Marie Martinovics

Marie A. Martinovics of Cobleskill died suddenly June 14. A funeral mass will be held Friday noon, June 25 at St Vincent de Paul's Roman Catholic Church, where she was a communicant for 60 years.

Born Maria Anna Winkler on April 25, 1920, in Arad, Romania, her life story reads like a history of the 20th century. Her parents, made destitute by currency devaluations following World War I, considered giving her up for adoption to a wealthy Jewish couple; in later years they would speculate on her chances of having survived the Holocaust had they done so. She was educated in a convent school for girls because a free public education in Romania was not available to Hungarian minorities. The threat of another world war convinced her father that learning a trade would provide her a more secure future than following her dream of studying cello, the first of many losses. He sent her to Vienna in 1938-39 to learn to become a seamstress. The city was overrun with young German officers and blissfully unaware of what would soon befall them, the young people had the time of their lives.

Her May 1944 wedding to Adalbert Martinovics was scheduled around Allied bombing raids. Five months later, the newlyweds fled to Budapest, Hungary as Soviet troops laid waste to Arad. Within weeks, Budapest was also under siege. With death and destruction all around them, the couple made a momentous decision to join thousands of refugees fleeing west on foot through Austria to Germany during the winter of 1944-45, never to return to their homes in Eastern Europe.

The German people, defeated and also starving, did not welcome the hordes of refugees. Rationing of food, medicines, and electricity under Patton's Seventh Army was harsh. The U.S. policy of pacification through complete dismantling of what was left of Germany's infrastructure added to the hardships they endured. Another life-altering decision was made, this time to separate from her husband and follow her parents to America. Sponsored by the International Refugee Organization under the auspices of the recently-formed United Nations, Marie arrived in Cobleskill on March 27, 1950, with her 3-year old daughter and one small suitcase. They were offically "displaced persons" who would eventually become naturalized U.S. citizens. For the first time in her life, Marie would live free of repression and become eligible to vote.

Her first job was working for John Ortgies in his dry cleaning business on Division Street as he was German-speaking and could communicate with her. Subsequently, she worked at the Van Deusen Dress Factory on East Main Street until its closing. She then continued working for Henry Van Deusen in a small cottage business he had founded where she made custom-fitted Goodyear racing suits for drivers and their pit crews from an inflammable fabric called Nomex. To the amusement of her family, her conversations in those years were sprinkled with news about autoracing figures such as A.J. Foyt whose measurements she knew by heart.

In her later years, Marie's life centered on St Vincent de Paul's where she helped count Sunday offerings, washed and ironed priests' vestments, sang in the choir, and knitted, sewed, and volunteered for countless church suppers, boutiques and rummage sales. She was also a member of the German Club of Schoharie County.

Marie is survived by her daughter, Anne Martinovics Moore of Lenox, Mass and two grandsons, Peter Moore of Hatfield, Mass and Stephen Moore of Healdsburg, Calif. She will be laid to rest in the Cobleskill cemetery next to her parents, Franciska Kotroczo and John Winkler. Donations in her memory may be made to St Vincent de Paul's Church, 138 Washington Ave., Cobleskill, NY 12043.