Karol Hatvani, my father's father
(in his earlier years also used spelling of Károly Hatvany and Hatvanyi).
Born 15. 10. 1879 in Šaľa nad Váhom, died July, 1963 in Bratislava, grave in Bratislava-Rača (the grave was desecrated and demolished in about 2016). Father Franciscus Hatvanyi (1849-16. 4.1884), mother Rosalia Oláhová (born 4. 9. 1854, nickname Pištáková, her parents were Stephanus Olah, 1822-1879, and Anna Ferenczei, 1831-??). Siblings (by Franciscus Hatvani): Theresia, born 12. 10. 1876, and Joannes (János), born 21. 5. 1882.
When widowed, Rosalia married František Viczena (or Vicena) and thus Karol had one stepbrother and one stepsister, František and Júlia, who lived in Kotešová (near Zilina). Pictured below is his stepbrother František with his wife (?):
The stepbrother had two sons, František and Ján, shown below on a 'photo taken (about) 1915:
Text on the obverse starts with the words "Dear little brother, etc."
Note: during my last visit at my sister's place in Prague, I mentioned that my sister's 2nd husband was born and lived in the same village. While his mother was still alive at the time, could they please ask her if she knew this František Viczena. Both, my sister and her husband, despite traveling to Kotesova frequently, refused point-blank to ask "such frivolous question"!
Wife Júlia née Maczki, they were married in Šaľa n. V. on 18th of September 1905.
+1920.JPG)
And this is him at the age of (about) 75 (I don't remember seeing one grey hair on him!):
I managed to find baptismal records with his name (Carolus, with Latin being the official language at the time):
A slim, about 182cm tall man, with prominent nose, brownish soft hair (with hardly any grey in it), darkish, weathered complexion. Ethnically speaking a good hungarian/rumanian/turkish type (except for his somewhat darker complexion I do not see any "gypsiness" in his features). With somewhat impaired hearing in his late years. Fond of using dialect words from his childhood years spent in and around Šala nad Vahom (masso, erdekbaba, lichva, kubina, bicsak, csiriz, burgandia, etc.).
As was the custom at the time, railwaymen were provided with houses along the track plus various bits of nearby wasteland for use. My grandfather kept a pair of cows, pigs, chooks, ducks, rabbits, beehives, and along the nearby fish pond of Halatka (full of some 10 different kinds of fish, mainly pike, perch, carp, whiting, plus some water fowl) he used some 300x100 metres strip of rather poor land (topsoil having been scratched off during construction of the abutting railway embankment leaving hard soil full of gravel brought seasonally from the Alps by the nearby Danube river until it was regulated some 100 years previously) to grow whatever was needed, mostly potatoes, corn, beans, beet, peas, carrots, strawberries, sunflowers, poppies. Except for perhaps salt, sugar, flour, some spices, etc., their household was self-sufficient as far as food was concerned.
His own father having died of pneumonia at the age of 24 (an uncorroborated info only!), his mother (nee Oláhová, also known as Pištáková) married a man from around Piešt'any named František Viczena. His stepbrother, also called František Viczena, worked at a railway station Kotešová, near Zilina (with two sons, Ferko and Janko, see above). In his youth he used to be called Pišták and Deutsch, the latter after some relatives or namesakes (the names Oláh and Hatvani at the time being rather common around Šaľa nad Váhom and nicknames were used to distinguish between them).
He was an all-round capable man despite only some 3 or 4 years of primary education (winter classes only!). Spoke Slovakian and Hungarian fluently (although his wife said that he acquired his Hungarian only in the school and was never 'a natural'), and, since he spent 4 years in the Austrian army he must have spoken German as well.
His daughter Ružen recalls him talking fondly of his army years and that he entertained the idea of remaining in the army for life. I visited Korneuburg in 2008 where he spent most of the 4 years and found the old army barracks just being rebuilt into apartments.
Keen reader of books in all these languages, also in the Czech language, and keen to discuss any subject. In my judgment then he was a bit opinionated (Ružen, his daughter, adds he was pig-headed, and short tempered as well), and politically leaning to the left, as was the tradition among the public personnel in general and the railway community in particular. He welcomed the communist 'putsch' in Czechoslovakia in 1948, even bought several volumes of Stalin's memoirs, and was an avid reader and armchair commentator of Pravda daily newspaper stories (which, in my opinion, was mostly propaganda, lies and distortions to show the so-called socialism in good light). We had quite a few heated arguments on various political themes. Physically always healthy except for a spot of arthritis in his left knee in his later years, and rather proud of the broken arm he suffered falling from a tree when he was in his mid-seventies.
