Szent Mikulás (his name in Hungarian).

He may come with a record book recording the children's deeds or an angel who helps distribute presents, but he is always accompanied by the mischief-making Krampus, who leaves twigs for children who "deserve" them.

If Szent Mikulás filled your shoes this year, would you receive candies, fruit, nuts and chocolate other small goodies, or would you find potatoes, stones, switches, or wooden spoons in honor of your misdeeds? If you're like many Hungarian children, you might find a little bit of both.

While many American children today hardly notice the passing of December 6, Saint Nicholas has influenced their Christmas celebrations in many ways. Not the least of which is the tradition of hanging stockings "by the chimney with care in hopes that Saint Nicholas soon would be there". Read more about St. Nicholas' influence on American Christmas celebrations at the Saint Nicholas Center's Discovering the Truth About Santa Claus.

And if you're reading this on December 5, don't forget to polish your shoes and put them out!

Image courtesy of the St. Nicholas Center collection. It is the cover illustration of Obitelj, 1933.

This article is part of a series written in celebration of the Advent and Christmas seasons. It will be included as part of the GeneaBloggers Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2009 Day 6: Santa Claus. Make a visit to Thomas MacEntee's GeneaBloggers website for some additional inspiration to get yourself in the holiday spirit!

The article originally appeared here at 100 Years in America and was included in Thomas MacEntee's Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2007.

Wheat on the table, straw on the floor (Advent Calendar: Outdoor Decorations)

2009-12-05T00:00:00.003-05:00

I've always admired homes with yards beautifully decorated for Christmas. Pretty lights, wreaths with red bows, even full-fledged nativity scenes...

During this time of year when so many are working on decorating the great outdoors for Christmas, I can't help but think of how many of our beautiful Christmas traditions began by bringing the outdoors in.

The Christmas tree is the biggest example. Nothing can compare to the sweet smell of pine in your living room during the holidays. But even our artificial trees bring a little bit of the natural world to us. And garlands - with berries, fruit, pinecones and so many other reminders of the great outdoors gracing the inside of our homes.

I like the tradition of the Croatian people who hang a kinc made of small pine branches and other decorations on the ceiling during the holidays. What a wonderful place to put a seasonal decoration in a small home. Other items that Croatians traditionally use to "bring the outdoors in" are corn, apples, ivy, holly, and other small tree branches.

The favorite of the small children has to be the large pile of straw placed on the floor on Badnjak (Christmas Eve) in memory of the Holy Infant's birth. Traditionally, most of the straw is placed under the table, but sometimes the table is decorated with it. In some families, it was traditional to sit upon the straw after dinner until it was time to go to Christmas Eve Mass. In some parts of Croatia, children were even known to sleep on straw the night of Christmas Eve. Talk about blurring the lines between the indoors and out!

The Ethnographic Museum of Zagreb has a few nice photos of Croatian Christmas decorations and customs, including the kinc and a table with straw decorating the floor beneath it pictured above.

Probably my favorite Croatian Christmas tradition is the small pot of wheat planted on St. Lucy's Day, December 13. A symbol of life and fertility, the wheat grows in a container that graces the table. Once it grows to a nice height, it is trimmed and decorated with the Croatian trobojnica: red, white and blue ribbon.

Tree branches, ivy, holly, fruit, piles of straw, little pots of wheat - what an aroma of the outdoors begins to scent the Croatian home at Christmastime!

You can learn more about Croatian Christmas traditions at Adriatica.net and Andrea Janekovic's article on Christmas in Croatia.

This article is part of a series written in celebration of the Advent and Christmas seasons. It will be included as part of the GeneaBloggers Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2009 Day 5: Outdoor Decorations. (Apologies to Thomas MacEntee for taking liberties with the outdoor decorations theme for today and discussing indoor decorations with an outdoor flavor.) Make a visit to Thomas's GeneaBloggers website for some additional inspiration to get yourself in the holiday spirit!

The article originally appeared here at 100 Years in America and was included in Thomas MacEntee's Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2007.

Reflections from underneath the Christmas tree (Advent Calendar: Ornaments)

2009-12-03T10:16:00.004-05:00

One of my earliest memories is the view of the beautiful lights on the Christmas tree overhead as I rested on the floor near the manger scene. I loved to watch all the ornaments go by on our spinning Christmas tree (thanks to a revolving tree stand that our family has had ever since I can remember).

Our tree always had such a nice menagerie of ornaments - angels, bells, little elves, balls, silver tinsel (I fondly remember the messy kind, although I've never introduced my own children to it).

There are so many types of beautiful Christmas trees, but my favorites are always the ones that have a truly unique character. I love to visit Christmas stores on my vacations, no matter the month. This year I had a festive time picking out nativity ornaments in the Christmas shop in Santa Fe, New Mexico in mid-summer. Several years ago in early fall I wandered through the Christmas store in Rockefeller Center to find a special ornament memento of our visit there. Ornaments from Basel, London, New Delhi and other places family members have visited grace the branches of our tree. Thanks to their presence, Christmas is filled with memories of places we've been and also places we would like to visit someday.

I have always admired the beautiful felt embroidered ornaments from Hungary on my grandmother's Christmas tree. These colorful ornaments, called Matyós after the Hungarian people of Slovak origin who began using this style of embroidery on folk costumes, are now well-known throughout Hungary and around the world. Even though these styles of embroidery only became popular during the late 19th century, they have come to represent Hungary today and make their home on many a Christmas tree in the old world and the new. For more on Matyó rose embroidery (including some interesting books for the serious Matyó collector) see this Kisjankó Bori Memorial House webpage.

I understand that in Hungary it would not be right for a Hungarian Christmas tree to be decorated without including szaloncukor - traditional candies wrapped in tissue paper with fringed ends (although foil is now often used). The name, according to Anikó Gergely's Culinaria Hungary, means "drawing-room sugar". Supposedly it is permissible to eat the candy as long as the wrapper is left to beautify the tree. Gergely writes that "the ability to remove the tempting confectionary from its wrapper without leaving any sign of tampering or damaging the aluminum foil is a skill acquired at an early age by this nation of candy-lovers and perfected until late on in life".

