Grandma's baptismal name was Maria Margit Jankovits. "Manca", as she was known, was 20 years of age when she married Janos/John Ferency, who was 22 (altho on the 1915 NY census, where he was a lunch waiter, and she a dress maker, he was 24 to her 20) It said at at that point, they had both been in the states for two years.

She was one of five children:

Jolán Jankovits 1891–1963
Gizella Jankovits 1892–1984
Manca Jankovits 1893–1986
Jenő Jankovits 1895–1961 (Died in Hungary)
Ansca "Irene" Jankovits 1900–1990 (Died in Florida; possibly cremated.)

The couple was married February 6, 1915 at City Hall of the City of New York. On the marriage certificate, his name was given as John Ferenczy of 155 E 85th St. NY, and hers was Mary Yankovits of the same address. The witnesses were F.S. Schonfeld and Fekete Marton. Alderman, John Reardon.
September 2, 1941.

Manca was not naturalized until 1941. The document gives her particulars as:
Age: 46
Sex: Female
Color: White
Complexion: light
Eyes: Grey
Hair: Brown
Height: 5'5"
Weight: 140#
No distinctive marks, a widow who was formerly Hungarian.
Eastern District of Michigan, petition # 151796 Sept 2, 1941
Address: 316 N. Livernois, Detroit MI

FOLLOWING: Transcript of interview with Manca Ferency (MF), taken in late 1980. Interviewed by: Michael D. Baker (MDB), with comments by Theodore O. Ferency (TOF) and Karen E. Baker (KEB). Location, Manca's apartment in Jackson, MI.

Note: There are some words and phrases on the tape that I could not understand…some Hungarian words, but mostly because of other people talking, including a very vocal Michael Baker Jr., who was called "Bounkle" by his great grandmother and grandfather. I have tried to keep the phrasing in there, to give some idea of what the conversation was like…including Dad's comments, which were typical of him. Grandma was eighty seven years old, and my dad was sixty five.

MANCA FERENCY TRANSCRIPT, 1980

MDB: When did you come over here (to America)?

MF: Ah, when? Sixty nine years ago. Figure it out…1914. I was not quite nineteen years old.

TOF: I remember. It was just a year before I was born.

MDB: Did you come by yourself, or with your family?

TOF: I came with a family.

MF: With Gizi. Gizi had to stick with me wherever I went.

MDB: Was she older than you?

MF: She's 3 ½ years older than I am. She was ninety last May.

MDB: Where was Ansca?

MF: Ansca was alive already. Ansca was just a very young girl.

MDB: She stayed in Hungary?

MF: She stayed in Hungary, yah, oh, yes. She was, let's see, six years younger than I am; that made her 13 years old.

MDB: Was Grandpa already over here?

MF: Grandpa visit us back in Europe twice before I ever came out. He came. I don't think it was a good marriage. They never…just the way I figure it.

MDB: I mean your husband.

MF: Well, he's in the family. His mother's brother married that sister of mine. Jolán, not Gizi. Gizi married that Jewish man. Here in America, yah. Nice guy, very nice guy. And he died the same as she died. Yah, lost his mind. And I blame his daughter for all of that.

MDB: Well, when did your husband come over here?

MF: I month after I came, I never know he is planning on it. I never know. It looks like he is in love with me. He was like a brother to me, having him in the family. He… Jolán's husband…no, no, no, he had a different name, ah, (Ferenc) Siket. Siket means somebody deaf. She said, "You are deaf?" She married the uncle of my husband with that name. And Jolán was very particular against that name, you know, so he changed it to Sándori (pron. "Shan-dor"). And Sándori is a name like Ferency, too, like John, Joe, and so on, Sándori. So, he was Sándori, yah.

MDB: So, you went to New York, right through, from Hungary?

MF: Well, yes, yes! Oh, those days they took you on Ellis Island.

MDB: Were you on Ellis Island?

MF: We didn't. We had to change our ticket because Gizi wouldn't go third class. They took third class people, not the second class. So, we had to rush to telephone home- not telephone, but telegraph- home that we are not going unless we get the difference to change our tickets. And, we had a rich aunt*, my father's sister in town those days. My mother was poor.

