Going to the boat house

This is the Ujpesti Osszekoto bridge. It was taken on a spring day, when we went out there to put the boat in order. The one on the right is Jeno Oblath, the left one is Imre Hahn, my husband, and that's me in the middle. It must have been at the beginning of the 1930s, maybe in 1930 or 1931. We often got together with my cousins, the children of my mother's brother. They also lived in Matyasfold, the two houses were close by, five minutes apart. My cousins were friends with my husband - relatives and friends as well. I liked them very much, they were intelligent, well-educated, well-read people. They graduated from secondary school. Back then, it was a big thing if someone graduated from secondary school. They were not married yet, at that time. They were even angry with my husband because he was the first one in the boat group, who got married. They owned a boat together, and they rented a space for the boat at the first boathouse, next to the Ujpesti Osszekoto bridge-the owner of the boathouse was called Magashazi. As soon as the weather started to be good they went to lacquer it and put it in order. We had a closed cabin in the boathouse, where we could change and keep the belongings we needed there. When I joined their group, then I also went along to tidy up the boat and every weekend, we went rowing on the Danube, in two boats. It wasn't the done thing at the time, to sleep in the same tent with one's fiancée, so they went to Vac or to Horany on Saturday, and I went to join them on Sunday morning and then came home in the evening. That was the program every weekend, when the weather was good. How they settled on this sport, I don't know, but Jeno was a member of the Workers' Sports Association. My husband was also a member. Later, we gave up rowing. Jeno Oblath was my cousin of mine and also of my husband. For me, it was on my mother's side: he is the son of Uncle Naci, my mother's brother. For Imre, it was also on his mother's side: her sister, Aunty Lina, became Uncle Naci's wife. Jeno was born in 1903, and at the age of 33, he got blood poisoning, and there were no penicillin yet (at that time), so it killed him. He finished high school; he was a clerk, but he was unemployed for a long time. And in 1930 or 1931, when they were building the house in Matyasfold he managed the construction work. He was unmarried and lived at home.

Photos from this interviewee