Licitar hearts (Licitarska Srca) and other Licitar shapes are now the most traditionally Croatian ornaments, although they may also be given throughout the year to loved ones. The hearts, edible although usually not eaten, are honey cakes decorated with icing. The mirror in the center of the heart represents the loved one who received the little gift of love. The origin of Licitar dates back to the 16th century in the Pannonian region of Croatia. The area around Zagreb in northwestern Croatia is most well-known for these decorative confections, although the tradition has spread all throughout Croatia. A beautiful description of the history and tradition behind the Licitar hearts of Croatia can be found in this Croatia Airlines article online.

The Christmas tree has truly become an international phenomenon. What a wonderful way to get a taste of our heritage: by decorating a tree with some beautiful ornaments from the countries in which our ancestors spent so many Christmases.

Think I'll go take a rest under my tree now...

This article is part of a series written in celebration of the Advent and Christmas seasons. It will be included as part of the GeneaBloggers Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2009 Day 3: Christmas Tree Ornaments. Make a visit to Thomas MacEntee's GeneaBloggers website for some additional inspiration to get yourself in the holiday spirit!

The article originally appeared here at 100 Years in America and was included in Thomas MacEntee's Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2007.

From the corner of my grandmother's kitchen (Advent Calendar: Holiday Foods)

2009-12-02T00:00:00.012-05:00

Images of my grandmother's kitchen work like a slideshow timeline in my memory. I remember as a young girl sitting in the corner at the table in her tiny kitchen while she, aproned and always beautifully dressed, worked busily to prepare a meal for visiting family members (including me). Gramma worked miracles in that tiny kitchen which was hardly bigger than the closet in my bedroom today. In later years, she moved to a newer home and a larger kitchen - and more family. What a joy to bring my own children to my grandmother's home to enjoy her warm hospitality and delicious concoctions.

I was well into adulthood when I made a realization: the foods that I thought were just Gramma's specialties were not just her own. She was a Hungarian chef - and her menu could be found in many other Hungarian homes. Imagine my surprise when I picked up a Hungarian cookbook for the first time and found Gramma's cucumber salad, stuffed cabbage, cottage-cheese-filled crepes, apricot-jelly-filled crepes, apple pie and apricot-jelly-filled Christmas Cakes. There they were going by names such as uborka salatá, töltött káposzta, palacsinták, almás pite and kifli! (In that particular order, in case you're wondering.) I had always thought that they were Gramma's distinctive menu - now I knew that her dishes had a much longer history and a much wider appreciation than only our extended family.

Since my amazing culinary discovery, I've enjoyed a couple of Hungarian cookbooks in particular. Earlier when discussing szaloncukor, I mentioned Anikó Gergely's Culinaria Hungary. It is a wonderful resource for recipes, culture, traditions and all things Hungarian. According to Gergely, a Hungarian Christmas celebration would not be complete without borleves (wine soup), rántott ponty (breaded fillets of carp) or halászlé (fish soup), mákos guba mézzel (poppy seed pudding with honey), karácsonyi pulykasült (Christmas turkey), or roast pig or töltött káposzta (stuffed cabbage), párolt alma (stewed apples) and diós és mákos bejgli (poppy seed and nut rolls). I'm personally not familiar with all of these dishes, but they sound delicious.

Another good book for Hungarian recipes is Susan Derecskey's The Hungarian Cookbook. Derecskey did a wonderful job converting the traditional recipes of Hungarian grandmothers into forms that modern day American cooks can easily use in their kitchens. Perhaps the best part of the book is her substitution of hard-to-find Hungarian ingredients with items that are more readily available in America. Although The Hungarian Cookbook does not have a Christmas section, many of the recipes found in it are traditional foods that are often found within Hungarian holiday feasts.

Croatian Christmas feasts do not differ greatly from the traditional Hungarian fare. The Best of Croatian Cooking by Liliana Pavicic and Gordana Pirker-Mosherg has a nice chapter on Croatian Christmas traditions. Traditional Christmas foods include bakalar (cod fish), honey cake, Christmas breads, sarma (stuffed cabbage), mlinci (turkey with pasta), odojak (roasted pig), orehnjača (walnut roll), makovnjača (poppy seed roll), loza (Grappa) and more.

I guess it is never too early to begin planning a Christmas feast, especially if you decide to try creating some new dishes.

I'm getting hungry just thinking about it...

...and wishing I was that little girl again sitting in the corner of my grandmother's kitchen.

This article is part of a series written in celebration of the Advent and Christmas seasons. It will be included as part of the GeneaBloggers Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2009 Day 2: Holiday Foods. Make a visit to Thomas MacEntee's GeneaBloggers website for some additional inspiration to get yourself in the holiday spirit!

The article originally appeared here at 100 Years in America and was included in Thomas MacEntee's Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2007.

Kifli by any other name (Advent Calendar: Holiday Foods)

2009-12-02T00:00:00.011-05:00

One of the most enjoyable holiday treats in my childhood memory (counting all the holidays) was one of my grandmother's specialties. Everyone in our family calls them "Gramma's Christmas Cakes". When I was a child and the Christmas season rolled around we could always be sure that these delicious treats would make an appearance. Sometimes we would hear in advance that Gramma was working on them. (Later in life I learned how labor intensive they were.) Other times we would be surprised by the sudden appearance of a pretty doily-decorated plate loaded with the apricot jelly-filled crescent-shaped goodies. Every now and then Gramma's beloved Christmas Cakes would make an appearance at Easter, to the great delight of those who enjoyed them the most.

Inspired to carry on the tradition of baking these holiday goodies, I invited Gramma over to my home one day to have her teach me how to do it. I learned that day just what a labor of love Gramma had performed for her family for so many years. With my own small children causing distractions underfoot throughout the whole process, I gained a new appreciation for my dear grandmother and her patience and dedication to Christmas Cakes and her role as grandmother and great-grandmother.