* Her name was Johanna "Anna" Jankovits , who married József Zsidek.

MDB: Where was that? What town in Hungary?

MF: I didn't get you.

MDB: What town was that?

MF: What town? Losonc, where I was born, where we were born. She visit us there. She had a big family there. Yah. Big family. She married a guy who then, he was a postmaster and teacher. The husband of this aunt of my husband's. So, they lived quite far, but they came…we burned down.

So, that is when my father decide he come to America. Our house burned down, and we had a machine shop. A smith shop. We built carriages and fixed the horses what-cha-ma-call.

MDB: Blacksmith.

MF: Blacksmith, blacksmith, yah, that's what my father was. Blacksmith. And he kept helpers, and youngsters wanted to be blacksmith, and they were around, you know, and so poor mother, she had to cook plenty.

MDB: Did your father ever come over here, or did he stay in Hungary?

MF: My father? My father was here when I came.

MDB: OH, Ok.

MF: When we burned down, we were real poor, then he, then my Godfather lived next door, then he came ahead a little bit sooner. So, he kept calling him all day. When we burned down, he decided, he'll try, he'll try America. I wish he never did go.

MDB: Why?

MF: I wish he…no, there is nothing. I wouldn't like to leave my mother again when I was nineteen. I wouldn't. And, well, what did I get? I work hard all my life here. I…well, I'm an old worker, like a horse, I like to. And I did, because we had do, we had to. My-then-yah, and in that restaurant, I did the cooking, yah.

MDB: Yeah? So, when did you get married?

MF: A year after, wait a minute. I came to Detroit. And John stayed in New York. He didn't dare come to Detroit, because I never know he is coming. I never know that he gets such ideas. In fact, I was, ah, well, this isn't in the what-cha-ma-call, that I was engaged to a teacher. There was a big school. We looked from our garden on that school, and I know these youngsters, and I did like another of them, and he was a boyfriend of mine. (Well, here I am, start talking like a machine!) So, this other teacher came to our house, teaching my brother, because my mother wanted SO badly that my brother become a minister, something like that, you know, and he (laughing) didn't like to learn, so in the school he wasn't too good. So, they hire him the home coming teacher to help out. Another came out. But, he did all right then, he did. Become a blacksmith, and he knew everything, fixing clocks, and brushes, whatnot, so he was a big NIPAROS. I don't know how you call that, Teebie,( in English). Ah, ah, what's somebody that's Niparos, ah, ah…"
TOF: Businessman.

MF: Huh?

TOF: A businessman?

Well, not a businessman, no. Ah…when the Americans say so, I'm very poor now, but…

TOF: What, a politician?

MF: He was as intelligent as all that…

TOF: A politician!

MF: Everybody was intelligent back home, everybody, yah.

TOF: Politician.

MF: Poli-no, he wasn't a politician, he was rather, a go-getter, a go-getter, He fixed…automobiles just came, and he can fix. Lakatos, lakatos.

TOF: Oh, he ran a fix-it shop.

MF: Yah, yah, all right.

TOF: A Lakatos is a black, ah, a key maker, a locksmith.

MF: He knows everything. Locksmith, uh huh. Then he had a big garage when automobiles came, and he went out of Hungaria to wherever he went. He had three daughters, (_______?______?_______?) big building.

TOF: Three floors.

MF: Three floors, that's _______?_______?. Then he get out of Hungary. That was…

MDB: That was your father?

MF: That was my brother I'm talking about, Jeno, my only brother. Yah. Not my father.

MDB: So, you moved from New York to Detroit…

MF: Yah, I came to New York, and he stay there because he didn't dare come to Detroit. I never know…and he had just very little money, and he lived with a couple old Jewish people, and they fall in love with him. He was a lovable guy, and so, so, they kept him when he was flat broke, and he, he lies to him that his father is in Detroit (laughing) HIS father, so…even so, they find out there is a girl he is waiting for in Detroit. So, Gizi met her boyfriend, that Jewish, ah, he was sixteen years older than Gizi. But, Gizi wanted to get married, so, so, she married him. But, he was a very nice guy, Hungarian, from Budapest. Intelligent. So, she did marry him. Then I got along there with Grandpa, _______? _______? You know, _______? _______? Grandpa, we were sewing, and Grandpa was with his job. Whatever he did, I forgot. So, she married that man and…

(Chatter from son Michael Baker Junior)

TOF: Karen, you've got the oldest and the youngest, all on the same tape.

