Marianne (Magyar) Vincze

Father Nick, Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Friends, Guests and Fellow Family Members,

We are gathered here today to pay tribute, to honor and to celebrate the life of a remarkable lady, Marianne Szent-Ivanyi Magyar Vincze, who passed away peacefully in her sleep on, Tuesday, October 11, 2022 at approximately 2:15 am EDT after a long, grueling battle with Parkinson-ism, a form of Parkinson's Disease. She was 87 years old. She leaves her three children, Christopher (Janet), Monique (David) and myself, Steve (Kathy), 4 grandchildren, Gabrielle, Kyle, Eva and Chiara, and two great grandsons, Harlan and Willem.  Her father, Istvan/Stephan, her Mother, Vilma, her sister, Olga, and her husband, Laszlo, are all deceased.

While our family is deeply saddened at this time and overcome with grief, we are also relieved that our mother is at last at peace and is no longer suffering as she has been over the past 5-7 years.  It was time for her to have peace and we thank the Lord now for his mercy.

 

My mother, or as my  brother, sister and I knew her our entire lives, “Mami”, was a beautiful, elegant lady, an athlete, a fashion model, the daughter of an Hungarian Count, an American immigrant, a loving wife and mother who through her own example instilled in her children a relentless pursuit of excellence -- never exerting less than absolute maximum effort -- to be the best at whatever she did – and expecting that same standard from others, but especially from her family, and…most especially from her children.

 

She taught me as a young child – whatever you do, do it well, be the best.  If it’s shining shoes, shoveling snow, mowing lawns – all of which I did from the age of 8 – or school work or sports -- be the best.  Give it your all.  As you will hear, she was a true leader by example.  Nothing infuriated my mother more than mediocrity and lack of effort.  What she always asked me and expected was … did you try your best?  While decades later I jokingly nicknamed her, “Field Marshall Marianne” to the delight and laughter of all who knew her, as her strictness for the highest standards was renowned, what is likely much less known, is her deep love and tenderness underneath that toughness.  That is what I will miss the most about my Mami.  Her ability to inspire you to push yourself beyond what you think you can do, because you know, that not only would she do it, but she truly believed you could do it too. 

 

As an athlete, as a Marine Corps Officer, as a professional, a lawyer and a consultant, and as someone who faced a life-threatening illness, while many friends, family and mentors have inspired me over my lifetime, it was my mother’s own strength and example, who inspired me like no one else could. She gave me the confidence to succeed.

 

She is the one person who encouraged me to follow my dreams to become a lawyer, to be a Marine, to do whatever I wanted. 

My mother read Hungarian bedtime stories about Hungarian kings and hero’s and about a Hungarian squirrel, Miki Mókus, every night to me until the age of 8 or 9, bringing me hot tea with lemon when I was sick or cold milk when I was well, and tucking me in with a kiss goodnight, every single night.  I could not go to sleep without that kiss.  Many decades later she called me when I was in the hospital suffering from COVID-19 when Harvard doctors told me they didn’t know “how this would end.”  Bedridden herself with Parkinson’s she said to me in her thick Hungarian accent, “Lacko, you can do it!  You can get well!  You are a Marine!  You can do it!  Don’t give up.  I love you. You can do it!” And, so I did.

 

My mother could also be mind-bogglingly infuriating with her stubbornness, by, for example, refusing to take her medication or follow her doctor’s orders.  One thing for sure, she definitely knew who she was and what she wanted…and what she didn’t.

 

So where did this amazing lady come from and what forces of history shaped her into who she was?

 

Born on December 7th, 1934, in Budapest, Hungary, the youngest of two sisters, to an aristocratic Hungarian father and a wealthy mother, my mother lived a life of privilege as a young girl during the final years of what was left of the Austro-Hungarian empire after World War I.  Her father was a relatively tall, handsome, strapping man, the youngest son of a large old Hungarian Catholic family, the Szent-Ivanyi Magyars.  He inherited the title of Count, was a trained attorney and a cavalry officer in the Hungarian Army. His bride, Vilma Omasits, was the only child of a family who owned one of if not the largest pork production facilities in the country and whose parents’ marriage was blessed by the Pope.  As my mother explained to me over bed-time stories as a wide-eyed, curious little boy who wanted to hear all about this mysterious country called Hungary, where she and my father came from and whose language we spoke at home, her father had the aristocratic title and the land, and her mother had the wealth.