He died in 1963 a few weeks after collapsing of sunstroke he suffered when cutting grass with a scythe on a sunny day (he had a history of sunstrokes). As I was leaving him on my last visit in hospital where he died two weeks later, he shook my hand saying "Just in case we don't see each other again"; that handshake I feel whenever I think of him, as I can see his eyes at that moment. As I was leaving, I looked back. He turned his head towards me, and our eyes met, but after a second, he looked away. That was the last time I saw him. At his funeral his coffin was opened, and he lied in it exactly as I saw him in hospital. This time his head did not turn, and our eyes did not meet, but I keep seeing them forever...
He did not have a very high opinion of me as I was a bit of a tearaway in my young days (I lived with them, my paternal grandparents, since I was about 6), and he did not believe that I really acquired a pilot's license at the age of 18, or that I landed a job as an air traffic controller at the age of 24, in 1960. I invited him many times to come and see me at the nearby aero club, or at the nearby international airport where I was working, but he declined - he thought I was pulling his leg, I believe. Aviation in those days used to be held in a fairly high regard.....
His older son Štefan, born 1906, a steam engine driver, was killed in 1931 by hitting a power pole with his head while leaning out of the window of his steam locomotive. As a child I once demolished a beautiful large wooden model of a biplane built by him (he served his army service at the airfield in Nitra as an aircraft mechanic).
His older daughter, Helena (1908-1992), was a somewhat solitary and strict person, parsimonious, extremely intelligent and able (for many years she worked as the managing director's secretary in the nearby Dynamit Nobel chemical factory), and was ashamed of her – as she thought – humble origins, according to her younger sister Ruzen; during the second world war the German managers (Köpke, Ilgren) used to pick her up from our place in company cars, for she was famous for always being late). Spoke Slovakian, Hungarian and German fluently, later acquired some English as well. I liked her; we went for many a walk together while she lived with us until about 1949. Married to an ex-british army soldier Fero Lepiš (a Bat’a salesman in Northern Africa to 1939, a soldier in the British Army during the second WW, after 1950 a factory plumber in Bratislava), they had one daughter, Dana, who married Jan Hergott, with whom she had a daughter, Zuzana and son Jan. Zuzana spent some 9 months with us in Australia in 1992-3 in order to acquire English. She is married to Branislav Galba, has 2 sons and lives in Bratislava-Vajnory. I am still in contact with her; our older son, with his family, spent a few days with her and her family in Bratislava in 2018.
His younger daughter Ružen (1920-2010), a very pretty and gentle woman, has never married and lived with her parents. When asked why she never married she replied that she was not interested in constant cleaning after some man. She was highly intelligent, fluent in Slovakian, Hungarian and German, and good in Czech language. Worked as an insurance assessor all her life. My daughter Janet looks and behaves a lot like her, including the left-handedness, the only one in our entire family.
According to Ružen: his mother, called in her 2nd marriage Rozália Vicenová (but called by everybody Rozanenna) lived with him in the railway house at Dynamitová Továrna station. She was on very good terms with everybody, especially with her daughter-in-law. She liked sitting in the garden and watching the stars and the moon. She died early in 1931.
Children Štefan, František (also used Karol), Helena (Helen) and Rozália (Ružen).
This is him at the age of (about) 50:
+1920.JPG)
I managed to find baptismal records with his name (Carolus, with Latin being the official language at the time):
Also, I managed to trace his father, Franciscus, to a Hungarian town of Kiskunfélegyháza (not verified as yet!). The same Franciscus Hatvani, with his wife Rosalia Oláh, had two more children in Šaľa nad Váhom: Theresia, born 12. 10. 1876, and Joannes (János?), born 21. 5. 1882. I have never heard their names mentioned in the family. I heard several times that my grandfathers' father has died at the time my grandfather was born, yet, as the record has it, he had another child 3 years later - compare with the family lore below, that his father died at the age of 24.
Grandfather's mother Rosalia Oláh (b. 1861, d. 1. 3. 1936), a gypsy, I traced back to about 1780, via her father Martinus Oláh (a shepherd) & his father Ignatius Oláh, all gypsies (also, not verified!). According to Ružen (Karol's daughter) various gypsies (considered a "low life" at the time for their habit of living on the edge of the society) from Šaľa nad Váhom used to come from time to time and pay him a visit at the railway station Bratislava-Dynamitova tovarna where he lived and worked.
