Louis " Lajos" Sipos
1937-1994

I remember when I was about 15 years old listening to the adults in the kitchen at my godmothers apartment in Astoria, Queens, New York. They were in a heated discussion at the dinner table which changed into a canasta table after dinner was finished and dishes washed and put away. My father, uncle and their many cousins were playing canasta. The familiar shouting, chain smoking and story telling of days gone by and of the relations they had yet never met.

My father wanted to know more about his relations, who they were, where they lived and who they married. Since he and his brother came over in 1956 from Hungary during the Hungarian Revolt, most of their direct relations were over in Hungary.

It totally did not interest me at 15 years old, these things were not important. I thought that these people were dead and gone, so why should I know or care about how they related to me. It never really dawned on me that one day I would be middle age and asking the same questions from my fathers cousins that he did.

Never really finishing his work on the family lines due to his early death, I thought that I would continue unmasking the truths the lies and the half truths of our families. Getting the answers to the questions he never asked or was afraid to ask. Documenting these narratives of the families that he never heard, or maybe the ones he did, but I wasn't listening.

Hopefully getting to know some of my cousins that I never knew I had. Getting photographs of the families that I knew well and loved dearly and getting the photos of the ones that he nor I ever knew about.

Possibly getting some guidance from him and above, I started to ask my godmother, my fathers first cousin questions. Knowing that she and another cousin were the eldest living relatives I had, this would be my best chance for fact finding. As long as they still had their memory intact, which they were, I was determined to find the truth.

After speaking with the two of them, I knew that it was my destiny to continue on with my fathers work. Since his death, many of his first cousins have gone, but not forgotten and
dearly loved and missed, as is he.

Ginger