Follow Friday - Greetings from Porva, Hungary

 

I just received a very nice comment on one of my posts:

Towns of our Ancestors: Porva, Hungary

So for this Follow Friday I would like to share Trudy's blog:

http://porvainn.blogspot.com/

(...and for those of us with weak foreign language skills, use the Google translate tool to read in English.)

Thank you for contacting us Trudy.
Best wishes,
Theresa

~ ~ ~

Towns of our Ancestors: Porva, Hungary

Located in Veszprem County, Hungary, in the High Bakony Mountains, Porva is considered to be in one of the most beautiful spots in North-Western Hungary. The village population in the 2001 census was 502 inhabitants.  This town the birth place of  Istvan (Steve) Hack - born August 1907.

Porva - C.1910

The gothic baroque church was built c.1783 over the ruins of the palos monastery.

The church and the vicarage of Porva used to belong to the Archabbey of Pannonhalma. After World War II however the Russians took possession of the vicarage to establish their regional headquarters. The facade of the vicarage was destroyed by the Russian repercussion of the Hungarian Revolution in 1956.

Two marble memorials were erected in the church in memory of the First and Second World War’s casualties from the village.

Seabee Buzz

Steven Hack - U.S. Navy Seabee WWII

Born Istvan Hack on 21 August 1907 in Porva, Hungary.
Was a shoemaker in Budepest then worked as a lumberjack in Canada before immigrating to the U.S.
Married Theresa Stosz in Feb. 1938.
Steven Hack died on 7 January 2007 and is buried in Whiting Memorial Park in Whiting, Manchester Township, NJ.

Seabees - Naval Construction Battalions
Construimus, Batuimus - "We Build, We Fight."

The first Seabees voluntarily enlisted. Emphasis in recruiting was based on experience and skill. The age range for enlistment was 18-50, but after the formation of the initial battalions, it was discovered that several men past 60 had managed to enlist. Because of the emphasis on experience and skill rather than physical standards, the average age of Seabees during the early days of the war was 37. Voluntary enlistments were halted in December 1942; as a result the average age of Seabees was much younger and they entered the service with only basic skills.

During the Second World War, the Seabees performed numerous tasks in both the Atlantic and Pacific Theaters of Operation including building major airstrips, bridges, roads, gasoline storage tanks, and Quonset huts for warehouses, hospitals, and housing.