Following a showing of the documentary film "Searching for Wordin Avenue" at the Fairfield, Connecticut Museum and History Center in November of last year, Martha Matus Schipul came up to see me and we talked for a few minutes about the film, in which her parents were prominently featured, and about life in the old West End, where we both have roots. It did not take me long to realize that Martha is a wonderful resource of information and memories of the West End, and so we made arrangements to meet again. We spent two fascinating hours together and she related her recollections of the people, the places and the things that took place there. 

 

      Martha started with the story of her beginnings: "I was born and spent my early years at 400 Bostwick Avenue in the West End of Bridgeport, across the street from Toby's Cleaners. The house was built by my grandfather, John. Our neighbors were the Gergelys, the Deers and my cousins, the Fazekas family. Mrs. Deer was supposedly the aunt of the movie actress Mitzi Gaynor. I attended the First Hungarian Reformed Church on Pine Street, whose pastor was Reverend Nagy, and we were surrounded by churches, including The Holy Trinity Greek Catholic Church and Saint Stephen’s. I sang in the choir, attended Sunday School, and Hungarian school in the summers."

 

       I mentioned to Martha that the proprietor of Toby's Cleaners was Frank Tobis, a member of the Tobis clan living in the West End and Fairfield, another member of which was my grandmother, Agnes Tobis Kranyik.   We also talked about the fact that Reverend Nagy had served as an interpreter for Hungarians who found themselves in the court system, yet had a limited grasp of the English language. I told Martha that my father had served as an interpreter alongside Reverend Nagy while a member of the Fairfield Police Department.

 

     Martha went on to discuss her ancestors: " My maternal grandmother, Elizabeth Oravecz had come to America from Abaujmegye, part of that agricultural northeastern section of Hungary which was the source of many of the West End immigrants. Orphaned at ten, Elizabeth came over unaccompanied. On the boat from Europe she would have died of typhoid fever if it hadn’t been for the kindness of some Hungarian mothers who nursed her back to health. Her grandfather had worked for "Mad King Ludwig" of Bavaria, the builder of the famous and often photographed Castle Neuschwanstein.   Elizabeth was sponsored by her Aunt Bismarck in Bridgeport who had married Gregor Bismarck, a cousin of the Iron Chancellor. Her cousin Julia Bismarck married András Olexo who ran a barbershop on Fairfield Avenue, but he was also a well-known writer back in Hungary. He was the author of the story “Homecoming” that was featured in Searching for Wordin Avenue."

 

   She continued, "Another Bismarck cousin was Cornel Lengyel who often visited his family in Fairfield and Bridgeport, though he spent most of his life in the San Francisco area. He was the author of two free verse epics, Four Days in July and The American Testament and the novel, I Benedict Arnold a defense of the American Revolutionary general.

 

    “My maternal grandfather, pharmacist Nicholas Horvath came from Kassa, or as it is now known, “Kosice,” Slovakia, as a baby. His father, Stephen Horvath, and mother, Mari Orosz Horvath, lived on a farm in Fairfield bounded by Black Rock Turnpike, Stillson Road and Denise Terrace, where many Hungarians would come from the West End to picnic and pick their own fruits and vegetables. The farm house still stands on Stillson Road near Black Rock Turnpike. Mari helped sew the silk wings for Gustave Whitehead’s airplanes.

 

    “Nicholas’s brother, Gyula Horváth, was chief assistant and later public relations man for Gustave Whitehead. When he married Louise Swan, a member of the Daughters of the Mayflower, he was persuaded to change his name to Junius Harworth III. He moved to Detroit and worked as an engineer for Packard. On one visit to the family in Bridgeport, he sat me on his lap and carefully explained the story of Mr. Whitehead’s exploits, showing me letters from the flight pioneers Brazilian Alberto Santos DuMont and one of the surviving Prussian von Lilienthal brothers. He told me that some day I would become a writer and tell the story of Whitehead. Fifty years later, I did!”

 

    Martha went on to discuss her paternal origins. "My paternal grandparents had hailed from Sártoraljaujhely, Hungary. They were János Matusz and Mari Toth Matusz. My grandfather worked at the Acme Shear Company and walked to work every day, though it was a long distance. Unfortunately, Mari died in the Spanish Influenza epidemic of 1918. My father, Jules Matus, recalled the epidemic and the tragedies it brought to the West End community, including his family, as he was interviewed on camera in Searching for Wordin Avenue. I also remember him telling me that my father had developed the Influenza at age seven, and was visited by a "Holy Man" who prayed over him. He survived!

 

    She continued, "My father’s older brother, John Matusz, was a poet, playwright and Hungarian translator. He worked with Bela Lugosi, Peter Lorre, and Pal Lukacs when he translated American plays into Hungarian for performances at Rakoczi Hall in the 1930’s."

 

     She continued her recollections of the West End: "I remember Zelich's Live Poultry Store - people often bought live chickens in those days for Sunday dinner. Aunt Jennie worked at Zelich's. My great aunt, Lydia Toth Hajnal worked as a designer at Warnaco, a large company in the South End of Bridgeport which manufactured ladies’ foundation garments. At the time Warner Brothers, as it was known earlier, was a place where many Hungarian-American women were employed, mostly in the sewing operations.

 

    “Unfortunately, Aunt Lydia's husband and her sister both died in the Influenza Epidemic, within 24 hours of each other. She later married Michael Zsupik, also widowed in the epidemic, and together they operated Zsupik’s Tavern on the corner of Pine and Bostwick.