MF: For them it was a good marriage, and they got four kids. And then I decided, alright, I will marry him. So I went to New York, but then I find out he has got no job and no money…no marriage. You know, I was smart enough not to get married on nothing. Yah, which I did. In ten months, I had my first baby, him (indicates TOF), yah (laugh) when I married him. So, I used my brain and wouldn't marry him. So, for a year I was sewing in a big, elegant shop, and I made good money, about $18.00. That was big money then.

KEB: A week? That was $18.00 a week???

MF: $18.00 a week, yah. That was big money. We paid $14.00 Rent. And food was cheap, too.

MDB: So, what happened to your mother?

MF: Well, my mother stayed home with the business. She had a-this husband of my sister was the foreman. He was the foreman, and then married sister, and the business stayed in the family, the house was ours and all that.

MDB: So, did your mother stay in Hungary?

MF: Yah, we had two houses. Another house which had four or find renting place. You know what a renting place consisted of? A little bigger than that kitchen! (Laugh) (Note: the kitchen she referred to was about 8X10 feet.

MDB: Yeah.

MF: _______? _______? a little bed, and stove or something like that. So, they rent…well, some of them were bigger, but most of them were _______? _______?. So, she got the rent coming in, and we managed somehow, yah. We didn't go hungry, and we didn't go on Welfare. They had no welfare (laugh).

MDB: They had no Welfare then at all.

MF: So, we managed, and, well, this is such a long story, I get real tired telling you how I decided to come to America.

MDB: Well, tell us how you decided.

MF: In a few words, I tell you.

MDB: Ok.

MF: I know another boyfriend from the teacher's place. Well, they were strictly teachers…children, young men. Budapest, he came from Budapest. And, he was teaching my brother, in our house. As I told, you, my mother hired someone to help him with his school, because she wanted him educated. So, this young man come there, and he fell in love with me. I Can't say I loved him so much, somehow I didn't like, like a big flame or anything. Well, I decided that alright, I marry him. So, he went on his job, we were engaged, and back home the girl take furniture, and whatever is needed in housekeeping, you know, that's the girl's job to get, so, they started sending stuff there where he was teaching. That was far away from Lucenec. Then they got a letter from such a big (Teeb, he don't know any of this, he never ask me (laugh)…and I couldn't lie if I want to,'cause I don't know how to lie. So, so, they start sending him furniture, and over there, people find out that …he was teaching, he had a job, and he did something he shouldn't have done. So, they wrote to us, they know that I, I'm getting ready to get married, so, don't do it, because he did something….I don't even know what. Well, it must have been something in, in, what goes on now, you know, that is…how shall I….well, they hurt girls. No, find a name for it, Teebi, Smarty, you are smart, come on.

MF: Yah, well, you know, they mistreat girls.

MDB: Abusers?

MF: Yah. Well, he didn't treat his girls right. School girls, young girls.

TOF: Molested?

MBD: Molested?

MF: Yah. Molested. Must be that because…I don't think my mother even told me the real thing. Well, anyway, that was the end of the marriage, and I decided to go to America.

MDB: Ah.

MF: That's when I decide to go, and my mother let me, because she trust me like nobody's business. Yah. So, my mother let me, and my father was here, so I came, and Gizi was right after me, oh, she's coming, too. (Laugh) I don't know if I told you we had to change tickets because I wouldn't care to…eighteen days traveling, eighteen to come to America. It stopped many, many __________?__________?

MDB: Ports?

TOF: Docks?

MF: Dock. Well, pick up people, and stop, to get to America. So we…something wrong….Napoli, we stopped there for eighteen days, and that's when that outfit had to send home for, will, that's where we waited for our change of the money. And we got the money, this Aunt of ours send the money, yah. So, Gizi was happy. I wouldn't care. You had to go with your plate, you know, in line, to get your food there if you're third class. Yah, on the boat. Well, that was too low for my princess. But, I never mind those things, never. (Laugh). So, finally we got to America, and we didn't have to go to Ellis Island, either! (Laugh)

MDB: Where did you stay when you first came to America?

