Tag #136210 - Interview #78490 (Katalin Kallos Havas)

My parents weren’t strict. They never forbade my older brother or me anything. We lived in a very beautiful house on the bank of the Szamos River in Des. A large household lived in the family house, which had plumbing and electricity. We all had our own rooms. The laundry and the kitchen were in the basement, and the food was brought to the dining-room with an elevator. We had a housemaid, a cook and a Fraulein, that is, a governess. The servants were all Christians and they lived in our house. It was my mother’s principle that everybody must work for their bread, therefore we children had some duties around the house; even though there were people who could have done it for us, we had to do them. We cleaned up, helped out around the house and had to keep our closets tidy.