 

    “It was at the old Bostwick Theatre that I was my first movie - it was about wild horses, ‘White Mane’. My parents had attended the old Longfellow School, also on Bostwick Avenue at the time. The school, along with the churches and the fire house, were all torn down during the urban redevelopment effort in the late 1950's and early 1960's, an effort which essentially destroyed the old Hungarian community. The new Longfellow School now exists several blocks way, nearby the old Saint Stephen's School Building, which is now utilized as a warehouse by the City of Bridgeport. And, it was in the old Saint Stephen's Church where part of the Paul Newman film, "The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the Moon Marigolds” was filmed."

 

The Drug Store

 

     Martha then related the story of her family's drug store. ”Horvath's Drug Store became an early institution in the Hungarian community, and I would like to share some interesting facts with you. Grandfather Nicholas Horvath had graduated from pharmacy school in Washington, D.C. In 1905, when he returned to the West End, Nicholas purchased the Diana Pharmacy, which became Horvath's Pharmacy. On the opposite corner of Bostwick and Pine St. stood Mrs. Marzi's candy store. Bostwick Avenue, which began at Fairfield Avenue, and headed south, under the railroad viaduct, through a busy part of the Hungarian section, ended at the marshes which rimmed the inner portion of Black Rock Harbor. This is the present location of Captain’s Cove Marina.

 

     “Pharmacies were busy places in those days, since the local pharmacist often took the place of the doctor in diagnosing minor illnesses and providing medications. Some of those medications contained opium. This added to the business volume in a perfectly legal way in those days! Over time, Nicholas had acquired a chain of pharmacies in the area, and was doing quite well until economic issues and some bad business dealings resulted in his losing most of them. During this time, Horvath's Pharmacy became well known, and was frequented by the local inhabitants and some interesting others. Bridgeport was the winter quarters of both the Barnum and Bailey Circus and Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, and when Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley came to town, they visited Horvath’s Pharmacy, probably to buy Granddaddy’s liniment for saddle sores.   From time to time Nicholas would travel some 18 miles north to visit with Mark Twain at his home in West Redding. There he would meet with members of Twain's literary and social circle. He picked up a lifelong habit of cigar smoking from Mr. Clemens who also taught him to play billiards. My busy grandfather took up oil painting, and I remember a full-length portrait of an Indian Chief which he had done—perhaps someone from Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show.”

 

     Martha continued with a discussion of her parents. "My mother, Grace Horvath Matus, studied pharmacy at the New Haven Pharmacy College during the Great Depression. An indication of how the members of the Hungarian community supported one another is that the landlords of the house in which Grace lived forgave the rent until Grace graduated. Grace then joined her grandfather at Horvath's Pharmacy, and worked there full time, and later, part time, until Horvath's closed in 1957. She was quite beautiful, known for her resemblance to the musical comedy actress Ruby Keeler. She worked there through boom times and bad times, and saw the demise of the old Hungarian neighborhood. Grandfather Horvath worked as a pharmacist until he was 87 years of age, having the longest career of any pharmacist in the state of Connecticut.

 

    “My father, Gyula Matusz, later Jules Matus, was a policeman in Bridgeport rising to the rank of lieutenant before retiring to enter his second career as a probation officer for the State. In his spare time he was a water color artist and calligrapher, fashioning proclamations and other public document in Gothic script. One of his clients was Governor Ribicoff. The most exciting thing that happened to him and my mother was participating in Searching for Wordin Avenue, for which he alsocontributed sketches and photographs.

 

    “ My parents loved all things Hungarian, listening to Hungarian operetta on the record player, attending Hungarian classes at First Hungarian and Sacred Heart and cooking up lots of paprikás csirke, gulyás and töltött káposzta. They even named their little girl after the Hungarian operetta soprano Marta Eggerth (still performing in her 90’s!) and took their daughter up to Dartmouth to meet the composer Zoltán Kodály."

  

     A graduate of Bassick High School and the University of Bridgeport where she received both a BA and an MA in English, Martha is married to Bill Schipul, a Public Defender with the State. They have four sons, Karl and Dan who are web designers, John, a second year resident at St. Anthony’s Hospital in Oklahoma City, and Paul, a lobbyist for the railroad industry in Washington DC. Martha is the author of Philippa, a young adult fantasy novel available on Amazon.com. She has taught English at U.B., Sacred Heart University, and Trumbull Continuing Ed. She was the cofounder of the Fairfield County Asperger PDD Support Group, one of the first of its kind in the nation.

 

    Martha Matus Schipul has proven to be wonderful source of memories about the old West End. A gifted writer, she shared with me a screen play which she wrote, titled "Aeronaut: A West End Tale." It is a story of the life of Gustav Whitehead and she hopes that it will become a film.   "Aeronaut: A West End Tale" especially interested me, because the flights of Gustave Whitehead have been a fascination to me since I was a child, when I first heard the stories from my father and our Tunxis Hill neighbors about Whitehead's flights. (See Magyar News, "Who Flew First", by Bob Kranyik and Andy Kosch, June, 2002 and "Soaring Through History: Americans Celebrate the Wright Brothers First Flight - or Was It Whitehead's?" by Bob Kranyik, Fairfield Minuteman , August 21, 2003)

 

     Thank you, Martha, for sharing your memories of the Old West End, and I hope that you will share more with us in the future. Magyar News Online is committed to helping preserve the history of our Hungarian ancestors through articles it publishes, and your’s story is a part of that history. .