This past Friday at about 5:30 p.m. a dear friend of mine who was like a second Father to me passed away: NAGY TIBOR. Some of you in the Washington, D.C. community might remember him.
Tibor Nagy knew me most of my life, since I was nine years old, and I regarded him as a second father. I would confide in him about everything. Despite the age difference (but for me it was normal as 100% of my parents' friends were my friends) we hung out together and enjoyed each other's sense of humor and intellectualism. He would pick me up at college and over dinner at an exotic restaurant would find out the latest boyfriend sagas and everything else that was going on in my life. When my Mother took an unreasonable dislike to my boyfriend in my sophomore year of college and forbade me to see him, Tibor kindly came to the rescue and let the persona non grata and I see each other at Tibor's apartment, LOL.
A civil engineer, Tibor worked for the State Department through U.S.A.I.D. in 50 countries. Born in Budapest, he was orphaned when his mother died in childbirth and his father could not take care of him. He was brought up by his grandmother who died in little Tibor's arms when he was only six years old. A top student but impoverished, he longed to become a doctor but the only available full scholarship to university was in the filed of engineering, so he accepted that. Tibor and I--both of us derailed from our aspirations to become physicians--always had many conversations about medicine and we both got our vicarious jollies from it.
Tibor became the youngest colonel ever in the Hungarian army. In 1956 he took his infant son, Tibor Jr., after Tibor Sr. and his wife had an amicable divorce, and brought Tibor Jr. up singlehandedly in America. At first because of lack of Engish language knowledge, Tibor accepted menial jobs and worked overtime then soon progressed to architectural draftsman but his talent, despite his rudimentary English knowledge (however he was multi-lingual with proficiencies in Hungarian, Russian, German, Italian, Spanish, Czech, Slovak, Polish) soon brought him many promotions. After mastering English, his career ascent became even faster.
During the war in Vietnam where he was posted, for the second time in his life after losing his country and career and everything in Hungary during World War II, he lost everything. (He brought back a present for me: 3 works of enameled art which, unlike the average Vietnamese enameled art which had 1 or 2 layers of lacquer on it, had 11 layers; he brought it out on the very last plan that left Viet Nam before the Fall Of Saigon). But Tibor never despaired, never felt sorry for himself. In typical Hungarian manner he continued onward and upward in the manner my Daddy, Dr. Francis Stephen Wagner, who was the same type of person as Tibor, used to exhort me to do and was a mantra which my Daddy lived: "Fol a fejjel!"--"Hold your head up!" (My Daddy was also orphaned, At age his Father died and at age 14 his perfectly healthy Mother died of grief over her husband's death. Daddy got a full tuition scholarship to university, tutoring students for to pay for expenses that tuition and room and board didn't cover, such as school books and clothes) earning 3 Ph.D.s summa cum laude by age 27.) Like Daddy, Tibor had an irrepressible sense of humor no matter what hardships fate dealt him.
I always called Tibor every Mother's Day to wish him a happy Mother's Day--he always said I was the only one of his friends who did that--because I know that he was Father and Mother to little Tibor, inculcating in him strong human values and the typical Hungarian work ethic of its never being enough what you devote to the job. As a result, not only did kis Tibor become a fin human being, but he became at age 34 the youngest United States ambassador ever appointed.
Tibor and Kis Tibor lived in the Glover Park neighborhood of Washington, D.C. for a long time then in the State Department area followed finally by Northern Virginia. Only in 2013 did Tibor's health finally force him to move into a nursing home. I was waiting for spring weather to finally arrive so that I could wheelchair him from the nursing home in the Embassy Row neighborhood to Georgetown. Sadly, that was not to be.
I lost a friend. a hero and a second Father.
For those of you who remember Tibor, although his career didn't allow him to be super-active in the Hungarian community from the vantage point of frequent presence at Hungarian events, please honor him according to the wishes of his family who wrote and telephoned me today, asking that his friends "pause -- on Thursday, May 1, at , 4 pm GMT (noon on the US East Coast and 9 am on the West Coast) -- and share a memory, say a prayer and look around to find a way you can make your world better, just as he did continuously throughout his life. And know that he would like nothing better than for his friends to carry forward his legacy of helping others into your own future. " And may I add that even if you never met Tibor, you would be welcome to pay your respects to a great Hungarian and a great man on that day at that time in that manner.
{KINDLY NOTE: I do not adhere to the contrived convention of interpreting capitalizations, bolding and larger-than-minimum font as shouting. It is content, not formatting, which determines hostility. I use formatting, and coloration, to increase legibility, enhance variety and aesthetics, and to aid the visually impaired.}
CHRISTIE WAGNER
B.A., M.L.S.
Writer-Editor-Researcher; P.R. Specialist
a.k.a.
CHRISTIE STARLEY
Actor, Singer, Voiceover Artist
s.a.g.-a.f.t.r.a., a.e.a.
Member:
National Press Club; Public Relations Society of America
Television Internet Video Association (TIVA)
LinkedIn: ChristieWagner; FaceBook: ChristieWagner; Twitter: @CWagnerUSA
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(202) 486-2000
Electronic Mail Address: ChristieWagner@gmail.com
