Júlia Hatvaniová

Júlia Hatvaniová nèe Juliánna Maczki

    Juliánna was born 17. 5. 1881 in Tardoskedd (Tvrdošovce), died ?. 12. 1955, grave in Bratislava-Rača. The grave in Rača has been desecrated and destroyed in (about) 2016.

Father János Maczki (a station master at Tardoskedd), mother Rozália nee Kmotriková. Their other children were Franciscus (b. 1861), Elisabetha (1864), Rosalia (1873) & Katalin (26. 12. 1877). 2 older brothers died earlier while the family was living at Tornal'a, according to Ružen.

    Husband Karol Hatvani.
    Children Štefan (1907-1933), František (1911-1996) = my father (a.k.a. Karol), Helena (1908-1992) and Rozália (1920-2010) (a.k.a. Ružen).

This is her at the age of (about) 35:

And this is her at the age of (about) 70:

This is her with myself, next to her house at Račianska No. 794, in 1951:

The window above them is the toilet, the window at the bottom is the cellar. 

And below, in the garden, with her husband, daughter-in-law, children and grandchildren:

Here she is in the garden of her railway house at Dynamitka, with her son František, and bottom, with our neighbour Mrs. Halenárová.

    A slim, medium height, with brownish hair, with some grey in it, brownish complexion, with a kind, almost plaintive voice. She suffered from frequent bleeding from her nose and in her sixties she was suffering from some sort of back injury and walked with a slight bent to one side. For relief for many years she used a pain killer called Togal (aspirin+lithium+quinine), which probably caused bowel cancer of which she died after having suffered for about a year.
    Her grandfather (or great-grandfather) was a sculptor working in Hungary under the nom-de-plume of Kő (a rock, in hungarian).

    She lived the first about 12 years of her life in Tardoskedd where her father was stationmaster at a small railway station near the town. The Family moved to Šal'a nad Vahom. The sisters, including Julia, lived for 8 years at the catholic school in Tardoskedd; she spoke fondly of the time spent there, as well as of the nuns who ran the joint. A sample of her handwriting:

It is undated, the year is probably 1936. In it Julia writes to her daughter-in-law Marie (my mother) "Dear Mary, would you be so kind as to buy for us a 1kg of meat before you go, we need it for Sunday, buy even 5kg, if possible, and also sugar, we are not sure when it is going to be available with regards to the misery, greetings to all including the grandmother (Marie's mother), good bye, I'll pay you straight away, grandma from dinamitka".
The writing is rather untidy with a number of spelling errors. The words are also joined together, probably merely following her train of thought.
    Housebound all her life, except for a stint as a maid at the house of Eszterházy in Galanta before marriage (in 2007 I walked in the park of the Eszterházy castle, a badly run-down affair at the time). She spoke Hungarian and Slovakian fluently and understood and read Czech as well. According to Ruzen the noblewoman owner of the castle offered to take Julia with her to Italy, which Julia knocked back, to her regrets afterwards. As the youngest of all the sisters she received no dowry of any kind, the father having run out of money, and she married down, as the family lore had it (her husband having married up, of course)...
    As a daughter - and later wife - of a railwayman she was able to do all jobs associated with that sort of life, from cultivating the vegie gardens to milking cows, killing and dressing the poultry, cooking, preparing food preserves for winter, sewing, etc. She was well regarded by everybody, she was on good terms with everybody I knew, relatives and neighbours alike. My mother, Marie, had some unkind words to and about her; on occasions, her husband, Karol, uttered a muted swearword in her direction as well, now and then, the word "kubina" was his favourite, the word having association with the name of Kubo, meaning "a simpleton". His main complaint about her was concerning household management. One such complaint I remember well!

    She (Julia) would tell him that their favourite cow is ceasing to produce milk. Karol would decide that it is about time to sell the cow and procure a new one. Her typical reaction would be the lament "Jesus Christ and Sweet Virgin Mary, such a good cow it is, so used she is to me and me to her, she never hits me with her shitty tail in the face, Jesus Christ, etc..." Karol would say "So you don't want me to get rid of her?" "Jesus Christ, don't be so cruel to me and to her, Sweet Virgin Mary, she is such a good girl..." His complaint was to the effect that if he takes the good girl to the market, he would end up being a cruel man to both, the cow and Julia; if he doesn't, he would be labelled as the one who does not care about the family's supply of milk (the kind of a dilemma familiar to all married men).
    According to her daughter Ružen her parents (or grandparents?) were a minor hungarian nobility (zeman in Slovakian, yeoman in English), impoverished through (probably) fondness of a drink and a flutter, with the name also spelled as Maczkovszky (suggestive of a Polish or a Macedonian origin). Her father had 2 sons (István, a steam railway engine driver, and János who both died early and without children); also 4 daughters, 3 of whom married well with remnants of the family riches as dowries, the youngest, my grandmother, having received nothing or very little.
    The surname of Maczki existed in the Hungarian town of Heves, and they were related to her, according to Ružen.
    Relatives from Šala nad Váhom came on occasions to see her (Szőke kereszt mama, also a woman called Szepbőze, and her son, about my age, called Pistike).

    I regarded this grandmother of mine to be the best and kindest person in the entire Universe, despite of us having many differences of opinion, and arguing them fiercely. She used to play various table games with me, mlyncek, clobrdo, cervenábere, and such.

    When about 60 years old she suffered from a bout of rubeola. She spent a few days in bed, her face was very red, our family doctor (Dr. Gaal) came to see her a few times. When recovered she did not have any after-effects, I think.
    Her mother was called Rozália Maczki (nee Kmotriková) and died about 92 years old the same year as Rozanenna Viczenová/Pištáková (see Karol Hatvani entry); she had seven children most of whom died before herself. She had a book of prayers where she used to write various data concerning family members, such as dates of birth, death, etc. When she died (1. 3. 1936) this book was put in her coffin (with respect - damn the fool who did it!). This is the picture of her taken at the railway house in Bratislava-Dynamitová továrna. According to Ružen, she was well liked by everybody, except for (Ružen's sister) Helen.

Written in 1990, updated several times, last in 2021, by Charles Karol Hatvani.