Found! A small clue to my family's Jewish connection

For many years I've been intrigued by a story in my family of a brother and sister, young Jewish orphans, who were taken in and raised by Catholic religious sisters. From his tenuous beginnings, the little boy went on to become the mayor of the town in which he lived. This young man was possibly the grandfather of Ilona Bence, my great-grandmother.

This story has always fascinated me.  The possibility of having some Jewish ancestry is very intriguing. All of the many branches of my family tree that I have researched thus far have consisted of practicing Catholics like myself.

The Catholic cemetery in Legrad, Croatia where many of my ancestors are buried

I hoped that the fact that he had played an important role within his town might make this ancestor easier to find, and that some day I might find some clues to his Jewish origins.

~

Fast forward to last night. I had requested an inter-library loan of an elusive history book about the little town of Legrad, Croatia (hometown of my great-grandmother's family, from whom the above family story originated). Written in 1971 by Dragutin Feletar, this book is written entirely in Croatian and it is not easy to find a copy in North America. One library kindly offered to loan their copy to me through my library for a small fee. I gladly paid it and picked up the book several weeks ago, but hadn't had time to do much besides flip through the pages.

Knowing its due date was looming, I finally sat down with the book last night. I don't speak or read Croatian, and here I was with a treasure of a book (with no subject index) and no good way to make sense out of it's almost 200 pages besides good old Google Translate - so there I went.

I decided for no good reason to start by translating a few photograph captions, starting with one in the center of the book. I wrote down the translation and the page number, and turned the page to the next photo.

As I did, something caught my eye on page 134. Listed within the text above the photo was a familiar surname: Bence (my great-grandmother's maiden name) and the date 1858. Bence is not a common name, even within this little village, so I knew immediately that this was good news. What was the meaning of this list of names and dates? I turned back to the previous page and translated the beginning of the paragraph:

"Na kraju šetnje kroz prebogatu legradsku povijest valja još navesti (barem približno, koliko to dopušta postojeća I pristupačna povijesna dokumentacija I literatura) I popis predsjednika (kapetana, povjerenika, načelnika) općine Legrad od 1545, do danas. Najprije evo popisa legradskih predsjednika (kapetana) od 1545. do 1912. godine: ...Bence (1858), Boldizar Gacic (1861)…"

This was a list of the mayors of the village of Legrad beginning in the year 1545. Here was my long-hoped-for Jewish-orphan-turned-mayor!

Though all others were listed by both first and last name, he was listed only by surname. Unfortunately, the book has no further details about his role in that position or proof of his early beginnings (that kind of find would be too good to be true!). Yet, finding confirmation that my Bence ancestor actually held the mayoral post is a great success, particularly when I'm researching in a foreign language and living such a distance from his home village.

I've got lots more work to do to further investigate my family's possible Jewish heritage, but I was thrilled to find this little piece of information validating a portion of what was previously an unproven family legend.

Stjepan and his wife Magdalena (Bedenica) Bence. Stjepan's father
(or possibly his grandfather) may be the young Jewish orphan who later
became mayor of the town of Legrad during the years 1858-1861.
Stjepan was born in 1857 and would have been one-year-old at the time.

This story has been submitted to the 121st edition of the Carnival of Genealogy. The topic is "Great Discoveries". Visit Jasia's Creative Gene for the carnival.

A tribute to long life lived well

Magdalena (Bedenica) Bence was 97 years old at the time of her death in the Croatian area of Hungary in 1957.

Her daughter, Ilona (Bence) Ujlaki, also lived to the age of 97, passing away after seventy-two years in her adopted country, the United States of America.

At this time, three of Ilona's children remain, all nonagenarians and beautiful inspirations to the generations that follow them on the family tree.

100 Years in America salutes the three beloved surviving daughters of Ferencz and Ilona Ujlaky and wishes them each continued health and joy.

Remembering Mother Magdalena: 1860-1957

The Bridge
~ Dorothy Hilliard Moffatt

The way I walk I see my mother walking,
The feet secure and firm upon the ground.
The way I talk I hear my daughter talking
And hear my mother's echo in the sound.
The way she thought I find myself now thinking,
The generations linking
In a firm continuum of mind.
The bridge of immortality I'm walking,
The voice before me echoing behind.

When I first saw my great-great-grandmother Magdalena's portrait I felt as if I was looking at a face that was strangely familiar. I had known her name and felt a connection to her as I had wondered about her life and how she had raised her children in the late 19th-century in Legrad (then Hungary). Her daughter Ilona had been very close to her own daughters throughout their adulthood, yet as a tender-aged 24-year-old new mother she had left her home country and Magdalena behind. I often wondered about Magdalena's feelings about her daughter's emigration. Had she ever expected to see her again?