Gramma had learned to make Christmas Cakes by watching her mother-in-law, who had immigrated to America from northeastern Hungary. Because of this I assumed that the recipe was probably something from that region. It was only a few short years ago that I learned, thanks to a letter from a family member of my grandmother's generation, the true identity of these goodies. Like so many of our ancestors who emigrated from their home countries and found it more convenient to Americanize their names, the Christmas Cakes had done the same. Their Hungarian name was Kifli. I was thrilled to learn this and also to find that recipes for them were found in many Hungarian cookbooks and orders could be placed for them with Hungarian bakeries even in the U.S.

Of course, nothing can replace the taste of Gramma's own version of kifli. With the understanding that written directions can never replace watching and learning from an expert like Gramma, here is my version of Gramma's recipe for those of you that are interested in giving them a try:

100 Years in America's
Family Kifli Recipe
Otherwise known as "Gramma's Christmas Cakes"

Apricot Jelly

3 lbs. apricots
1 1/2 cups sugar
Cinnamon

Put them in a pot with enough water to cover them plus about 1 inch more
Cook for about 45 minutes until soft, stirring frequently
Mash the apricots
Add sugar
Cook about 1 1/2 to 2 hours until very thick (the longer the better), stirring frequently
Sprinkle the jelly with cinnamon

Christmas Cakes

4 cups flour
1/2 lb. sweet butter at room temperature
6 eggs - separated - at room temperature
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
8 oz. sour cream at room temperature
4 tablespoons sugar
1 packet of yeast (prepared by mixing with 1 teaspoon sugar & about 1/4 cup milk)
Homemade apricot jelly
1 lb. walnuts (add 4 teaspoons sugar to each lb. when chopped)
Confectioner's sugar

Mix flour with butter and then salt and sugar
Make a well in the middle - add egg yolks, vanilla and sour cream gradually
Mix and kneed until smooth (keep working the dough until ready)
Use flour to make it not too sticky (can freeze - wrap in freezer paper and cover with flour)
Roll out dough
Cut the dough into 4 pieces
Chop walnuts and whip egg whites
Roll out one of the 4 pieces of dough
Cut into individual 3 1/2 x 3 1/2 squares and fill with a heaping teaspoon of homemade apricot jelly
Roll each into a horn (crescent)
Top each with egg whites and nuts
Bake in the oven at 350 degrees until light brown (about 30-35 minutes)

Kifli may also be served with a prune filling (prepared similarly to the apricot filling) or a walnut filling, although the apricot kind has always been the favorite in my family. If using walnut filling, add boiled milk to the nuts until pasty, then grated lemon rind.

I am always happy to hear that family members are baking a batch of Christmas Cakes and continuing to keep them in the family for the future generations to enjoy and remember.

We join with generations of Hungarian families that have made and enjoyed these goodies. In fact, the origin of kifli may go back to the 17th century. According to The Urban Fakanál by Andrea Miklós on The New Hungarian Voice webpage, legend has it that Budapest was threated by Ottoman Turks at the end of the 1600's. Supposedly the Turks intended to capture the city by building tunnels under the city wall. Hungarian bakers, who worked the early shift, caught the Turks in action and the attempt failed. To remember their success, the city's bakers baked bread in the shape of the Turkish Empire's emblem: the crescent. Kifli immediately became popular in Budapest and Vienna. In the 18th century, Marie Antoinette may have brought kifli back to Paris, inspiring the French to make their own version: the famous French croissant.

If you're pressed for time or not brave enough to try making your own kifli, here are a few bakeries in the U.S. that offer them for purchase:

Dobo's Delights Bake Shoppe of Piqua, OH
Hungarian Bakery of Earlysville, VA

This article is part of a series written in celebration of the Advent and Christmas seasons. It will be included as part of the GeneaBloggers Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2009 Day 2: Holiday Foods. Make a visit to Thomas MacEntee's GeneaBloggers website for some additional inspiration to get yourself in the holiday spirit!

The article originally appeared here at 100 Years in America and was included in Thomas MacEntee's Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2007.

Surname surprise: "Captcha" in the family tree

2009-11-28T00:00:00.000-05:00

I was writing a comment on someone else's blog and thanking them for reading and commenting here at 100 Years in America. I completed my comment and was surprised to find one of the family surnames that I research popping up as the "captcha" word:
I did a double take. How had this little bit of magic happened?

I'll be on the lookout for my other 100 Years in America surnames in "captcha" mode. I'm not sure I'll be seeing Kerekgyártó anytime soon, but how about Bedenica, Bencze, Globlek, Nagy, Németh or Ujlaki?

The view from my corner of the world

2009-11-21T19:00:00.002-05:00

As a final tribute to Geography Awareness Week, I've reposted this article: a look at my personal "view of the world". It originally appeared here at 100 Years in America on March 30, 2008. It is also one of my favorite contributions to the Carnival of Genealogy, whose participants (including myself) have been reminiscing this week.

I'm an American. I fly my American flag with pride. But in many ways I consider myself a citizen of the world.

On St. Patrick's Day the flag of Ireland is also waved proudly as you might have noticed if you visited Small-leaved Shamrock and A light that shines again.

The Hungarian and Croatian flags have a special place in my heart, too, as you may have guessed from reading 100 Years in America.

There are other countries that are also dear to me. I have a collection of international flags and dolls from all over the world (as I mentioned in my profile). My family and I have traveled overseas, and my children and I have visited many more places by proxy through the multi-continental business trips of my husband and the stories and items he has brought home on his return.

One of the countries that is most beloved to me in addition to my own is Switzerland, my home for part of my early childhood. My family moved to Switzerland at a time in my life when I was first able to be impacted by the foreign culture and language around me. I was just the right age to begin to compare the two worlds as I experienced the new one. I remember the beautiful late nights of Swiss summers, lying on the floor after a winter fondue, the enticing smells of the Zopf at the Migros, trips around town on the tram (take a ride via video below), elephant rides at the local zoo, and more.

Some of my most memorable experiences were during my time spent attending Swiss Kindergarten. Besides conversations with my good friend, an English-speaking girl whose family was British, my communication in school was conducted primarily in Schweizerdeutsch. I was just the right age to be a little language sponge and I learned fast. Soon I was teaching my parents new vocabulary at home.

During our stay in Switzerland, we were joined by what would eventually be considered a true member of the family: our red Volvo. The car carried our little family throughout Europe on many weekend trips and (thanks to my Dad's skillful driving) survived many a drive up steep, curving mountain roads sans guardrails.

