Now Grown, Adoptee Seeks Roots In Oneonta’s Hungarian Refugees

By JIM KEVLIN
In the depth of the Cold War, the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 against their Soviet overseers thrilled Americans, and when 13 refugees – 10 men, three women – arrived in Oneonta on New Year’s Eve of 1957, they were hailed as “freedom fighters” and heroes.
But they were human beings, too.  And in October of that year a baby girl was born in Bassett Hospital, and two weeks later was adopted by the Harrison family of Burnt Hills, north of Albany.
That baby girl graduated from high school, attended Wittenburg and Western Michigan, received bachelor’s and master’s degrees, and spent her career in academe, married and raising two children, a girl, now 21, and a boy, 18.
Then, as an associate director of Loyola University’s Center for Community Service & Justice in Baltimore, Christina Harrison and a group of students visited a halfway house to spend time with residents.
The residents and students went bowling, then engaged in a conversation back at the house.  The young people, who had connected with the older men as individuals, were more than surprised to learn one was in prison for 10 years, another lived on the streets, a third, a heroin addict.
“I’d been interested my whole life,” Christine said of her mysterious past, “but never to the point of initiating the search.  Because it’s a little scary.”  But the men “were so courageous and so honest, speaking about their lives so boldly, for the first time I decided to take a tangible step.”
The first step was to send a request for records to the state Adoption Registry in Albany, where she learned the records are only available if both child and birth parents ask for them jointly.
Otherwise, all information that might reveal the names of birth parents remains confidential.  However, she did learn about her birthplace, and that her parents – her mother was 31; her father, 35 – claimed to be of Hungarian origin.
“There were some descriptors of my birth parents,” she said.  “My birth father had completed college and was an engineer (tall, athletic).  My birth mother had completed two years of college, loved music and literature, worked as stenographer.”
From a newspaper clipping, she learned of the Hungarian refugees, who stayed at the former Homer Folks TB hospital on West Street before being absorbed into the nation. 
Last October, Christina came to Otsego County for the first time, staying at the Creekside B&B in Fork Shop.  She visited Bassett – “It was very meaningful to see the hospital where I was born and that in some distant way I was connected to that place” – and sought out Hungarian-Americans.
She sat down with Annette Vincze of Oneonta, the youngest daughter of a Hungarian-American family, and a little girl in 1957.  “She remembered her mom hosting these Hungarians.  They would come to the house, have dinner, sit and talk.  They were handsome, stylish people.”
Since few local Hungarian-Americans had gone to college, Christina concluded her parents must have been at Homer Folks.
“It’s very interesting,” her father observed.  “During her growing up years, she was never involved in this.  But I always said I would like to find her birth mother and thank her.