Though Magdalena lived to the age of 97, she never once was able to see Ilona again. Her American grandchildren never had the chance to meet her although they and even their children were well into adulthood by the time of her death.

I remember being told that at one point Ilona (now Helen in America) got impatient with her husband Frank's devotion to card-playing and threatened to "go home to her mother" if he didn't give it up. I wonder how many years had passed until Ilona had realized that she would never see her mother again. At least they were able to keep in touch through letters and pictures sent across the Atlantic.

Magdalena's other children, two daughters and a son, remained in Legrad and lived out their lives there. Her daughter Katarina married Juro Simon, her daughter Louisa married Stjepan (Istvan) Vidaković, and her son Adam married a woman named Katarina. By the beginning of the 21st-century, Magdalena and her husband Stjepan (both born in the mid-19th-century) had more than 150 descendants in Croatia and America.

Magdalena passed away in 1957 in Legrad (then Yugoslavia) at the age of 97. I treasure the photos that I have of her funeral and the family that surrounded her as they said their last goodbyes to their beloved mother, Magdalena.


I can see clear family resemblances to many of the people in this photo, but I have not yet been able to identify all of them for certain. If you recognize anyone in the picture, please leave a comment or send an email.

For more poetry by Dorothy Hilliard Moffatt, see Time for Remembrance: Poems and Too Many Apples.

For more photographs that embody a mother's love, visit footnoteMaven's 1st edition of I Smile for the Camera.

A Valentine tribute to my ancestors

In honor of St. Valentine's Day today I thought I would remember some of the married couples in the Ujlaki and Toth family trees whose wedding dates I know (and some I don't).

Here's to all the loving couples in this extended family (several generations back). Without them there would be no family tree!

Stjepan & Magdalena (Bedenica) Bence

Josip & Terezija (Globlek) Ujlaki

Ferencz & Ilona (Bence) Ujlaki
Married February 15, 1905 in Legrad, Hungary's Catholic Church (now in Croatia)

Juro & Katarina (Bence) Simon

Istvan & Louisa (Bence) Vidakovic

Adam & Katarina Bence

Josef & Barbára (Nagy) Németh

István & Mária (Németh) Tóth
Married in Gelej or Korlat, Hungary

Where was your family in 1908?

It was a banner year for the Wright Brothers and their flying "aeroplane".

It was the year that Henry Ford's Model T went into production and the year that General Motors was founded.

1908 saw the race to the North Pole, the automobile race from New York to Paris, and the race to liberate the housewife via electric irons and toasters.

It was a year of tremendous change for the world and for the nation that had seen the Louisiana Purchase and Lewis & Clark's trek across the west only a century before.

1908. One-hundred years ago today.

Where was my family?

That was the question I asked myself after reading Jim Rasenberger's thought-provoking article in the January 2008 issue of Smithsonian Magazine. In 1908: The Year That Changed Everything, Rasenberger gives us a look back at the world one-hundred years ago. A nice summary of the article via the editorial department is located here.

I don't have the opportunity as Rasenberger did to spend several weeks reading the entire collection of New York Times back issues from the year 1908. (In his words, "It was like living in this 1908 time machine.") Nor do I know everything about my family members' lives that year. But what I do know makes me want to learn more.

Here's a little summary of the year from the viewpoint of the Ujlaki family:

Ferencz Ujlaki - almost 29 years old, Ferencz was living out his dream of becoming an American immigrant. He had left his young expectant wife behind in 1906 to go ahead and prepare a new life for her in the "new world". He arrived at Ellis Island, more than likely via the ship Ultonia. A resident of the Hungarian district of Manhattan, Ferencz was corresponding with her via letter and sending money home to Hungary for her support. He must have been anxiously awaiting her arrival in New York. It would be another year before she would arrive.

Ilona Ujlaki - just shy of 24 years, Ilona was mother to her young son, Ferencz, who was 19 months old in January of 1908. Ilona was preparing to join her husband in America the following year. During this time of waiting she was living first with her mother-in-law, Terezija Ujlaki, in Legrad.

Stjepan (age 51) & Magdalena Bence (age 48) welcomed Ilona and little Ferencz back into their home, supposedly after Ilona had found her mother-in-law hoarding the money Ferencz had sent from America. Ilona spent her remaining days with her parents before emigrating to join her husband.

Adam Bence - Ilona's younger brother was 20 years old in 1908. Two other sisters, Katarina and Louisa, were also living in Legrad. Ilona would correspond with Adam and his son Stjepan for many years throughout her life in New York. None of her siblings followed her to America. Instead, they remained in the Legrad area and their descendants live in Croatia today.

There were others, new Hungarian immigrants to New Jersey, who would later marry into the Ujlaki family. In 1908 they were beginning their new lives there just as Ferencz was trying to carve out a new life in Manhattan.