When our family moved back to the United States, the Volvo returned with us via the Queen Elizabeth 2. The car remained a part of the family for many years. For this little daydreaming girl with fond memories of other homes and places, it acted as a constant in a changing world: a vehicle making the daily rounds in our new neighborhood, but keeping close the memories of our time in a "previous life".

The Volvo remained healthy long enough to be the very car in which I learned to drive as a teenager. Like a beloved pet, however, its days unfortunately had to come to an inevitable end. But its place in my heart has yet to be equaled by another vehicle and the memories that it evokes of my childhood remain.

Now, as an adult, I am aware of how my childhood formation in two different countries has shaped me. My results to the What American accent do you have? quiz were no surprise. The product of homes in several different geographical locations, I apparently have "no accent".

A few years ago I was struck by something that I read in Adam Gopnik's Paris to the Moon, a book about he and his fellow New Yorker wife's move to France with their young son:

It is, perhaps, a truth of expatriate children that rather than grow up with two civilizations, they grow up with less than one, unable somehow to plug in the civilization at home with the big one around. They grow up, we have noticed with other kids, achingly polite, and watchful and skilled, "adult," and guarded.

Me in a nutshell.

It seems that my experience of being a non-native speaker in a world of Swiss kindergartners has stayed with me. I am usually cautious with my words and often wondering about how the person at the other end of the conversation may be receiving them.

Growing up I sometimes felt different than most of my childhood peers in American classrooms who had never traveled out of "their own world". On the other hand, it was clear to me that I was certainly far from being Swiss. I had received the gift of living in the midst of both cultures, and they were a part of me, yet I didn't feel that I fit perfectly into either one.

The experience of living in the midst of a new language and culture during such a formative time of my life is one of the reasons that I value the study of our world and its many fascinating geographical regions, cultures, languages and histories, including that of my own family history.

I have tried to give my children this same appreciation and I am thankful that they seem to value the world and its variations as much as I do.

One of my children has qualified for the third time this year to compete at the state level of the National Geographic Bee. I am proud of her accomplishments and happy to see all of my children sharing my love for other cultures and peoples of the world.

The Hungarian-Croatian branch of my family that I have written about here at 100 Years in America has been in the United States for more than a century.

Personally, I've spent most of my life here.

Yet I have always lived with the knowledge that there is a great big world out there, and though it may sometimes seem so, America is not necessarily the center of it.

To all my friends and readers throughout the world: "Hello!" and "Grüezi!" to you from my corner of the earth to yours.

Međimurje: Meeting place of rivers and cultures

2009-11-20T06:09:00.004-05:00

This article originally appeared here at 100 Years in America on April 27, 2008. I've reposted it here in honor of Geography Awareness Week. It is also one of my favorite contributions to the Carnival of Genealogy, whose participants (including myself) have been reminiscing this week.

The land of Croatia is a crossroads. It has been since recorded history and will probably always remain so. Just look at its profile on a map: the crescent-shaped country looks as if it had been pressed at the center and pushed toward western Europe and up against the Mediterranean Sea. It has survived, packed densely with the strength and resilience of its people.

Perhaps one of the places in modern-day Croatia that has most played a role in history as a crossroads is the area from which my family emigrated. It is today's Međimurje county (Međimurska županija), an area within the Drava River basin in Croatia. Situated on the northernmost edge of Croatia, Međimurje county currently shares borders with both Slovenia and Hungary and is also very close to Austria. Its western border meets the foothills of the Alps while its eastern edge touches the Pannonian plains.

Over the centuries the area has been ruled by various different nation-states, including the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Kingdom of Hungary (it was formerly part of Hungary's Zala county), and of course most recently, Yugoslavia. The music, cuisine and even the language of the area is rich with cultural influences from its neighbors, predominantly Hungary.

Vinko Žganec, a contemporary of the well-known Bela Bartok, spent much of his life collecting and recording Croatian folk songs, including over 15,000 from the Međimurje area itself.

The crossroads of Međimurje has seen many travelers pass through, including Evliya Çelebi, the famous Ottoman traveler of the 17th century who mentioned the area in his books.

My great-grandparents Ferencz & Ilona (Bence) Ujlaki and their families were residents of the villages of Legrad and Donja Dubrava on the Eastern edge of today's Međimurje county. Today Donja Dubrava (once known as Alsódomboru) still lies in the county. Legrad was also once part of the county, but was "pushed" out to neighboring Koprivničko-križevačka county (Koprivničko-križevačka županija). The reason has an interesting story behind it.

The name Međimurje, taken from the words međi (between) and mor(j)e (sea), means "between the seas". The area is located at the confluence of the Drava and the Mura Rivers, thus it was named Međimurje.

The villages of Donja Dubrava and Legrad are very close to the actual confluence of the two rivers. On the map below you can view Donja Dubrava on the left and Legrad a little further to its southeast, across the Drava. (The Mura, not shown on the segment of the map below, lies just to the northeast.)

According to Ivan Ivan Vecenaj-Tišlarov in his book To My Homeland, "The Drava has never been timid and humble... The history of continuous changes in the Drava River course are both interesting and tragic. It has most affected the inhabitants of Legrad."

Legrad was once situated on the same side of the Drava as Donja Dubrava, but in 1710 the river changed its course after a flood and placed the village of Legrad to its south instead of its north. Since the river was considered the border, the county's border moved and as a result Legrad's legislative affiliation was changed because of natural causes. It is interesting to wonder what the residents of the time thought about the displacement of the town through this type of "divine geographic intervention".

The history of this part of the greater Podravina (Drava River basin) region in Croatia goes back to the Neolithic period (early Stone Age). Legrad itself is known for the 7th to 8th-century B.C. Thracian-Cimmerian archaeological discoveries. The Croats settled in the area shortly after the Romans: in the 7th century. Some of the first preserved written documents refering to the area where these two small villages now lie were written during the Middle Ages in 1232 about the Vizmic estate (Bistrica parish). The village of Donja Dubrava was first recorded by name in the year 1446 (as Uj Dombo).