 

Growing up in those times, my mother and her sister Olga were meticulously dressed by their mother in matching identical outfits.  From her earliest years, my mother was “the tough one” stepping up to defend her older, taller sister from school yard bullies who taunted Olga for being tall and thin.  They were raised to be well-educated, well-rounded young ladies in Hungarian society, and as such expected to master all things social, academic and athletic.  They would receive private ice skating, dancing and piano lessons and in the summers go away to the countryside to learn archery and horseback riding.  She also ran track and was an exceptional hurdler.  This was the beginning of a life-long love of sports and animals… and a life-long disdain for phony pomposity and hot-air snobbery.

 

At home, she watched her father practice his legal speeches meticulously in the mirror, admiring him immensely for his skill, as she shared with me many years later after I too became a lawyer.  But in 1943 at the very young age of nine her life would change dramatically and tragically, and, in retrospect, would never again rise to the level of privilege that she was born into.  In that year, her father broke his leg in a deer hunting accident and died suddenly from a blood clot in his leg while recovering in the hospital.  He was only 42.  The city honored him with a large funeral procession down the main boulevard of the city with his cavalry horse in tow riderless.  

 

By this time and quickly thereafter, World War II was wrecking tremendous hardship and chaos on all Hungarians, to include my mother and her family, first from the invading Nazi Germans and then the invading Communist Russians. During the Nazi occupation, my grandmother at great risk to her own life, helped Jewish people to escape the Holocaust, hiding them in their basement until they could go to the next shelter, like an Underground Railroad.  One morning, my mother woke up to a thunderous explosion.  Looking up from the rubble she realized the roof that had been over her head…was now gone! Imagine her fear!  She was all of about 10 years old.

 

Later, once Russian forces had occupied the city, she heard blood-curdling screaming from the basement; her mother told her and her sister Olga to go upstairs.  What she then heard was her fearless mother confronting a Russian officer and demanding that his soldiers stop brutally raping their maid.  Apparently, thanks to my grandmother’s ingenuity, bravery and survival instincts, all three of them had dressed up as boys to escape a similar fate.

 

I think all can agree, that my grandmother, my Nagymami, was one hell of a brave, tough woman – and now you know where my mother, our Mami, your Nagymami got it from.

 

One of my mother’s favorite sayings has always been, “It can always be worse.”  And…she was right.  After surviving all of these earlier traumatic events, more numerous and shocking than likely any of us have ever had to confront, all by the time she was only 20 years old, one of her toughest emotional challenges was yet to come. 

 

While walking her beloved pet and companion, her beautiful Irish Setter, Brigi, a Russian Army truck, veered onto the sidewalk and purposefully ran over her dog brutally crushing Brigi to death right before her eyes.  Imagine her pain and anguish.  I frankly cannot. 

 

Fortunately, she escaped, but, as you can imagine, how could anyone escape the deep pain and emotional trauma that these events undoubtably left.  But much like combat veterans I have spoken to, she did not dwell on nor wish to discuss anything beyond the fact that these events happened, and certainly would never acknowledge any lingering pain or anguish.

 

As she would prove over and over again for the next 67 years, she would always, always persevere and bounce back.  Nothing would stop her from being the best she could be.  She exuded positive energy.  In her thick Hungarian accent, her words “You can do it!” will forever ring in my head.

 

And so, even though the post-war communist regime confiscated most of her family’s wealth, land and belongings, my mother found a way to begin what turned out to be a magical, romantic, made-for Hollywood chapter of her life. With her athletic beauty captured in photographs that first appeared in fashion magazines, she landed on the cover of the Hungarian equivalent of Vogue. Touted as the next “Bridgette Bardot” with her high cheek bones and big brown eyes she was invited to audition for films. (I asked many decades later if she ever ran into any Harvery Weinstein types at the time – and true to form, very matter-of-factly she said, “I sure did! Your Nagymami prepared me well – I kicked them right where it counted – right in the crotch!  It worked, they didn’t bother me again!’)

