Person:Susanna Rózsa (2)

Birth recorded in State Archives Arad, Register 41, page 5, No. 5.

Uncle Henry describes her as being such a kind, giving person. He really loved her.

There is the family story that when her youngest son, Joseph (father of Henry, Elizabeth, Adam and Rose Mary) returned to Hungary along with his wife and two eldest children, she was working in the fields. Joseph who had left home as a very young man was now standing before her, a father with a mustache. She looked and looked at him and he finally said, "Mother, don't you know me." She replied, "Oh my son why have you come back?" Times were hard and I think she thought he could do better for himself and his family in America. She had been widowed for the second time. Her husband, our grandfather, had been dead for a year and she was 66 years old.

Suzanna gave birth to nine children,five of whom grew to adulthood. When Suzanna's first husband died in 1890, he left her with 5 children--Katalin, 15; Johan, 13; Fred, 5; Konrad 3; and Adam, the youngest who ended up in Canada, only 13 days old and she was only 36! A month later her mother Gertrud Spier Rózsa died. Then her husband's sister-in-law died in 1893. My father was born a year later. She and her brother-in-law (who had lost his wife) lived together without benefit of marriage until long after their only son together was born--he was 12 at the time of their wedding. Suzanna took over the caring of her second husband's family as well. There were three children still at home, Konrad who was 17 (Uncle Konrad of Rochester), Imre who was 12, and Katharine who was 5 (Aunt Katharine Mayer of Rochester). Is it any wonder that these cousins truly thought of themselves as siblings because they were so young when their two families were joined. Joseph, their only son together, remembers seeing his parents get married. It was explained that marrying would be an economic hardship--I don't know if there was such a thing as insurance for them.

We have no pictures of her, but her grandson, Henry (son of Janos/John), said she was such a kind and loving woman. When he would visit her, she would always have milk and cookies for him despite the fact that she didn't have much money. After her death, he discovered she had left him a small trust to be paid to him at a certain age -- he reports it as "can you imagine, she was so poor and she still wanted to leave me something." Henry also reported that in her later years she lived with Adam (who later emigrated to Canada).

Death recorded in State Archives Arad, No. 4

1. ↑ ^1.0 1.1 Birth Certificate.
2. ↑ ^2.0 2.1 Georg Schmidt. Semlak Lutheran (Evangelische) Church Death Records
   Document on File.

   No. 4 in the Reformierte Church death records.

3. ↑ Georg Schmidt of Germany. Reformed Church Familienbuch.
4. ↑ Birth Certificate.

   Birth No. 5 in 1854

5. ↑ Boston Manifest.

   Boston Manifest. Joseph, her son, says he has left his mother at that address in Semlak, Romania.

6. ↑ Ladislau Gyémánt, Researcher.

   No. 4 in the Reformierte Church death records.