By the way, Hungary (including parts of south Slovakia), Yugoslavia, Romania, etc. were under Turkish (= moslem) occupation up to (about) 1690, ref. Battle of Zenta, during which occupation the local indigenous populations were almost completely destroyed (= murdered). The baptismal and other record were not kept in those days (unless by Turkish administrators - some research in Turkey would be useful but most likely futile), not until about one hundred years later, when the population of those lands became sufficiently replenished by people from all corners of the Austrian Empire.
During middle ages people used to be known by their first name with some additional descriptions, for instance John from the hill; George from the estate, etc. Eventually the need for official surnames arose and became gradually required by law. In Hungary, in line with the local language, many surnames were created by adding an "i" at the end of the person's origin. Thus a person from Buda would become Budai, a person from Pest would become Pesti and in our case, a person from Hatvan would become Hatvani. That is my deduction of the surname Hatvani occurring in and around Kiskunfélegyháza: the Hatvanis there probably came from the area of Hatvan in order to colonise the lands vacated by the previous inhabitants, the Kumans, a Tatar/Mongolian tribe (-kun- in the place name signifies Kuman; Kiskunfélegyháza translation is Small - Kuman- half?-village). What they were called back in Hatvan is lost in the mists of time, as the saying goes...
A railway man all his working life, he started with a pick and a shovel when he was about 15. He spent about 4 years as a ‘sapper’ (a person involved in the railway track construction) in the Austrian army at Korneŭburg. I wish I could hear his stories relating to the pictures below, for he certainly lived in these barracks (the only such at Korneŭburg), and he could be one of the persons on the railway bridge being constructed:
Despite living with him all my childhood untile he died when I was 27yo, I've never heard from him a word about his life in the Austrian army and in Austria in general.
Despite living with him all my childhood untile he died when I was 27yo, I've never heard from him a word about his life in the Austrian army and in Austria in general.
After 1904 he lived with his new wife in a railway house near Diakovce before moving to Bratislava sometime before 1908.
In the picture above (taken no later than 1918) he is standing in the middle at home in Dynamitová Továrna railway station with his children (Štefan, second from right, Helena, second from left and František, the youngest in the front, my father), his wife Julia and friends. Old man on the left is a jewish cattle merchant Weisfeiler, the girl in white shirt is Malči (Malvina?) Pošvárová, the girl in the front with buttons is called Mária Brantner, her brother Nándor Brantner is in the Austrian soldier uniform.
Štefan is shown in the pictures marked with an arrow. The year was 1928, location (probably) Nitra airfield:
Karol Hatvani worked in Bratislava on the 'odbočka' near Rendez as a points operator, then at a railway station called Dynamitová Továren, intimately familiar with all railwaymen, railway stations and marshalling yards in and around Bratislava. This is him, standing at the steps of the steam engine:
My earliest memories of him are in his railway house at Dynamitka station near Bratislava, working as a shuntman and signalman until his retirement in 1940, when he moved with his wife and two unmarried daughters to a newly purchased house on 794 Račišdorfská (now called Račianska) ulica, Bratislava. The house was demolished in 1962 to make way for a tramline.
As was the custom at the time, railwaymen were provided with houses along the track plus various bits of nearby wasteland for use. My grandfather kept a pair of cows, pigs, chooks, ducks, rabbits, beehives, and along the nearby fish pond of Halatka (full of some 10 different kinds of fish, mainly pike, perch, carp, whiting, plus some water fowl) he used some 300x100 metres strip of rather poor land (topsoil having been scratched off during construction of the abutting railway embankment leaving hard soil full of gravel brought seasonally from the Alps by the nearby Danube river until it was regulated some 100 years previously) to grow whatever was needed, mostly potatoes, corn, beans, beet, peas, carrots, strawberries, sunflowers, poppies. Except for perhaps salt, sugar, flour, some spices, etc., their household was self-sufficient as far as food was concerned.