One-hundred years ago.

Thinking back to 1908, I can't help but compare that year with the present. In the words of Carey Winfrey of the Smithsonian editorial department as she summarized Rasenberger's article:

So how does one hundred years ago compare to the present? In some ways, particularly in urban America, very familiarly. "They rode the subway to work. They had electricity. They went to see movies, Broadway shows. They were interested in things we're interested in. They worried about diet. They worried that Christmas was becoming too commercialized." And yet, it was also a very different world. The disparity between rich and poor was vast, as it was between classes, sexes and races.

We, the descendants of those living out their dreams in 1908, can see with hindsight what a different world they lived in.

Where was your family in 1908?

Want to take a further look back at 1908 through the articles written by others who responded to my question? Read Snapshots of the world back in 1908 and enjoy a small cross-section of hundred-year-old history. Enjoy your trip back in time...

On new countries, new babies and a wedding

Let's recap a little bit of the life of Ferencz Ujlaki and his wife Ilona as a newly married couple before we get to the next part of their journey: their life in New York City.

• February 15, 1905 - Ferencz Ujlaki & Ilona Bence were married at the Catholic Church in Legrad, Hungary.


• April 12 - May 2, 1906 - Ferencz traveled to America - a 20-day journey on the Ultonia from Fiume (Trieste), arriving in Ellis Island, New York. (As I mentioned in this earlier post, this information is probably correct, although his name and place of origin is mispelled. I would like to find other documentation to prove that this is actually him.)


• May 9, 1906 - Baby Ferencz is born in Legrad, Hungary.


• February 13 - March 2, 1909 - Ilona & 2-year-old Ferencz travel to America - an 18-day journey on the Carmania from Fiume (Trieste), arriving in Ellis Island, New York.

At that point, the little family was reunited and the new life that Ferencz had begun in Manhattan was continued along with his wife and young son. As I mentioned here, I cannot read the information on the Carmania ship manifest that indicates the address to where Ilona was going upon arrival. It must have been the address where Ferencz was living in Manhattan, but I have not been able to read it.

The year after Ilona's arrival in New York, the 1910 U.S. Census was taken: the perfect opportunity for us to learn where this young family settled. However, I have not been able to find them in the census for this year. If anyone of you would like to take a look yourself, please let me know if you find them! (Their names may be mispelled and not appearing on the indexes that I have used to search.)

We do know that the couple's second child, also named Ilona (later known as Helene) was born in 1910, a little over a year after her mother and brother's arrival in New York. We have a beautiful portrait of this young family at the wedding of Peter & Maria (Gaspar) Gres. Although I'm waiting for confirmation from church records, I believe that the couple was married at St. Stephen of Hungary Catholic Church in Manhattan sometime in 1913.


Pictured in the wedding are portrait along with the bride and groom and some unknown wedding attendants are Ilona seated on the left and Ferencz seated on the right. Little Helene and Frankie are standing near their mother and father, respectively.

"Mrs. Grace", as I understood her name when I was a child, was actually Ilona's first cousin once-removed. (Ilona the mother, not Ilona the daughter later known as Helene.) Ilona's mother, Magdalena (Bedenices) Bence, was the sister of Maria Griesz' grandmother. (If I've confused you with this family tree, try writing it out on paper or plugging it into Family Tree Maker software - visual aids are very helpful when it comes to family history.)

This beautiful portrait amazes me for several reasons - Ilona's elaborate hairstyle and the beautiful clothes that she and her husband and children are wearing. As new immigrants, I'm sure that they had very little in terms of money and possessions, but they did a beautiful job with what they had. The children must have been much admired at this wedding. Sadly, Peter & Maria Gres never had the blessing of having children of their own. Instead, Maria spent many of her later years living with Ilona at the home of Wilma and her family and had plenty of opportunity to enjoy the comings and goings of many generations of family members, myself included.

Our farmer and his wife

I really enjoy looking at this photo of Stjepan and Magdalena Bence, my great-great-grandparents, parents of Ilona (Bence) Ujlaki. It is one of only two photos that we have of them (not counting a photo we have of Magdalena's funeral). The other photo of the couple is the formal portrait posted here on this blog.

I like this image because they look here more like they probably did in everyday life - he the farmer (although he is wearing a jacket and hat) and she the hard-working farmer's wife. She looks like such a kind, gentle and friendly woman. I'm saddened when I think that they never were able to meet their daughter Ilona's children, who I know and love. She looks like such a wonderful grandmother and he looks like he would make a very nice grandfather. I'm very thankful that we have this wonderful photographic insight into the lives of Great-Great-Grandma and Grampa Bence (Baka and Djed in Croatian).