 

By this time in late 1955/early 1956 and working part-time in the Petofi hospital in the lab, my mother was introduced to this handsome young doctor with a deep tan, dark wavy hair, husky voice, and mischievous, twinkling piercing blue-green eyes!  Yes, you guessed it – that was my father, Dr. Laszlo O. Vincze, M.D., or as years later I called him, Dr. LOV (LOVE).

 

Apparently not from the right social background or height, and not one to play the piano and serenade my mother in the living room, as other suitors did whom my grandmother much preferred, my father instead convinced my mother to sneak out a window and go drinking and dancing and, on another occasion, motorcycle riding over the hills.  They had great fun together and quickly fell madly in love.

 

And so a romance began between a 22-year old beauty and a 28-year old handsome young doctor.  The 1956 Hungarian Uprising intervened, however, and my parents chose to leave everything behind, escape to Austria, get married and immigrate to America with nothing but each other, “the clothes on their backs,” a Webster’s English dictionary…and…me on the way in May 1957.  Why America? To them it held the most promise for freedom and a new beginning, and most importantly, and especially relevant for us today, was far away from Europe, where they feared would be the site of the next nuclear war.  Sadly, something we still fear now some 65 years later.   

 

Life was very tough in those early years in their new country, the United States of America. My mother, who had grown up in a privileged world and became somewhat of a celebrity in her home country, was now suddenly unknown, poor, married and pregnant. Her husband, a struggling young doctor studied day and night to learn a new language and be licensed to practice medicine.  This was not the life she imagined for herself, nor what she wanted.  Times were tough, very tough.  It is a testament to both my parents’ incredible strength, perseverance, and ultimately to their character that they survived that period in their marriage.  But after yours truly was born, another child came along almost 4 and a half years later, another son, but this time, a long skinny baby boy, with short, straight white hair that stood straight up, with piercing blue eyes, who seemed to cry all the time! (At least that was my perspective at the age of 4!) Nine years later, we were blessed with a beautiful little sister.  My mother was enjoying an Opera in downtown Boston with my father and despite labor pains beginning toward the end of the Opera, insisted on sitting through to the very end and only then agreed to go straight to the Melrose-Wakefield Hospital to welcome her little girl into the world.  So Monique, if you have an uncanny like…or dislike…for opera, this is probably why!

 

While raising three children is never easy, it was frankly, especially challenging in our home and my mother deserves a lot of credit – for the most part, she did it alone.  My dad was always working day and night, on call to deliver babies as an OB-GYN. My father, bless him, was also very old school, shall we say, and expected freshly cooked meals every night, everyone to wait to eat dinner until he got home (usually around 7:00 pm), everyone to speak only Hungarian at dinner (or pay a quarter for each English word), his children to get straight A’s in school and to have the grass cut, his shoes polished and the driveway shoveled – these last three chores by me, then his 8-year old son.  No maids, no yard help.  My mom got us ready for school every day. She also led by example and literally was on her hands and knees scrubbing the patio deck with me chipping in.  She then transformed herself into a beautiful, charming hostess, managing the party and welcoming the guests.  I get exhausted now just thinking about it.  Looking back, her energy, ability to focus and her attention to detail were super-human. 

 

She also served as President of the Women’s Auxiliary for the Melrose-Wakefield hospital, threw amazing, elegant parties with my father to help his practice and took up a correspondence course in interior design – all in her spare time!  As the years passed, the family took up skiing and tennis.  While she still loved horseback riding, my father did not, and it was skiing which ended up being her ultimate passion.  Starting when she was about 34-35 years old, she progressed into a beautiful expert skier, who skied triple black diamond slopes until she was 80. In the 1980’s and 90’s she picked up aerobics and became an aerobics instructor.  She retired in her 70's, because, as she put it, “the young people can't keep up." And guess what…they really couldn’t!  She was relentless in her pursuit of living life to the fullest and at the highest levels at whatever she did.

 

On another level my mother was the least prejudiced person I have ever known.  She judged people only by what they did and how they did it.  Period.  She wouldn’t tolerate three things: incompetence, laziness and mediocrity.  She simply wouldn’t tolerate it from anyone, but especially from her family.  Both she and my father were toughest on the people they loved the most, though they showed it in different ways.