The area was protected during the time of the Turkish invasions by the noblemen of the Croatian Zrinski family. Their success prevented the area from ever being conquered by the Turks, although surrounding areas succumbed during the 16th and 17th centuries. The Zrinski family castle and fortress, named Utvrda Novi Zrin, was a formidable sight in the 17th century to would-be invaders.

Lucic (or Lucius) and Blaeu's inclusion of the Map of Illyria below in the Atlas Maior of 1667 was dedicated to Croatian ban (viceroy or ruler) Petar Zrinski. The dedication begins as follows:

To the most illustrious and noble lord, Prince Peter of Zrin, the ban of the Kingdom of Dalmatia, Croatia and Slavonia, hereditary ban of the Littoral, hereditary captain of the Legrad fortress and Medimurje peninsula...

Legrad and its neighbor Donja Dubrava (Alsódomboru) went on to continue as an important urban market area for many centuries, with industry centered on traditional craft-making, milling, lumbering, grain farming, livestock breeding, sieving for gold, fishing, and boat and raft trade. (You can see some of the beautiful traditional basket-weaving techniques from the local area still practiced today at Gondola.hr. (These baskets can be purchased in the United States through Hubert Company.)

By the time of the births of my great-grandparents in the late 19th-century, both villages had lost somewhat of their importance as a centerpoint for trade in the area, and had settled into a more quiet existence. The early 20th-century saw a period of high emigration and both villages remain small towns today. Donja Dubrava reached its peak population in 1910 with almost 3,500 people, and today has roughly 2,300 residents. Legrad today has about 2,700 residents.

Thanks to a current resident of Legrad I have some beautiful 2008 photos to share along with my own historical photos of the home village of my great-grandparents.

Legrad's Holy Trinity Catholic Church was built around 1780 - a beautiful late-Baroque one-nave parish church. (In the year 1790, Donja Dubrava received its own parish church - St. Margaret - after branching off from the old Bistrica parish in Donji Vidovec.) Unfortunately, Legrad's church suffered damage during World War II, but still stands and remains beautiful today.

Donja Dubrava is home to several statues dated 1757, including images of the Holy Trinity and St. Mary, athough I have no photos of these to share with you at this time. The park in Legrad's center square has been graced since the early 18th-century by a group of five columns, including one dedicated to the Holy Trinity and one to St. Florian, shown below.

I'm not sure about the date of origin of Legrad's school building, but I do know that my great-grandmother attended school there as a child in the 1890s. Below are two pictures of Legrad's school, taken about a century apart.

I hope you enjoyed this short history of Legrad, Donja Dubrava and the Medimurje region of Croatia. I'll leave you with a few images of the train station from which my great-grandparents left their home village for America and of the beautiful Drava River, source of sustenance, trial and inspiration to the Croatian people for centuries.

Author's notes:
This article is based on research that I have done about the history of the Međimurje area over a number of years. In addition to the links included within it, the information in this article was based on (but not limited to) the following sources. If you have any corrections or helpful additions to Međimurje: Meeting place of rivers and cultures, please contact me.

Sources of images:

2008 photos of Legrad from resident photographer (contact the author for more information)
Historical photographs in possession of the author
Images of Peter Zrinski and Legrad's fortress from Hrvatski Povijensni Portal's Utvrda Novi Zin webpage
Map of counties of Croatia from Wikipedia's Međimurje County webpage
Map of Croatia's northernmost counties, including confluence of the Drava & Mura Rivers from Avijacija Bez Granica
Map of Illyria 1666 from Croatian History's Coat of Arms webpage

Other sources:

Croatian National Tourist Board's Legrad webpage
Croatian National Tourist Board's Prelog webpage
EKO Legrad's Povijest Legrada (in Croatian)
Ethnographic Museum Zagreb website
Hrvatska Elektroprivreda's Novo Virje Hydroelectric Power Plant Environmental Impact Study
Općine i Župe Donja Dubrava (The Municipality of the Parish of Donja Dubrava) by Zvonimir Bartolić, Dragutin Feletar, Petar Feletar, Vladimir Horvat, Ladislav Kranjec, Hrvoje Petrić, published by Meridijani, 2007. (English introduction)
Triplex Confinium's Drava Valley Multiple Borderlands
Wikipedia's Koprivnica-Križevci County webpage
Wikipedia's Međimurje County webpage

This article was written for the 47th editon of the Carnival of Genealogy hosted by Jasia of Creative Gene. The topic, "A Place Called Home", focuses on the hometowns of our ancestors. Stop by for some other looks at the significant places in the stories of family historians like myself.

"The waves' rippling song": South Beach, Staten Island

2009-11-18T17:18:00.002-05:00

This article originally appeared here at 100 Years in America on June 1, 2008. I've reposted it here in honor of Geography Awareness Week. It is also one of my favorite contributions to the Carnival of Genealogy, whose participants (including myself) have been reminiscing this week.

The move to Staten Island's South Beach in 1921 must have felt a little bit like going home to Frank and Helen Ujlaky. Emigrating from Hungary more than twelve years earlier, they had settled in the Hungarian district of Manhattan, a bustling, busy, crowded part of the city. It was a far cry from their rural home village of Legrad, where the Drava and Mura Rivers flowed past family farms and vineyards.

In 1921, Frank resettled his family across the bay to Staten Island's South Beach. (On the 1941 map below, you can find South Beach just under the easternmost point of Staten Island.)

Frank built his family's new home on Nugent Avenue, putting up the frame and doing much of the work himself.

The house still stands today.

At the time of their move to South Beach in 1921, the children of the Ujlaky family included five siblings. The youngest, a baby brother, would be born into the family later that year. Kas was the first of Helen's children to be born in a hospital. (Helen told her grown daughters years later that she much prefered birthing her babies at home.)

After the family's move to South Beach, Frank's work continued in Manhattan. For many years his long work days included ferry rides across the bay and then an additional part of the commute to Upper Manhattan. According to one of his daughters he once fell asleep on his way home after a long day's work and missed his opportunity to get off the ferry!