His own father having died of pneumonia at the age of 24 (an uncorroborated info only!), his mother (nee Oláhová, also known as Pištáková) married a man from around Piešt'any named František Viczena. His stepbrother, also called František Viczena, worked at a railway station Kotešová, near Zilina (with two sons, Ferko and Janko, see above). In his youth he used to be called Pišták and Deutsch, the latter after some relatives or namesakes (the names Oláh and Hatvani at the time being rather common around Šaľa nad Váhom and nicknames were used to distinguish between them).
He was an all-round capable man despite only some 3 or 4 years of primary education (winter classes only!). Spoke Slovakian and Hungarian fluently (although his wife said that he acquired his Hungarian only in the school and was never 'a natural'), and, since he spent 4 years in the Austrian army he must have spoken German as well.
His daughter Ružen recalls him talking fondly of his army years and that he entertained the idea of remaining in the army for life. I visited Korneuburg in 2008 where he spent most of the 4 years and found the old army barracks just being rebuilt into apartments.
He used to make wine from whatever was available, mainly from grapes, but also from rosehips, redcurrants, even from stale bread. On one occasion, with my father they tried to distil some alcohol from the abundance of plums in our garden. I used to like the wine he produced, but not the distillate.
Keen reader of books in all these languages, also in the Czech language, and keen to discuss any subject. In my judgment then he was a bit opinionated (Ružen, his daughter, adds he was pig-headed, and short tempered as well), and politically leaning to the left, as was the tradition among the public personnel in general and the railway community in particular. He welcomed the communist 'putsch' in Czechoslovakia in 1948, even bought several volumes of Stalin's memoirs, and was an avid reader and armchair commentator of Pravda daily newspaper stories (which, in my opinion, was mostly propaganda, lies and distortions to show the so-called socialism in good light). We had quite a few heated arguments on various political themes. Physically always healthy except for a spot of arthritis in his left knee in his later years, and rather proud of the broken arm he suffered falling from a tree when he was in his mid-seventies.
Having lived in the Austro-Hungarian empire for some 40 years he was well qualified to compare it with the Czechoslovakian republic: he used to say that the Empire was much better place to live than the Republic. He blamed the "shit-stirrers", such as T. G. Masaryk, M. R. Štefánik, Beneš and others for creating political disturbances that eventually led to its collapse. Of Bratislava he used to say that it should have remained part of Vienna, instead of being incorporated in the new Republic.
One memory I am quite fond of, for it vividly illustrates our differences (of this memory I was reminded of by his daughter Ružen, my beloved aunt). It came about thus: on the wall there was a picture of an angry hungarian shepherd, riding on a horseback:
On the occassion, as related to me by Ružen, he remarked dreamily, in my presence: "When he hits something with his whip...!" It meant that when that shepherd is angry, and when he hits somebody/some animal with his whip, it would hurt something monumentally. I, all of about 14 years old, asked : "Why should he hit somebody/something, when he is angry?". "Well, when he is angry he hits somebody/something, that's why!". "But, but, why?" "Oh, go to hell, you knownothing, understandnothing boy", was his exasperated answer. It was his hungarian hot blood speaking from him...
Popular among his fellow railwaymen (Volny, Pobiecky) who used to visit us frequently long after he retired, and also popular among all neighbours. His skills used to be called on by various neighbours during the pig slaughtering season, cow calving and such. Although not a great speaker himself he liked a good yarn. A strong smoker of cigarettes, and fond of an occasional tipple of slivovica or borovička (= plum brandy or gin). I have never seen him drunk or even tipsy, though. Ružen says he used to drink much more in his earlier years.
I think of him often when my children bring me on occasions a bottle of some good alcohol, whisky, gin, for I have never done it while I was living with him. I have never ever bought a bottle of something to him, or my father, or some other male member of my family, regardless how much I liked them. I never bought a box of chocolates, or a bunch of flowers to any of my female relatives, to my eternal regrets. Alas, it can't be undone; thank you, my beloved children and your children, for not being like myself in this regard, thank you a million times!!!
I think of him often when my children bring me on occasions a bottle of some good alcohol, whisky, gin, for I have never done it while I was living with him. I have never ever bought a bottle of something to him, or my father, or some other male member of my family, regardless how much I liked them. I never bought a box of chocolates, or a bunch of flowers to any of my female relatives, to my eternal regrets. Alas, it can't be undone; thank you, my beloved children and your children, for not being like myself in this regard, thank you a million times!!!