 

Did I mention she had an incredible eye for detail, was an amazing athlete, and that she was especially particular about her property, became a gourmet cook, could be brutally honest, and was utterly fearless? Here are some memorable examples:

·      When I was 17 and home for a rare weekend from prep school when my parents, brother and sister were all away, I broke the rules, and threw a small party with beer, music, cute girls and some friends. I meticulously cleaned and vacuumed the entire house for hours.  Very proud of myself, I was confident that I had done a masterful “cover-up clean-up.”  But within 5 minutes after my parents came home, my mother demanded I come upstairs.  When I arrived, I saw her standing at the entrance to the living room.  Speaking in Hungarian, she asked me, “What happened here?”  I said, “What do you mean?  Nothing “happened.”  She said angrily, pointing to the cream-colored living room wall-to-wall carpeting, “Look at the vacuum tracks! That is not how I vacuum.”  I couldn’t believe it (still can’t to this day!), confessed immediately and expressed frustration at what I referred to as a Gestapo-type inquisition, all while pleading for forgiveness.

·      Similarly, my brother discovered that she knew when he and his friends were dancing in the living room based on the footprints on the rug. 

·      When her granddaughter Gabrielle was a baby, she was having breakfast and touching the glass door in the kitchen placing fingerprints everywhere, driving my mother crazy.

·      Even as recently as a few months ago, she worried about the fringe/border on the oriental carpets in her home. They had to be straight and asked my brother Chris to fix them every time he visited. Remember, this is a woman who by now is bed-ridden with Parkinson’s disease!

·      When her granddaughter Chiara was a baby, the jazz music my mother loved apparently either relaxed Chiara so much, or made her so nervous that she pooped in her diapers three times within a very short amount of time, causing an immediate diaper shortage emergency and some very tense moments for my wife Kathy and everyone else.  Fast forward, when Chiara was a toddler my mother had an endless supply of diapers and to prevent her from moving around in her museum-like living room, placed Chiara into a footstool/basket with a blanket and toys …just in case!

·      My brother’s wife Janet noted that my mother’s athletic ability and endurance was renowned at the Colonial Health Club in Lynnfield, where she taught aerobics.  This is where in the 1970’s Red Sox and Bruins player would train with a renowned Hungarian former Olympic boxing coach. She would outperform everyone in her class by doing 3 aerobic classes in a row as others dropped. This phenomenon continued for decades. To a fault, she could not miss her exercise for anything.

·      One visit to my parents’ home after a particularly stressful time at my work where I put in 12-18 hour days and had gained some weight, she pressed me to have a second helping of her delicious dinner and pastries.  When I paused and said I really shouldn’t, she looked at me disappointed and asked, “What’s the matter? You don’t like it?”  I said, “No, I love it.” She then said, “Well then eat, eat, eat some more.”  After I finished a complete second helping and several of her delicious apple pastries, she looked at me and said sternly, “You really need to watch your weight.”  And, guess what…she wasn’t joking!  I couldn’t believe it.

·      As you can tell, my mother became a fantastic cook, and my brother Chris and I really loved her cooking. She made our favorite meals many times (although his favorite meal, wasn’t always my favorite meal -- surprise, surprise!) From Wienerschnitzel to various Hungarian casseroles to Hungarian pastries, she became a gourmet chef. She enjoyed that Chris would want to learn from her and tried his hand at some of those dishes. To his and her credit, his Grand Marnier soufflé with vanilla crème fraiche became famous within the family. 

·      Years after the tragic end for Brigi, our Mother bounced back with a new, American Irish Setter, named Danny. She absolutely loved Danny. We would go to Mt. Hood in Melrose to run and exercise him. She would make it clear to anyone trying to befriend Danny that he was a family dog, and not friendly, so don't touch.  Danny snarled at the strangers if they got too close to my mother. Like I said, she loved Danny! Danny unlike us kids could get away with almost anything and not get in trouble, including eating our grandmother's pastries on the kitchen counter!  He knew however, that like us…he could not go into the living room, without permission… she would spot his paw prints on the carpet in a flash.  Guests would literally try to coax him in with food, but Danny stood firm and did not dare cross the threshold into the “forbidden zone.”  Such was the power of our mother, Field Marshall Marianne!

