Family members are invited to share stories of grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and so on, to add to our Steven Hollenczer tribute. Any remembrances you have of family members are welcome, and will be added to the appropriate pages! Please e-mail me with any stories you would like added to these pages.
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Steven Michael Hollenczer
When Steve was a boy, he lived for a time on the estate of Clarence Mackay, father-in-law of Irving Berlin (remember him? "God Bless America", "White Christmas"?). He told us that Mr. Mackay disinherited his daugher, Ellin, when she married Berlin. Mackay believed Berlin was a down at the heels tunesmith who would never amount to anything, even though he'd already had many successful tunes published and shows produced. He relented, of course, when Berlin became one of the most loved and respected song writers of the day. Ellin used to have a pony cart, which she would take the young Hollenczer kids for rides in. She also let them use the swimming pool, as long as there were no guests on the estate. Margaret remembers Pop once telling her they used to play in the coal cellar, and they would go home, covered in black coal dust, with only their eyes showing. Kids!
When Steve walked to school with his brothers (when they weren't out playing hookey to caddy at the golf course, and retrieve and sell the "lost" balls, they used to cut through some orchards and steal apples, always sneaking out. It must have been more fun believing they were getting away with something, but they were actually allowed the fruit grown in the area. His older brothers, Joe among them, would make Apple Jack during Prohibition, which Steve thought was hard cider, until he drank it one day and became violently ill! That must have been when he swore off drink, especially after discovering that when his brothers used a front-end loader to collect the apples, they also collected anything else on the ground, notably cow manure!
"Uncle John and Pop (Steve)used to make 'antiques' periodically," Janice relates, "using sawdust and glue to plug screw and nail holes, sanding down a finish so it would look worn, and using other 'tricks' to make pieces of furniture and other items look like antiques, but would ride around with the pieces in the back of a pick-up and if someone made the assumption and was interested in buying their wares, well, they didn't argue the point! The buyers thought they were getting something for a good price, and who were Steve and John to turn them down?"
Uncle John built a car once, out of sheet aluminum. It was a beauty. They shaped it, bolted it together, made it really nice, shiny and bright like any other new car, then John took it for a ride, and it tumbled over. "Pop said the car crumpled just like a piece of aluminum foil, with him laughing all the while!", Janice remembers. Margaret also remembers her father, Steve, telling her of the car they built with two steering wheels. John turned one way, and Steve the other, and the car split in two! Pop laughed when he told that story!
Janice and Margaret both remember this story their father used to tell: when Steve was in his teens, after moving to Jessica Place,Grandpa used to let the Gypsies stay in the woods behind the house, and gather eggs from their chickens, and such. "Pop thought it would be a terrific joke to tie his sisters Mary and Agnes to one of the Gypsy wagons. We always thought he was spinning tales, but Aunt Mary said it was the absolute truth! He did it, and left them there to get freed by themselves!"
Steve was a master carpenter and worked for Abraham Levitt and Sons before WWII, having learned all the aspects of carpentry when his father took him to jobs as an apprentice when he was 15 or 16. Margaret remembers:"Pop was always building something, adding a new room, or making a cabinet, rewiring the house, expanding closets, always busy. I used to love to watch him, and especially loved when he had to visit a job site on a Saturday, and would let us kids come out to the site with him. To this day, I love the smell of fresh cut wood and I think it just brings back memories of him, working at his craft. I remember one particular Saturday, Steven and I were out at a job site with him, and he let us buy something from the lunch truck. It was a thrill! I remember him saying to some of the guys, 'I'm a half century old today'. It was his 50th birthday! I was almost 10, and Steven was 7."
Steve wanted to learn everything there was to know about building construction, and learned in those early years every aspect of building a residential home. He could build a house completely, from the basement or slab, to the roofing and finishing, and everything in between, including electrical and plumbing work. Janice remembers: "Mag and I were surprised when we began dating that all guys weren't capable of doing such things!" Margaret adds: "And I still am! I have yet to meet a guy that can do the things my Pop could do, except maybe my brother Pete (he was taught well."
I'm probably not the only one who thinks that their father always sang like Bing Crosby, but he did! Janice remembers Dad singing "Red River Valley", "When the Moon Comes Over The Mountain"(Real Player File), and "Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ra", and a song he translated as "Sing Gypsy Sing" (Huzato, Cigany, Huzato). Margaret's favorite "musical" memories are of Dad singing "Old Smokey", and "Dark Eyes", which he sang in Russian!
Another family tradition Janice and Margaret both have memories of is setting up the projector and screen on a Saturday night and watching home movies. Pop was a real amateur photographer; he had all the latest equipment, even developed his own pictures for a while. The home movies were a real treat to us, even though we'd seen them all over and over again. We'd set up all the kitchen chairs in a row in front of the projection screen in the living room, and even have popcorn. Of course, the first film always shown was "The Coronation of Pope John XXIII", which Pop had bought at one of those flea market stores. There were some really old ones, of our Grandmother and Aunt Mary, Mom and Pop, all out on the big lawn at the house on Powerhouse Road. There were also some of Aunt Marie and Uncle Mike in Norfolk, VA, too. Peter and Barbara have since had all of the old home movies transferred to video tape for all of us.
Pop used a few Hungarian phrases throughout the years, that we all remember, although we never learned the meaning of most of them! The following are some that we kids all remember him saying time and again. The spelling here is phonetic.
"Nem nev nya" -- meaning "I don't know".
"Ustok, Lestok, Hostok, Estok" --meaning "You come, you be; you bring, you eat!"
"Shoice, Moice, Fingerheeri, Erpongi, Krimpli-Krompli, Poshanti, Kussi" -- This was a little game he played with all of us, and then with the grandkids: -- Criss cross his hand on your palm, point his finger into the middle of your palm, tickle your palm with his fingers, give your hand a smack, then a kiss.
"Heento-Poleento" - this was sung to the tune of "See-Saw Margery Daw" while swinging us between his legs.
Janice and Margaret both remember their father swinging them in the old-fashioned hand towel roller that hung on the cellar door in their kitchen on Powerhouse Road.
Pop used to tell us a lot of stories about when he was in the South Pacific and Alaska during the war.One we remember is the Christmas Tree the men built while in Hawaii. They'd hang tools and toy trucks, cranes and earth movers on it, and streamers for the icicles. Under the star on top was a platform that read "Tropicaleut", on each of the four sides. They even decorated it with lights.
Margaret remembers her father's alias "MR. Betty Crocker! "Pop used to make palacsinta, which he would fill with a cottage cheese filling, but we kids liked to spread them with jelly, then roll them up and eat them just like that! He also made potato biscuits, which were my favorites. In the years after he retired from the construction business, he baked something almost every day. It was great to stop over to visit, and ask Daddy what treats he had that day! Cupcakes, biscuits, cookies, cakes. Janice and I even bought him baking supplies for Father's Day one year. He was really good at it, too! Just before Daddy got really sick, Janice and I made palascinta for him one night, Janice frying the batter, and I filling the finished pancakes. They were so good! And I think that made Daddy happy, too."
Uncle John Stories Aunt Mary Stories Uncle Joe Stories Uncle Mike Stories
Grandma Hollenczer Stories Aunt Anna Whitlow Stories Grandpa Hollenczer Stories
Joe-Joe Stories Helen Stories Uncle Pete Stories Janice Stories Margaret Stories