A special friendship
My mom met Jolika for the first time. They met during a chance meeting in the shopping center, where my mom helped her bring home a household appliance she had bought at the time. Although they did not know each other, my mom offered to help. They talked all the way home. It turned out that they live in the same neighborhood in the garden city. This chance meeting turned into a friendship. In 2011, after I met my mom and we already had a close relationship, she took me to introduce me to Jolika. Jolika lived in Budapest in a beautiful house decorated in baroque style. She welcomed me warmly from the first minute. She loved people very much and loved it when there were many guests in her house. She always spoke fondly about her family, her successful years abroad and about her poems. Faith, honesty, hard work, love of country, family and friends were the most important things in her life.
She cherished us, her friends, who were a part of her daily life, and she was grateful to us for the time we spent together. In her last years, she didn’t even leave the house, so we brought her the world, thereby helping her in her everyday life by making her life better. She treated us almost like her own children, she was “Joli mama” for all of us. Through us, she got back what life did not give her, children, and we got back the parents we had already lost.
Since I have also been living abroad for a long time and write poems, we had quite a lot in common. We gladly talked about the challenges that befell us, shared our poems with each other and sometimes even sang a little together. I always remember with pleasure the lunches we spent together and the long conversations to which she invited us all. We were like a big family.
Jolika did not come from a wealthy family. She was born in a small town, Nagyecsed, Hungary, and lived there with her family, with whom she had a good relationship. I really look up to Jolika for having the courage to leave this small town and follow her dreams to England. At that time, she didn’t even speak English, she learned the language during the years she spent in England. She had nothing. She built her life with hard work. That’s why she really understood the difficulty of immigrating to another country and starting a new life. She was rightly proud of her achievements. She also made many close friends in England, with whom she kept in touch until the end of her life. Meanwhile, she never forgot her family either, visiting and caring for them throughout her life.
A productive life full of adventures
She was born on December 15, 1931 in Nagyecsed, as the fourth child in a family of eight children. Among her siblings, the singer Károly Szántó was the closest. In 1957 – on her wedding day – she emigrated with her husband and became a cook for a noble family in Scotland. Here she met Count Károlyi’s daughter, Boriska, who was a great help in learning English. Later they moved to Birmingham, where she took a job at the Lucas Corporation, at an aircraft accident analysis company. First as a payroll clerk, then later, when her abilities were recognized, she became the secretary of the military engineers.
She never forgot her country and her family even for a minute, she always thought of them with deep love and gratitude. Her achievements also made her parents very happy. The time spent together during their visit to England was a great pleasure for her. She welcomed the other family members as well. She gladly helped almost strangers and gave them a home during their stay there. She visited her family regularly, and always spent her free time in Hungary with her husband. She was always Hungarian in her heart. She supported her relatives and friends as much as she could. In 1998, due to the illness of her husband – who wanted to finish his life on Hungarian land – they moved home.
Throughout her life, she was interested in literature and poetry. Her poems were published in several newspapers in England, and her volumes were published twice here, which were also recognized by the staff of the National Széchényi Library. Her poems are diverse, full of emotion and warmth, and her main topics are the love of parents, siblings, home, friends and love. In addition to poems, she was always happy to sing, and most often performed songs in English. On the occasion of her 90th birthday, journalist Ádám Gueth published an article about her life in the local newspaper, which she was very happy and proud of. She died on October 31, 2022 in Budapest. She lived an exemplary life, respected and loved by everyone.
Article about Jolán Szántó’s life in the local newspaper
“Believe in yourself and believe in your dreams. Follow them, never give up, that’s the most important thing. If you believe you can get there, then one day you will.”
– Joao Moutinho