·      When I was in 6th grade, I received a pink paper in an envelope that said I had failed the eye exam.  I was crushed.  I had tears in my eyes as I approached my mother’s car as she was waiting to pick me up from school.  I got in the car and she could tell something was wrong.  I started crying and told her why.  She was very loving and reassuring and said we would go to the eye doctor and if I needed glasses, I would look very smart and distinguished, like Elliot Richardson (who was a Massachusetts Republican politician, who became attorney-general under President Richard Nixon around that time).  When we went to the eye doctor, the doctor put up the eye chart and asked me to read what I saw.  I read the first line with all the big letters. Then, I stayed quiet.  My mother looked at me, then jumped up and ran up to the chart, and pointing at the next line said, “Come on, keep reading!  Tell the doctor what you can see!”  I simply said, “Mami, I did.  That’s all I can see.”  She didn’t understand.  She didn’t want to accept that result.  She wanted me to try harder.

·      Decades later, when my father was being tested for dementia he was given a memory test.  When he was struggling with several questions, she kept jumping in and said, “Come on, Laci.  You know what this is.  It’s… “ and then gave the answer.  The doctor gently tried to tell her she needed to keep quiet, but after several of these interruptions, he finally told her she either needed to be quiet or leave the room.  I could not help but think back to my eye exam when I was 11. 

·      My mother had a very difficult time accepting that someone she loved couldn’t do something. Since she was able to do and overcome so much with her own sheer strength of will, she wanted and expected everyone to do the same.  I know this came from her heart and her love for her family.  But knowing her, she was also likely thinking, “Vat the hell is wrong with you people?”

·      To her last days, she exhibited this same strength, this same unwillingness to give up.

·      For me as my mother’s son, the U.S. Marine Corps Officer Candidate School, or OCS, was both physically and mentally relatively easy.  Required to write home to my parents, like all Officer Candidates, I wrote, “Dear Mami, Thank you for preparing me to be a Marine.  This stuff is easy compared to home!”  I truly meant it as a compliment with a little tongue in cheek, and knew she would take it as such. She did indeed, proudly putting the letter on the refrigerator and telling her friends, much to their apparent dismay.

·      Speaking of the military, my sister Monique vividly remembers a classic Mami display of bravado during a trip she and our parents took in the early 1980’s during the Cold War, via train from Berlin to Hungary.  As former citizens of communist Hungary, the East German and Czech border police did not take kindly to our parents return.  Boarding the train in East Berlin with military personnel everywhere equipped with machine guns, Monique and my parents were desperately trying to find their train but were sent in the wrong direction several times.  Rushing to make their train, they tried to get through a passage-way.  As they tried to pass, an officer pointed the machine gun at my mother to which she responded (with her hand on top of the machine gun) – “GET THAT OUT OF MY FACE.  I AM A US CITIZEN”.  Let that sink in.  Yup, that was quintessential, Mami, our Mother.

 

While I am sure we can share many other amazing stories, we must now say our good-byes to a woman, a lady, a mother, grandmother and great grandmother, whose legacy will never fade nor leave our memories.  Affectionately known as, "Mami" to her children, "Nagymami" to her grandchildren, or simply, “Marianne” or "Mrs. Vincze" to everyone else, she was a lady whom we will honor and remember as a great Hungarian lady who became a proud American and whose genuine nobility arose from an unmatched inner strength that transcended cultures, countries, languages, wars, tragedies, decades and generations.  She was and will forever be one of a kind.

 

Rest in Peace, Mami.  You deserve to be free of pain.  Enjoy Heaven with your husband, Laszlo; your sister, Olga; your parents, Vilma and Istvan/Stephan; and all of your family and friends, who loved you so very much and who are no doubt waiting for you.  

 

With enduring love, now and forever, your eldest son and entire family -- we are so proud to be the sons, daughter, grandchildren, great grandchildren and family of such an amazingly strong women, such a beautiful and elegant lady, who will inspire us for generations to come. 

Thank you for giving us your gift of life.  Until we meet again in eternal life, always know that I love you, Mami.  I know I will always miss your kiss good night. 

 

L. Stephan Vincze, Christopher Vincze and Monique Vincze Cook for the Vincze Family

October 18, 2022

 

In lieu of flowers, memorials in the memory of Marianne, can be made to the ASPCA at www.aspca.org or by calling 800-628-0028.

 

 

 

 

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