Life on Staten Island was good for the Ujlaky family in the decade prior to the Great Depression. They had a new home, Frank had steady work, and the children were growing up. Before the move from Manhattan, Frank had received his Certificate of Naturalization. He (and his wife by default) were officially United States citizens.

In the 1920s, South Beach was still a fairly rural area, although Staten Island had been incorporated into New York City in 1898 along with the other three outlying boroughs of the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn. (Staten Island was officially the Borough of Richmond until its name was changed to the Borough of Staten Island in 1975.)

The Ujlaky family owned a horse at one point and enjoyed recreation at the nearby beach for many years, including fun at the amusement rides that dotted the island.

Here are a few photos of family and friends enjoying time at the beach a decade later in 1936.

Ethel Ujlaky, Mary Kis and Helene Ujlaky

(I'm not sure of the identity of the young woman at the left)

Ethel Ujlaky with Mary Kis

Staten Island is no longer the rural arm of New York City that it was in the early 20th-century. Much of the world that the Ujlaky children enjoyed has changed.

Construction on the famous Verrazano-Narrows Bridge began in 1959 and was completed in 1964, providing easy access to Manhattan. (Until 1981, it was the longest suspension bridge in the world.) The amusement rides that the Ujlaky children knew no longer flourish at South Beach. There is, however, a current drive to bring them back and restore South Beach to its former self as a center of family fun.

Visitors today may have difficulty visualizing Staten Island the way that Frank and Helen Ujlaky saw it when they first brought their family to live in South Beach back in 1921, or when thirty years earlier, a Staten Island native named William T. Davis wrote a poetic tribute to the island:

In Memory of Staten Island

~ William Thompson Davis, 1892

How pleasant were the green woods
and the fields where we did stray,

Where grey the thorny cactus
and the sunflower spread its ray;

Where we sat beneath the tree
and watched the quiet blue Kill

And the haze softly settling
o'er the distant Jersey hill;

We saw the diamonds sparkle
on the little rippling waves,

Purely did they sparkle
and brightly shone their rays.

I see then now they glitter
though the warm sunshine is gone,

And I hear the gentle murmur -
'tis the waves' rippling song.

On the wall the ivy climbed,
so dark and so green,

And with the bending goldenrod
twined the purple bean.

We saw a chipmunk running
o'er the dead and rustling leaves,

And we heard a constant buzzing -
'twas the buzzing of the bees.

Sang a bunting low and sadly
in the old orchard tree,

He sang so faint and sadly
and his song was sweet to me.

I hear him now a-singing,
though warm sunshine is gone,

And I hear that gentle murmur -
'tis the waves' rippling song.

For more on Staten Island, see The New York Public Library's Staten Island Bibliography 1821-2004.
You might also enjoy viewing the New York Public Library's Digital Image Gallery collection of South Beach, Staten Island postcard images. Included are some great images of local landmarks and fashionable "bathing costumes" of days gone by.

Sources of images:

Staten Island map, circa 1941, from Rootsweb's A Brief History of Richmond County, Staten Island
Photos of Nugent Avenue home and Ujlaky family and friends in possession of the author

Other sources:

"In Memory of Staten Island" from Days Afield on Staten Island by William Thompson Davis, 1892, 3rd printing 1937, reprinted 1994 by Staten Island Institute of Arts & Sciences

Geography Awareness Week: From Eastern Europe to NYC

2009-11-17T09:46:00.008-05:00

In honor of Geography Awareness Week, I encourage you to make a visit to the series I posted last year at this time. I took a little visit (by way of online quizzes) to the parts of Eastern Europe that my 100 Years in America ancestors' hail from, and then flew back to New York for a final geography stop there.

Though you might think you know a little bit about these parts of the world, you'll probably be surprised at what you don't know. Best of luck to you on the quizzes and happy Geography Awareness Week!

"Cousins in genealogy", the COG and me

2009-11-15T08:46:00.066-05:00

When I first began my journey into the world of the family history blog I envisioned the fruition of something I had been hoping to see for a long time: the connection of my extended family. Reaching across various branches of my family tree, state and country borders, and numerous generations (at least those generations who visited the internet), my family history blogs would, I hoped, be an avenue where I could finally easily share what I had learned and was continuing to learn about our family's amazing story. Siblings, nieces, nephews, cousins (first, second, third, etc.), aunts, uncles, and on and on - I hoped they would all read my blogs and get to know the fascinating lives of our ancestors as I had begun to.

I do have a nice group of loyal readers within various branches of my family, and have enjoyed connecting with some previously unknown cousins thanks to blogging. However, it didn't take long for me to realize that the majority of my extended family was not waiting daily with bated breath for the next blog article from me.

During those very early days of blogging, when I was trying to sort out my purpose in writing (along with the mechanics of putting it all online) and connect with readers, I was encouraged by the great camaraderie that I found with other family history bloggers. A few bloggers in particular found me online (or I found them) and we shared comments, emails and support. It was very heartening to this family historian taking my first steps into the blogosphere to know that there were others out there also - writing their own blogs and taking the time to read mine.

Two of those bloggers that were very helpful to me in the beginning as online mentors were Jasia of Creative Gene and Thomas MacEntee of Destination Austin Family. Each was always willing to patiently answer this newbie's technical questions, taking the time to ease my transition into the blogosphere. (Now thanks to the expertise Thomas shares at Bootcamp for Genea-Bloggers and GeneaBloggers, we all have open access to his step-by-step tutorials without having to bug him via email. Thanks, Thomas!)

Besides their technical help, both Thomas and Jasia provided me with encouragement to write more (and continue to connect with other bloggers) thanks to their involvement with carnivals. Who can forget the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories (2007) that they both dreamed up? Thomas took us on a fast and furious writing adventure throughout that year's Advent season. I wrote more than I ever could have imagined writing about the traditions of my ancestors' Christmases past on all three of my blogs (here at 100 Years in America, here at Small-leaved Shamrock, and here at A light that shines again) and I was exhausted. I couldn't imagine how Thomas felt after being the host and also contributing articles. I'm sure he enjoyed his rest that Christmas.

