The summer was very busy, I went swimming, my new German "Tante" came to the house twice a week for the whole afternoon, and I started learning to play tennis.
The swimming was a total relaxation from all the other activities, I loved the mornings in the pool, my mother took me there to take part in the swim team lessons. It was great fun!
Five to six of us walked home together with one of the mothers in charge. The girls and boys in the swim team became my good friends for many years.
My "Tante" was a young Austrian women, very kind and lot of laughs. I could only speak German with her - no Hungarian words, please! - by the end of the summer I spoke a pretty good German. During the school season she came only once a week, in a few years my German was quite good.
The most interesting happening was my introduction to tennis. The tennis court was on the school ground, where I was going to go in the fall. Not a private school, but a very good middle school, about a five-minute walk from my home. I was walking to the tennis lessons by myself.
(My mother was on the other side of the road, way behind me, watching me, for weeks before she let go...) I enjoyed tennis and became a good player in a short time.
We went for a two to three-week vacation every summer as far back as I can remember. The favorite was when we stayed at Lake Balaton. Getting there was exciting too. A taxicab picked us up with all the luggage (very few people owned a car) and took us to the railroad station. The steam engine was ready to go, pulling the long line of railroad cars. How can I forget those hours looking out the window, watching the countryside going by. The cows, the sheep, horses, big cornfields were all so interesting for me, the city girl. The small farmhouses, forests, little lakes along the way are memories I'll never forget.
Lake Balaton was crowded in the summer, every house rented, every hotel fully booked. The sandy beaches, the long walks in the shallow water, the swimming in the deep water far from the beach, the boat rides, the amusement parks - every child's dream.
We also vacationed in the mountains, the Matra, the Bukk and other famous mountains, only four to five hour railroad rides from Budapest. Here we had those long walks in the forests, my father loved these vacations, he loved the mountains and nature. He knew all the flowers and trees and told me their names. He pointed out the littlest living beings - we were watching the busy ants, the butterflies, the colorful Beatles, listening to the birds songs - the mountains were beautiful... The summer vacations were important parts of my childhood, good times, fun and games, learning and remembering...
The summer went by quickly and I was ready to start middle school. It was a big change for me! First of all, I was going to school by myself, meeting a few other kids on the way. It was only a short walk and we didn't have to cross the street. The school was huge - compared to my little private elementary school, big gym with a lot of equipments, tennis court - which became ice-skating rink in the winter - and big class sizes. We were about 40 kids in a class, still one side for the girls, the other for the boys. We also had to wear uniforms. Now I had my own sailor's uniform, navy blue skirt, white linen blouse with sailor's collar and cuffs. It was fine with me, for four years this was the rule...I also had to wear those high, tall shoes laced way above the ankles, white leather in the winter, white linen in the summer. (I had a few black patent leader shoes for dress-up occasions.)
I remember these middle school years as my busiest, least fun years of my life. Learning so many new things, studying, getting there on time for my different activities was not much fun at all. I started piano lessons, my lovely young teacher came twice a week to our house - somebody finally played on the big Schweighoffer piano!...
I loved the teacher, but playing the piano was not a "natural" for me. I had lessons for eight years, and the most I got out of it was, that I learned to love classical music, easily recognize the composers and understand music in general.
My German "Tante" came for another two years, until I was 12 years old. Then I started to go to a language teacher to learn French and later English. Twice a week I went to Mrs. Phillips, an elderly Austrian language teacher, for two years to learn french and then picking up English later. She was a sweet little lady, with thick glasses, sometimes she used the magnifiing glass to see, she gave very little homework, for that I was grateful. I was never too good in languages, by now I started to forget how to speak German - one language at a time for me...
I also started to go to a private gymnastic school, twice a week. I loved all about this school.Gymnastics, a little ballet, lot of games, running, jumping, rope climbing, tumbling, music, dress-up in leotards, or ballet shoes, pretty pink tu-tus - it was fun!...
The four years of middle school went by quickly. We had to make a choice, what kind of school I should go for the next four years. It was a choice of a so-called Gymnasium or the Commercial Academy. Since there were many Gymnasiums and only one Commercial Academy, you had to be an A or B student to get in. It was no problem for me, being a straight A student all my school years, so we choose the Commercial Academy. It was a wonderful school!
The class sizes became smaller again, 20-25 student in a class, girls and boys mixed.
Everybody had a desk, like a big office. No more uniform, we were big girls and boys.
We had many teachers, 4-5 different ones daily. Heavy on math, geometry, economics, trade and commerce, we also had all the other subjects, history, literature, etc. The students graduated with an all round knowledge and could automatically enrolled in the College of Economics for two years, - as I did - and earned an Accounting degree.
But let's go back to starting this high school. We were moving! My parents built a house on the other side of the City Park and we moved in during the summer of 1936. For me it was hard to say good-bye to the old apartment where I grew up, but they were happy to go to a house with much more room, and a big garden. Everything was so spacious! Huge living room, big dining room and a modern great kitchen. I loved the new house, I had a much bigger room, with my very own walk-in closet and my own little balcony facing the garden. My father was the gardener, he created a nice garden with many fruit-trees, (apples. pears and apricots grew fast), plenty of flower beds and walk ways.
It was another interesting development, I had to ride the train every day to the school - only one stop away from the terminal, but still a train ride. Then I had about a 15-minute walk to the school. In bad weather, a few of us had a good excuse to be late, since we were the "Train-riders"
I had some new friends in the new school, they were not neighborhood friends, like I had before, but they came from all over the city. One of my best friend, Agnes and I decided one Sunday afternoon, that we go to this five o'clock dance in a lovely little coffee house. It was November 13, 1938. We both had our 16th birthday, we were big girls..
We started to dance with these two boys and they joined us at our table. The rest is history...
Andy and I started dating right away, he asked me out for ice-skating for next Sunday. I did not tell him, that I hated ice-skating. During my Middle school years, I went to the ice-skating rink (which was the tennis court in the summer) and I was always so very cold.. My hands, my feet never warmed up, but I became a fairly good ice-skater..
We met every Sunday afternoon, going to the movies, theatre, concerts, - no more ice skating - so I had a boyfriend. Whenever he could, he waited for me on the street at the school and we walked together to the train station on weekdays. He was working in a men's clothing store as a salesman, helping his mother as much as he could. I was never told the full story of his family until later.
(Andy had a stormy childhood. His beloved father was ailing a long time, he had a serious heart condition. Andy was 11 years old, when he lost his father, whom he worshiped. He had to work to help his mother until she remarried. They moved to the country, Andy changed schools several times. They had to come back to Budapest because his stepfather lost their vineyard on card games. Andy went back to work, leaving his high school without graduating. He got his diploma two years later, going to evening school. His mother never showed any appreciation or kindness toward him, she was a demanding selfish mother, later an unkind mother-in-law.)
We had wonderful Sundays together for a long time. Meanwhile the dark clouds gathered all over Europe. The newspapers, and the radio news were full of alarming facts about the growing German peril. Nazi Germany wants to conquer the whole world!
Our own story and the bigger story around us became intertwined as we entered the War Years.
Copyright 2008 - Gabe Dalmath Foundation
