Ilona Kerestesy

Ilona Maria Kerestesy was born on April 20, 1884, to Ferencz Kerestesy and Julianna Azari.  Born in Erdőhorváti, Hungary, she was the eldest of six children. Based on baptismal records, the family moved from Erdőhorváti (Julianna’s hometown) to Bodrogzsadány (Ferencz’s hometown) shortly after Ilona was born. The other five children were born when they lived in Bodrogzsadány.

Ilona’s father spent most of 1890s in America and left for America for good in 1901. Shortly afterwards he sent for Ilona to help him keep house at what was likely the boardinghouse of Hungarian coal miners. Ilona left the rest of the family in Hungary, arrived in New York City on October 1, 1902, and traveled to Marion Heights (near Shamokin), Pennsylvania, to join her father.

Note: Those ancestors who immigrated anglicized their names. This wasn’t done at Ellis Island.  I think they just did it to assimilate and have a name that Americans could pronounce. Ilona went by Ellen in America. Ferencz went by Frank.

Within two years, Ellen met Joseph Koletar, a fellow immigrant from Hungary, and they married in Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania, on June 11, 1904. This led to her father sending for the rest of the family. By the time Julia and the remaining three Kerestesy children arrived, Ellen was pregnant.  Her first son, John, was born in Marion Heights in June 1905.

The family left Marion Heights and moved between rental houses in nearby Shamokin, where Eleanor, Joseph/Koley, George/Soapy, and Peter were born. They bought a house in Shamokin at 612 Bear Valley Avenue in 1912.   While Shamokin had a number of ethnic enclaves (Irish, Polish, Italian), Their neighborhood on Bear Valley Ave was a mix of Slavs and Hungarians.  Stephen/Larry and Frank were born there.

In June 1919, her husband, Joseph, died of complications of black lung disease.  She was a widow with 7 children between the ages of 2 and 13. She likely received some insurance money on Joseph’s death, but that soon ran out.

The early to mid-1920s were not a merry time. John went to work in the mines and Eleanor cleaned houses to help the family. Joseph dropped out of school after eighth grade to work as a breaker boy, pulling the shale and debris out of the coal before they shipped it. Things got so bad Ellen had to send George/Soapy and Pete to the local orphanage for a spell. Joseph/Koley got arrested with older boys for vandalizing a circus train and apprehended for stealing a bike. Ellen’s younger brother, Frank, Jr, died of pneumococcal meningitis.

Somehow, Ellen pulled the family out of dire straits in the late 1920s. In 1928, John was the first of the boys to join the Merchant Marine. Eleanor went to parties and dances. Joseph/Koley worked in the mines and boxed on the side.  In the early thirties, Pete joined the Army and went to Panama, Eleanor moved to Detroit, Joseph/Koley married Grace and Betty was Ellen’s first of many grandchildren.

It wasn’t all good news for Ellen.  Her father died in May 1932 and she lost her only sister, Lillie, in 1934 to stomach cancer.

Frank, the youngest and only Koletar child to graduate from high school, left shortly after his graduation in 1936 to live with Eleanor in Ohio. The small house that was once filled with bustle and boys was now empty. Ellen finally had a break. 

Her house still served as a home base for her wandering Merchant Marine sons. Life had taken a toll on the woman and it showed. After her wedding picture, the next picture we have is twenty years later, and she looks forty years older. Doing laundry by hand, growing your own food, canning, preserving, cooking every meal from scratch for a house of 8-10 people for twenty years will do that.

While all the boys served in the Merchant Marine at one time, World War II saw several of the kids get torpedoed. They all survived, but it must have been a trying time as a mother. When her daughter, Eleanor, and family hit hard times after the war, they moved back in with Ellen. When Steve/Larry got divorced, he asked Ellen to watch his two kids, Steve and Linda, but that proved too much for 68-year-old Ellen. 

Ellen continued to live alone until her late seventies. Around 1962, she developed Alzheimer’s and moved in with Eleanor and family. She died July 2, 1971. 

Born in a small Hungarian village in 1884, Ellen grew up without electricity, sleeping on a mattress made of straw sharing a single room with multiple generations. She crossed the Atlantic in a great unknown and lived to see men land on the moon after raising seven children on her own. If nothing else, she was tough. Her children loved her dearly and made sure they took care of her until her last day.  She is buried in Transfiguration Catholic Cemetery next to her husband and sons Soapy and Larry.