In terms of carnivals, however, no genealogy carnival has yet come close to topping what Jasia has accomplished through the Carnival of Genealogy (otherwise known as The COG). As a blog carnival host myself for the Carnival of Irish Heritage & Culture (now two years old and sixteen editions strong), I am in awe when I think of the quantity of carnival editions that Jasia has written as host of the Carnival of Genealogy (now three and a half years old and eighty-three editions strong!). Each edition that she has dreamed up, publicized, organized and written has taken much of her time - and it is has all been done gratis, just pure gift for all those of us contributing and reading.

A very special thank-you to Jasia for the "blogging marathon" that she has run (and continues to run) with her wonderful Carnival of Genealogy. I was very happy to take the baton from her once and run with it to allow her to catch her breath (Carnival of Genealogy, 52nd edition on "Age") and would be very happy to do so again. Please know, Jasia, that your readers and writers appreciate your work very much.

To all of you that I have connected with over the past few years through the COG and through other avenues in the genealogy branch of the blogosphere, thanks for writing your blogs, reading a little of what I've written, and taking the time to connect so that we could encourage one another. I truly consider you "cousins in genealogy".

If you'd like to read my own submissions to various Carnival of Genealogy editions, you can visit them here at 100 Years in America, here at Small-leaved Shamrock and here at A light that shines again. I'll be reposting a few of my favorites this week in honor of the COG and of Geography Awareness Week. You can read them here:

"The waves' rippling song": South Beach, Staten Island
Međimurje: Meeting place of rivers and cultures
The view from my corner of the world

This story has been submitted as part of the 83rd edition of the Carnival of Genealogy. The topic is "What the COG means to me". Visit Jasia's Creative Gene for the carnival.

The image of the Oak tree in winter is circa 1840's. You can view similar historic images from the Fox Talbot Museum at http://foxtalbot.dmu.ac.uk/resources/photo.html.

Shades of wonderful

2009-11-12T14:29:00.011-05:00

Though I'm busy taking care of my new baby, I couldn't resist taking the time to share the news about footnoteMaven's new baby: Shades of the Departed - The Magazine.

If you are a fan of her Shades of the Departed or footnoteMaven blogs, or are unaware of those but interested in old photographs and/or the past in general, take the time to visit her new online magazine. As she states in the introduction, she and her fellow writers have "combined the fascination of old images with new technology". She's taken the look of a printed magazine about vintage photography (and topics related to using those images today), and has made it all readable entrirely online.

Voila!

A beautiful collaboration by footnoteMaven and some of my other favorite writers, Shades magazine is a masterfully designed work that is a great place to spend some time. It is a treasure trove of good ideas and information - I greatly look forward to digging into reading more of it and also to seeing what's in store in future editions.

Congratulations to footnoteMaven and friends on the beginning of a marvelous new work!

Announcing the smallest leaf on my family tree...

2009-08-19T09:10:00.014-04:00

Regular readers of 100 Years in America and my other blogs have surely noticed that new posts from me have been few and far between for awhile now. In fact, I have recently had a fellow blogger write to confirm whether or not I had fallen off the edge of the earth, as she had assumed, since I have been absent from the blogosphere lately.

I am happy to let you know that I am alive and well and finally ready to announce to you the "project" that I have been working on for much of this past year: a beautiful baby boy, the newest addition to our family tree!

Needless to say he takes up much of my time (day and night) and energy (how needy we are when we begin life in this world!), but I am loving every moment of my time with him during his soon-to-be-fleeting babyhood, as is the rest of the family. We are in awe of him as we watch him develop day by day. In fact, we are constantly studying him to see if we can discover who he most resembles and whose personality he might take after.

With my interest in family history, my wondering goes even further back than the immediate generations previous. Along these lines, I enjoyed reading this poem written by Lucy Maud Montgomery about the mystery of the birthright given to the newborn baby by all of the family members who lived before him:

Genius

A hundred generations

have gone into its making,

With all their love and tenderness,

with all their dreams and tears;

Their vanished joy and pleasure,

their pain and their heart-breaking,

Have colored this rare blossom

of the long-unfruitful years.

Their victory and their laughter

for this have strong men given,

For this have sweet, dead women

paid in patience which survives;

That a great soul might bring the world,

as from the gate of heaven,

All that was rich and beautiful

in those forgotten lives.

~ Lucy Maud Montgomery

As I've written before,

A newborn babe brings
light to the house,
warmth to the hearth,
and joy to the soul,
for wealth is family,
family is wealth.

~ Irish Proverb

Our new little boy has brought light, warmth and joy to our home this year. We are truly rich beyond measure!

Thanks to my regular readers that have been checking here and there to see whether or not I had emerged from hiding. I'm not sure when I will get back up to my previous level of activity in the blogosphere, but it will only be a matter of time, I'm sure. After all, now I have another member of the family to which I must pass on all of the wonderful family history that we share!

100 Years in America the Beautiful

2009-06-30T22:40:00.005-04:00

With great appreciation to Katharine Lee Bates who penned the beloved song America, The Beautiful in 1913.

O beautiful for spacious skies
that welcomed all my kin
who crossed the seas with hopeful dreams
they carried deep within.
America! America! God shed His grace on thee
and bless the modern progeny
within our family tree!

Hungarians with Slavic roots
who left for better lives.
The poor and starving Irishmen
just hoping to survive.
America! America! God shed His grace on thee
and bless the modern progeny
within our family tree!

Ujlakis, Toths and Nemeths, too,
left native Hungary;
remaining there: the Bence branch,
Globleks and clan Nagy*.
America! America! God shed His grace on thee
and bless the modern progeny
within our family tree!

Some Irish folk left earliest:
the famous Cowhey clan.
Seeking success some helped define
the classic “railroad man”.

Donnelly, Foley and Graham, too,
these families joined in
to bring to Pennsylvania
the ways of Irishmen.

America! America! God shed His grace on thee
and bless the modern progeny
within our family tree!

Still others fled from misery.
The famine times were hard
for Tierney, Rogers and McCue.
They sought new lives, though scarred.
America! America! God shed His grace on thee
and bless the modern progeny
within our family tree!

O beautiful immigrant dream
we see after these years
have come and gone. Many good-byes
have brought our eyes to tears.
America! America! Thank God for those brave souls
who crossed the sea to make us free –
they’ve made our country whole!