MF: Well, my father had the place.

MDB: Oh, OK.

MF: Yah, my father had the place, well, it was a …it had a __________?__________? how you say…

TOF: Bedbugs

MF: Bedbugs. America was full with them…Europe, too. They had lotta bed bugs… yah.

TOF: People don't know what a bedbug looks like anymore.

MF: Yah, so, my God, I can talk ‘till doomsday about it.

MDB: Did you get married in Detroit or New York?

MF: Well, wait a minute, I didn't finish that. Well, I did finish, I did marry my John and he…

MDB: Were did you marry, in Detroit, or New York?

MF: In Detroit.

MDB: And then you went back to New York?

MF: Well, we lived there, we worked there and lived there. This Jewish couple had an extra room for me.

MDB: In Detroit or New York?

MF: New York.

MDB: But you got married in Detroit.

MF: I got married in New York.

MDB: Oh, you got married in New York.

MF: Yah, we had to…

TOF: I was born in New York.

MDB: Yeah, that's what I thought, ‘cause I remember she said she was (married) in Detroit.

MF: We got married in the place where people look for jobs. People __________?__________?

TOF: Employment agency?

MF: I know all this, but not for now. When my mind is so many ways, I just can't find the words, but I know it. So, employment office, and boy, that Jewish guy and a peasant guy. For five dollars apiece, they use to stand up for us (laugh). So, that's how we got married, and that is the end of the big deal. (Laugh) We got married.

MDB: So how long did you live in New York before you moved to Detroit?

MF: Ah, well, how did it happen? Ya, John, my poor sweetheart, then he got a job, by then he got a job, the dollar a day job he got. Otherwise I wouldn't a married him. No. And I got a job, so, so I just wouldn't marry him, no way. So, ah, what did you ask?

MDB: How long did your live in New York before you moved to Detroit?

MF: Well, Teebie was about two years old when we came, about two years. How did it happen, the poor guy, he work in an ice cream parlor, ice cream parlor, and wash dishes and all that, so, so, he he had his hands swollen up, and the doctor told him it's the climate, and he has to get out of New York. So, that's when we decided to go to Detroit. Yah.

MDB: So how did you decide on Detroit? Did you have family there?

MF Because Father was there.

MDB: Oh, your father was there.

MF: Father was there. We know already a few people. In fact, we moved in with people who were deepest friends. We made friends quickly. We were sewing. We were sewing. Alterations and stuff like that, we were sewing. Better class of Magyars. Magyars.

MDB: Well, how long was it before you started the restaurant, then?

MF: Restaurant? Then came the big war, and people made money: Grandpa had money. In fact, we had a house.

MDB: World War One?

MF: Yah, that was soon after I came, World War One, Yah.

MDB: You were here, then, when the war broke out.

MF: Yah, I was here, yah, yah, I was here, so nobody was poor. In war time, you know, everybody had money.

MDB: Yeah.

MF: We lived in a …Oh, that's a long story, I don't want to start that. I tire myself too much. If I go into every….what I didn't go through (laugh). Yah.

MDB: How did you go from New York to Detroit, on a train?

MF: On train, on train, long train, all day.

MDB: Well, then, how did it happen that Gizi moved to Cleveland, then, from Detroit?

MF: That's why I moved to New York from Detroit, because Gizi got married, and I didn't want to stay with Grandpa. Grandpa had a sweetheart. Grandpa had a sweetheart.

MDB (Laugh) That devil!

MF: And he married her after I left! And after I left, he married her. With a bunch of kids. Then he find out that the woman, she was…

TOF: He didn't divorce his first wife.

MDB: Right, I assumed that.

MF: Yah, no.

TOF: He was a bigamist.

MF: (Laugh) Nobody made anything up.

MDB: That's a big fog in Italian, right? Big-a-mist.

MF: She was a midwife and she had a bunch of kids, and she married my father because he made good money, and she needed his money. He never had a penny in his pocket, so he quit her. And I didn't like the idea to stay with Grandpa (laugh).

KEB: Do you remember your grandma?

MF: My grandma? My father's mother before I ever was, was born.

MDB: How about your grandfather?

