A PRESENT FROM THE GRANDFATHER WHO HAD EMIGRATED TO CHICAGO / Vincencia Sullai Terényiné
At the beginning of the 20th century, a Hungarian youth went to work in Austria with a threshing machine, and there he fell in love with an Austrian girl.
The girl’s parents insisted that the young husband should emigrate to America to ensure a better life for his family. He missed the Titanic, and travelled on the next ship, leaving his wife and young children behind. He struggled to learn the language and the unfamiliar work processes. He entrusted three ship tickets and the money he had been putting aside for years to an acquaintance who was travelling back to Europe. The acquaintance never contacted my grandmother.
My grandmother moved to Hungary, and did her best to raise her two daughters. She never met my grandfather again. My mother was one of the daughters. She lived to be ninety-four, and when she was dying, she called the father she had never seen.
The stereo slide viewer about two spans in length, was sent to the family by my grandfather in Chicago, together with several dozen slides which, according to the inscription they bear, were made in 1905. This was his only gift. The images brought the world of foreign cities and elegantly dressed people into the one-bedroom flat of the working-class family living in Zugló. My mother and her sister, and later I and my children and grandchildren, viewed the 3D images wistfully, thinking how differently all our lives could have turned out.