* The American pronunciation is nah-jee, although Hungarians pronounce this surname more like nuhj.

Thanks to Bill West of West in New England for the inspiration to write this little ditty.

Two years for 100 Years in America!

2009-06-02T04:58:00.012-04:00

Two years ago today I took my first footsteps into the blogging world here with the inaugural post at 100 Years in America and over at Small-leaved Shamrock followed the next day by the small beginnings of another blog, A light that shines again. These projects have been and continue to be a joy for me. They have forced me to continue work on family history projects within various branches of my family, have enabled me to get into contact with new-found family members, and have given me the chance to "meet" fellow researchers and writers doing similar work through the online world of "geneablogging".

A heartfelt thanks to all of those that have read, commented, offered research assistance, or otherwise supported my efforts here at 100 Years in America and at my other online "homes". As is inevitable, life has gotten in the way of blogging for me recently, but I hope to be back full force at some point after taking things a little slowly here for awhile.

If you'd like to read some of my favorite articles in the archives, take some time to visit The best of 2008: 100 Years in America iGene Awards. You might also enjoy stopping by Happy Anniversary, 100 Years in America! for a summary of the best of my first year of blogging.

One of the reasons that I began working to share my family history online two years ago (long before I hit retirement age) is because I know that life is short and I hope to make the most of the time I have to enjoy, while at the same time sharing with younger generations the wonderful stories that have become a part of our personal family history and the collective history of our world. The knowledge that I have gained about the lives of my ancestors and the times and worlds they lived in has truly made me a more well-rounded and understanding person, and I hope the same will be true for all those who read their stories here at 100 Years in America.

As Elisabeth Kübler-Ross stated,

"It is only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on earth and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up that we will begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it were the only one we had."

This branch of my family has only had a short one-hundred years here in America. Chances are that I'll personally have less than that. (Unless I break the longevity record in my family!)

Here's celebrating two years of 100 Years in America and looking forward to many more years to come!

Wordless Wednesday: The pride of Croatia

2009-05-20T02:46:00.005-04:00

Ivic's painting of the young girl sewing a Croatian flag thanks to the Croatian History website's Croatian Coat of Arms During the Centuries. The painting was originally published on the cover of "Hrvatska žena, grana br. 1, Chicago, 1929-2009; Croatian Woman, branch #1, Chicago, 80th Anniversary" (see Ante Čuvalo's blog).

Wordless Wednesday: Trenton, New Jersey Post Office, c. 1909

2009-05-13T18:53:00.005-04:00

Could this have been the building from which Steven Toth sent letters to his wife and family giving them information about his new life in America?

Did he write? If so, how often? He missed the birth of his second child. Her birth record lists him in "Trenton, Amerika". Was this because he didn't get his wife's letter in time?

Image courtesy of Mercer County, New Jersey Vintage Postcards.

South Beach watchdogs c. 1925

2009-05-10T22:15:00.016-04:00

Vedra and Scotty, canine guards of the Ujlaki house at

43 Nugent Avenue, South Beach, Staten Island, c. 1925

What The Dog Perhaps Hears

by Pulitzer Prize-Winning Poet Lisel Mueller

If an inaudible whistle
blown between our lips
can send him home to us,
then silence is perhaps
the sound of spiders breathing
and roots mining the earth;
it may be asparagus heaving,
headfirst, into the light
and the long brown sound
of cracked cups, when it happens.
We would like to ask the dog
if there is a continuous whir
because the child in the house
keeps growing, if the snake
really stretches full length
without a click and the sun
breaks through clouds without
a decibel of effort,
whether in autumn, when the trees
dry up their wells, there isn't a shudder
too high for us to hear.

What is it like up there
above the shut-off level
of our simple ears?
For us there was no birth cry,
the newborn bird is suddenly here,
the egg broken, the nest alive,
and we heard nothing when the world changed.

Lisel Mueller's poem is from the collection The need to hold still published by Louisiana University Press, 1980.

For more animal photographs visit the 13th Edition of footnoteMaven's Smile For The Camera Carnival whose theme is "All Creatures Great and Small".

In search of Stefan/Stephanus/Stjepan S.

2009-05-06T07:02:00.007-04:00

Browsing through the family documents that I've collected over the years I made an interesting and timely discovery. You may have read about the discoveries that I made back in February regarding my great-grandfather's trip to America thanks to a little help from some friends who discovered the passenger lists. (Ferencz Ujlaki and the trip he didn't take can be found in Part 1 and Part 2.)

One fact about Ferencz Ujlaki's trip that has stumped me is his specific intended destination in America. Listed as bound for New York, New York, both passenger lists (the one for the ship he first got on, and the one for the trip he actually took) indicate what appears to be the same friend's name and address as his intended destination.

Now, going through the copies I made of the Matična knjiga (Croatian for church records) that I found a few years back thanks to microfilm from my local Family History Library, I revisited Ferencz's birth registry. Born on March 17, 1879, Ferencz's parents' names are listed on the registry along with his godparents'. What a surprise to find that his godfather's name (listed in its Latin form because it is appearing in a Catholic church registry), is: Stephanus Štefić.

This name is very similar to the name of the man on both passenger lists of 1906. It is too unusual a coincidence and makes me wonder if this could be the same man.

According to the family story, Ferencz had grown up the only child of aged parents, his father blind. Could his godfather have taken a special interest in him throughout his life and could he have been the one to encourage him to set out for America to start a new life?

According to the Hrvatski Telekom (Croatian White Pages), there are many Štefić families still living in the area where my Ujlaki family hails from, particularly the village of Donja Dubrava. There is even currently a Štefić Stjepan living in the village, whose name may be spelled the way my Stephanus Štefić spelled his (outside of "Latinized" parish records, that is - Stjepan is the Croatian spelling of Stephen).

Now my next step is to do a little research on this new mystery man with a link to my family - to determine his history in Ferencz Ujlaki's home village, if possible, and to find his whereabouts in the United States, more specifically in New York City, where it appears my great-grandfather joined him upon his arrival as a brand new American immigrant in 1906.