I’ve always heard that Grandad Eugene didn’t talk much. He never said much about life back in Hungary. He never mentioned any siblings. So when I recently learned he came from seven siblings (four sisters and three brothers in that order), I was stunned.

They were Roza, Lujza, Berta, Fredrika (or Frida), Markus (or Mark) , Reszo (who turned into Rudolf for a while), and Jeno who I want to spell Yeno because that’s how they say it.

Now I’ve just had more news, from genealogist Nick Gombash, with a nice bit of symmetry. Jeno’s mom Sarolta Kardos not only had seven kids. She also came from seven siblings, where she was oldest.

They were Sara, Armin, Markus (or Miksa), Luiza, Jonas, Eduard (or Ede) and Fanni.

They spanned seventeen years, and her own kids spanned fourteen.

When Big Sister Sarolta married Lipot Kohn (later-Kardos) age 18, in 1869, her youngest sister Fanni would have been two years old. Littlest Sister Fanni may have been a playmate of Sarolta’s first child Roza, technically her niece, born a year later.

Roza would later marry Arnold Stark (born Klein). Their three kids would have known her brother Jeno as a very young uncle. Margit-Mindell was about six years younger, Karoly (Charles, who would later change his surname to Sigheli) was about seven years younger. Paula / Chayele was about ten years younger.

There were cousins closer to his age, on Jeno’s mother’s side, the Spitzers. His Uncle Miksa and Aunt Svidonia had two girls. Cousin Margit was six years younger, and Klara was four years younger, born in 1888, the same year Jeno was told his surname was not Kohn but Kardos, and that he wasn’t Jewish after all, even though he was.

I do wonder how they explained that to all these kids.

So this little gang of his contemporaries – Mindell, Karoly, Paula, Klara, and Margit – I wonder if they waved farewell when he took the train to the ship, to leave for a new life. If he was about twenty, and they ranged from ten to sixteen, were they there as admiring fans? I would have been. I’d have been suffering the pain of hero worship, accentuated by the December cold, and I’d be secretly dreaming my own teenage dreams of trains and ships.

Then it was 1905. Jeno’s brother Rezso had already sailed in the summer, and was waiting to be joined in New York. Reszo didn’t stay. The vast majority of this clan were born, lived, stayed and died in Budapest, and possibly never left the city limits. They are all buried in one place.

Jeno was the only one who sailed away, for good.

LINKS

Very helpful Hungarian Genealogy facebook group

More about Nick Gombash and Hungarian Family Searches