The Mestitz family

This family picture was taken in Borszek, in the 1920s. I?m the little girl in the white pinafore in the first row. In the back there's my sister, Klara, who also wears a white pinafore, just like me. She was a very pretty girl. The other kid is Mikhal, Misi, Mestitz, my older brother. Beside me is my dad, Henrik Mestitz, and behind me, my mom, Ilona Mestitz, nee Laszlo. I don't know the other people in the photo. Once a year, in fall, we had to go to Borszek. Borszek was my dad's obsession, he adored the place. [Borszek is one of the most renowned regions of mineral water springs in Romania.] Once, when my brother Andras was six weeks old, dad took us to Borszek. It was quite cold there. Occasionally we had to put a stove inside the room. We didn't like Borszek because there was no place to bathe [there is no lake or river there], but our parents' friends had a villa there and we spent the time playing. We spent most of our summer holidays at Szovata, together with our friends, a young couple, and we stayed there six weeks or two months. Our father came with us only to stay a week or two, and then he only came for the weekends. We rented a villa with four rooms: one for each couple and the other two for three children each. Both couples brought along a housemaid. They slept on the glassed-in porch and they cooked, thus it was quite comfortable. On several occasions we stayed in the village, and facing the river, on the other side, there was the villa of Queen Mary. On mornings we used to go to Medve Lake to bathe, and on afternoons to the creek, since all our friends used to go there. We were together in the mornings and afternoons, as well. Later, of course, everybody could choose where to spend his or her holidays.

Photos from this interviewee