Sunday, June 1 Budapest

We were on the road shortly after 8 in the hope of arriving at Szar/Saar by 9 in case we could catch a Mass for Betty. Unfortunately, without the GPS, we had to rely on a map that didn’t have enough detail. We made one wrong turn and had to retrace our steps. Then we followed a sign pointing to Saar, thinking it was the road on the map, when it was actually a road that was not on our map. As a result, we ended up in the village of Ujbarok. This was a stop we were going to make for Mary Ann anyway, so when we figured out where we were, we took a few pictures and moved on to Saar.

We arrived in Saar to find 9:30 Mass about half complete. We stayed to the end and Betty was able to receive the Eucharist in the church of her ancestors – quite a thrill. We stayed around after Mass hoping to make a contact with the priest or someone else in the village that could help with genealogy. It didn’t take long. Before we could approach anyone, a woman approached us, welcomed us, and asked who we were, as she said she did whenever she noticed a stranger. It turns out her maiden name was Hasenfratz, the same as Betty. She also introduced us to Janos Hasenfratz, brother of Frank who owns Linamar Corp in Canada. The two of them walked us to the cemetery and gave a guided tour.

Next stop was Boglar, a few minutes down the road. This was a fairly short stop, as no one on this trip had a particular interest there. As we were about to leave, a man approached and asked if we were the Canadians. You know how news travels in a small town. We weren’t too sure how he heard, ut when he did he came looking for us. It turns out that he was born in Boglar, had lived in Kitchener, Ontario for three years, and now lived in Munich.

Then we moved on to our 1 pm appointment with Istvan Beck in Csakvar. We had met him on our previous trip as he was coming out of church. Frank had asked him in German where the cemetery was and had hopped on our bus and guided us there, then taken us back to his aunt’s house where he produced a village history that we copied by photographing the pages. Unfortunately, we had missed a couple and had written him to hopefully meet up and get the missing pages. He emailed back through his daughter that he was awaiting us. We could never have guessed at the reception that awaited us. First, he gave the four of us at the door each a glass of wine. Then he gave us a familienbuch donated to us by his aunt (we knew of this by a letter that she had sent us.) He did not understand at first that we were looking for the missing pages from the other book, but when he did he brought us that and another short book/pamphlet that we also copied.

Then he hijacked us onto a local tour, much like Msgr. Eros Lajos did on the previous tour. Istvan had arranged for us to meet another lady (another aunt, I think – turned out to be a Kindl, one of Mary Ann’s lines) who showed us the church in Gant. Unfortunately it was locked and we could not go inside. Then we went to another older (about 80) lady’s house for a chat about Kozma – both ladies were raised there. She did not know to expect so many people – and we did not know that we were expected. Since her house was small, we dragged about a dozen chairs out by her swinging chair in the yard where she told us about Kozma and answered any questions.

Then we headed back to Csakvar for a tour of Istvan’s vineyards and wine cellar. He looks after two small vineyards, one owned by him and his mother, the other by his cousin. Naturally the tour ended with some wine sampling. He also insisted that we take along two 1.5 litre pop bottles of wine and a 750 ml Amaretto bottle of home brew. To demonstrate the quality of his brew, he set fire to a small splash in an ashtray. We were now way behind schedule, but how do you say no to someone who is being so kind to you?


We next drove back through Gant to Csakbereny for pictures of the church where Frank had connections, but we did not search the cemetery. Then it was back through Gant (third time now) to Kozma, where Mary Ann wanted some pictures of the town. Time did not allow a cemetery search (sorry Shirley) or a possible side trip back to Schemling (sorry John). We went back to the highway for a bathroom break and on to Budapest, where we fumbled our way to the hotel by just before 7 pm. Map reading is pretty tricky when there are few street signs, a map that needs a magnifying glass, and you don’t know the language. The GPS map of Budapest was better than Gyor, but still not good enough to get us to the hotel.

Our hotel was a little tired, and I heard a complaint about one of the beds, but the setting was beautiful with a view of the city far below. Beth Long (on the right), a research associate of Laszlo Rudolf joined us for an excellent supper.

At about 9:30, we all retired to the balcony of my room where we put a dent in our wine. We tried the home brew, but it was a little too powerful for us wimpy Canadians. We capped off the night at 11:30. I forgot to take a picture at night, but here it is in the daytime.