He died in 1963 a few weeks after collapsing of sunstroke he suffered when cutting grass with a scythe on a sunny day (he had a history of sunstrokes). As I was leaving him on my last visit in hospital where he died two weeks later, he shook my hand saying "Just in case we don't see each other again"; that handshake I feel whenever I think of him, as I can see his eyes at that moment. As I was leaving, I looked back. He turned his head towards me, and our eyes met, but after a second, he looked away. That was the last time I saw him. At his funeral his coffin was opened, and he lied in it exactly as I saw him in hospital. This time his head did not turn, and our eyes did not meet, but I keep seeing them forever...
He did not have a very high opinion of me as I was a bit of a tearaway in my young days (I lived with them, my paternal grandparents, since I was about 6), and he did not believe that I really acquired a pilot's license at the age of 18, or that I landed a job as an air traffic controller at the age of 24, in 1960. I invited him many times to come and see me at the nearby aero club, or at the nearby international airport where I was working, but he declined - he thought I was pulling his leg, I believe. Aviation in those days used to be held in a fairly high regard.....
His older son Štefan, born 1906, a steam engine driver, was killed in 1931 by hitting a power pole with his head while leaning out of the window of his steam locomotive. As a child I once demolished a beautiful large wooden model of a biplane built by him (he served his army service at the airfield in Nitra as an aircraft mechanic).
His younger son, František (1911-1996), my father - see separate blog
His older daughter, Helena (1908-1992), was a somewhat solitary and strict person, parsimonious, extremely intelligent and able (for many years she worked as the managing director's secretary in the nearby Dynamit Nobel chemical factory), and was ashamed of her – as she thought – humble origins, according to her younger sister Ruzen; during the second world war the German managers (Köpke, Ilgren) used to pick her up from our place in company cars, for she was famous for always being late). Spoke Slovakian, Hungarian and German fluently, later acquired some English as well. I liked her; we went for many a walk together while she lived with us until about 1949. Married to an ex-british army soldier Fero Lepiš (a Bat’a salesman in Northern Africa to 1939, a soldier in the British Army during the second WW, after 1950 a factory plumber in Bratislava), they had one daughter, Dana, who married Jan Hergott, with whom she had a daughter, Zuzana and son Jan. Zuzana spent some 9 months with us in Australia in 1992-3 in order to acquire English. She is married to Branislav Galba, has 2 sons and lives in Bratislava-Vajnory. I am still in contact with her; our older son, with his family, spent a few days with her and her family in Bratislava in 2018.
According to her sister Ružen (not without a hint of envy), their father was so happy that Helena at 40+ years old was finally getting married that he booked the best place in for that occasion, the 800 years old castle in Pezinok.
His younger daughter Ružen (1920-2010), a very pretty and gentle woman, has never married and lived with her parents. When asked why she never married she replied that she was not interested in constant cleaning after some man. She was highly intelligent, fluent in Slovakian, Hungarian and German, and good in Czech language. Worked as an insurance assessor all her life. My daughter Janet looks and behaves a lot like her, including the left-handedness, the only one in our entire family.
According to Ružen: his mother, called in her 2nd marriage Rozália Vicenová (but called by everybody Rozanenna) lived with him in the railway house at Dynamitová Továrna station. She was on very good terms with everybody, especially with her daughter-in-law. She liked sitting in the garden and watching the stars and the moon. She died early in 1931.
The following coincidence is hard to explain:
Due to the virus pandemonium we were unable to attend our grandson's 10th birthday on 11. 10. 2021. His father, our older son George, organised a "teleconference" instead. While waiting I received the following automatic message on my telephone: " On the 15th October your grandfather Karol Carolus Hatvani would turn 142"...
A family picture taken in Bratislava, Račianska 794, dated 1953 approx. Sitting (l to r): Juraj Lepiš (a.k.a. "starký"= dear old man), Karol Hatvani, Júlia Hatvaniová, Ružena Hatvaniová, Alžbeta Lepišová (a.k.a. "starká"= dear old woman). Standing Helena Lepišová nee Hatvaniová and František Hatvani, my father. My sister Hanka sits in the front. The Lepiš's were parents of Helena's husband.
Next photo is of Karol Hatvani (second row from top, sixth from the right) in the Austrian army at Korneŭburg army barracks (converted to blocks of flats in 2005). The year was 1900.
And off to a football match with his son František from Račianska 794, about 1960. I can still hear him saying "Wait a second while I am cleaning my glasses":
Thank you, and see you later, boys! (added when I was 6 months older than either of them)
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