Her inner strength transcended cultures, countries, languages and wars
CHARLESTOWN — Marianne Szent-Ivanyi Magyar Vincze, of Charlestown, formerly of Melrose, passed away peacefully in her sleep on Tuesday, October 11, 2022 at the age of 87.
She was the beloved wife of the late Dr. Laszlo O. Vincze, M.D. She was also the devoted mother of Steve and his wife Kathy of Saunderstown, R.I.; Christopher P. and his wife Janet of Jupiter, Florida, formerly of North Reading, and Monique V. Cook and her husband David of Wilmington. She was also the dear sister of the late Olga Russell and the loving grandmother of Gabrielle, Kyle, Eva and Chiara as well as the loving great-grandmother of Harlan and Willem.
Known to her three children as “Mami,” she was a beautiful, elegant lady, an athlete, a fashion model, the daughter of an Hungarian Count, an American immigrant, a loving wife and mother who through her own example instilled in her children a relentless pursuit of excellence – never exerting less than absolute maximum effort – to be the best at whatever she did – and expecting that same standard from others, but especially from her family, and…most especially from her children.
Born on December 7, 1934, in Budapest, Hungary, the younger of two sisters, to an aristocratic Hungarian father and a wealthy mother, she lived a life of privilege as a young girl during the final years of what was left of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after World War I. Her father was the youngest son of a large old Hungarian Catholic family, the Szent-Ivanyi Magyars. He inherited the title of Count, was a trained attorney and a cavalry officer in the Hungarian Army. His bride, Vilma Omasits, was the only child of a family who owned one of the largest, if not the largest pork production facilities in the country, and whose marriage was blessed by the Pope.
In 1943, when she was 9, her father broke his leg in a deer hunting accident and died suddenly at age 42 from a blood clot in his leg while recovering in the hospital. The city honored him with a large funeral procession down the main boulevard of the city with his cavalry horse in tow riderless. By this time and quickly thereafter, World War II was wrecking tremendous hardship and chaos on all Hungarians, to include Marianne and her family, first from the invading Nazi Germans and then the invading Communist Russians. During the Nazi occupation, her mother, at great risk to her own life, helped Jewish people to escape the Holocaust, hiding them in their basement until they could go to the next shelter, like an Underground Railroad.
Even though the post-war communist regime confiscated most of her family’s wealth, land and belongings, Marianne found a way to begin what turned out to be a magical, romantic, made-for-Hollywood chapter of her life. With her athletic beauty captured in photographs that first appeared in fashion magazines, she landed on the cover of the Hungarian equivalent of Vogue. Touted as the next “Bridgette Bardot” with her high cheekbones and big brown eyes, she was invited to audition for films. In the mid-1950s, while working in the Petofi hospital in the lab, she was introduced to a handsome young doctor and they fell madly in love. The 1956 Hungarian uprising intervened, however, and they chose to leave everything behind, escape to Austria, get married and immigrate to America in May 1957 with nothing but each other, “the clothes on their backs,” a Webster’s English dictionary and their first child on the way.
While her husband worked on-call delivering babies as an OB-GYN, Marianne raised their children with boundless energy, served as President of the Women’s Auxiliary for the Melrose-Wakefield Hospital, became a gourmet cook, threw amazing parties with her husband to help his practice, and took up a correspondence course in interior design – all in her spare time! She took up skiing in her mid-30s and progressed into a beautiful expert skier, who skied triple black diamond slopes until she was 80. In the 1980s and ’90s she picked up aerobics and became an aerobics instructor. She retired in her 70s, because, as she put it, “the young people can’t keep up.”
Marianne will be remembered as a great Hungarian lady whose genuine nobility arose from an unmatched inner strength that transcended cultures, countries, languages, wars, tragedies, decades and generations.
A private interment for Mrs. Vincze will be held at Newton Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, memorials in the memory of Marianne may be made to the ASPCA at www.aspca.org or by calling 800-628-0028. For guestbook and complete obituary please visit www.macdonaldrockwell.com.