MF: The grandfather, even sooner. I don't think my father know his father. Yah. I think he….

MDB: People didn't live very long way back then.

MF: Looks like it, yah. Although, they live right, and they eat right. I don't know why. They don't work too hard.

KEB: What did they do for a living? Were they farmers?

MF: Well, some of country people. I come from a city. I don't come from a (laugh)________?________? Small, but just like a small Paris. Yah. The people know the style, and they kept up with it and all that. Oh, yah. They keep up all the big show-off…yah, oh, yah. They ashamed to carry a suitcase there. Not me. My mother send her bread to the baker to bake it. It was a long walk. Something like a mile. No, not that far. Ah, it in a basket, I had to carry that bread to this baker to bake it.

MDB: So, you made the bread, the dough, and the baker baked it.

MF: Dough, and the baker baked it, and then we go and picked it up. But most of the time, my mother's bread looked terrible. Terrible! (Laugh)

TOF: She was a lousy bread baker.

MF: (Laugh) I was ashamed to take it home! She used me for everything, my mother.

KEB: What did you do for entertainment when you lived in Losonc?

MF: Ah_____________(Hungarian)____________________________?

MDB: What did you do for fun?

MF: For fun? We went to the cemetery which was near. We just LOVED to walk around the cemetery.

MDB (Laugh) Just like Karen. She loves to do it now.

MF: Yah, yah.

MDB: We were in two cemeteries yesterday, and I couldn't get her out of there. She kept running around, looking at all the tombstones.

TOF: She gloats, you know. "Ha-ha, I'm here, and you're not" (laugh).

MF: Ah ha, and the main street, there was the corridor , if you know what corridor is. You might, because it's not really a Hungarian way to say it. Where people get…go walking, and you know, big stores there, and….

TOF: It's a mall.

MDB: Mall.

MF: (Laugh) A mall, something like a mall. We went there to walk. Show off. My son will learn about me now that people ask me all this. He don't. He like too, but he's too lazy. Too lazy. People forget it anyway (laugh).

MDB: Well, I like to hear about it.

MF: Yah, very interesting, very interesting.

MDB: Yes, it is.

MF: This changing world, yah. How people get along. Well, my father worked in a mine until the war broke out, because he couldn't speak a word of English. He was very slow to learn. When he died, he couldn't speak English. Very little. Never got to be a citizen. Never bothered.

KEB: You learned English over here, then?

MF: Oh, yah, not in school. Here and there. Then came the radio, then came the everything, and, you know. And I work in a shop where people talk English. In that sewing shop in New York, already then I………

TOF: ____________?________________sweatshop.

MF: No, over there, I learn more German, because I know a little German from school. Over there the people are supposed to get an extra in which to learn. And I choose German. So, I was pretty good at German, and the boss was German, and the forelady was German. So, so, I didn't learn too much English. But, I get along. I get along. It's very boring for you, eh, Teebie?

TOF: Oh, I've heard it many times, Ma.

MF: Oh, you…did you, Teebie?

TOF: Oh, yeah.

The End

At one point (1950), Manca lived at 8102 Lauder In Detroit, which may have been the home of her son Zoli. Several years after the death of her husband, Manca had a tidy little home built at 9147 Mandale in Detroit (completed in 1953), very close to Woodmere Cemetery, so she could make frequent visits to the graves of her father and her husband. The graves were totally covered with flowers every summer, as was her yard on Mandale. The new home documents were mailed to her at 9647 Chatham in Allen Park, MI. As she got older, the winters became an issue (I saw her shoveling her front walk as we pulled up for a visit, and she was shoveling with a broken arm by kicking the shovel once she got it full) and home maintenance became a problem, she decided to move to Florida. She bought a condo in the same complex as her sister Anca. The address was 5840 30th Ave. South, Gulfport, Florida, Unit 208. Later, she moved back to Michigan, first moving to a senior complex (Park on Spirea Ct) in Jackson, the city where her eldest son Theodore lived. She had a ground floor unit with a sliding glass door, which was sunny enough to allow her to grow her favorites, geraniums and pansies. She could be sometimes seen pulling weeds from the lawn in front of her unit. Her final move was to the Lansing area, where her youngest, Zoli lived.