Steven Vasari, 1921-2006

19 Mar 2006 12:28 (Edited: 19 Mar 2006 12:28)

My dad died yesterday after a long struggle with Alzheimer's, kidney failure and years of heart problems. He died peacefully in his own bedroom. I think he knew he was finally back home. It was just about 24 hours after he came home from the hospital.

He was born Stefan V��ry, in Bansk� �tiavnica [ link ] , Czechoslovakia (This is now in the Slovak Republic). He had one brother, Josef who was six years older than him. His father was Hungarian, his mother Slovak. When the married, Slovakia was still part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Czechoslovakia was not a country until 1918. [ link ] My dad often talked about life high up in the mountains with lots of snow in the winter, buildings in his hometown that dated back to the 11th century, swimming in the lakes in the summer and eating the delicious meats and sausages his father, a butcher prepared. As one would expect for someone who grew up in the crossroads of Eastern Europe, he learned many languages in school. He spoke Slovak, Hungarian, Czech, Latin, French, and understood some Polish, German and Russian. Later in life, he had to learn Spanish and English as well.

He got a degree in law, just in time for Hitler, World War II and then the communist takeover of Czechoslovakia all to assure that the system of law he had studied would never again be used in his country. Right after WWII he received a scholarship to study in Paris and was there when the communists took over back home. He decided not to return and did not see his home country again for 40 years.
His brother already married and teaching remained there and raised two daughters, who grew up to be very famous film actresses. Their films have won many awards in Europe, at Cannes and recently, one was nominated for an academy award for best foreign film [ link ] . Emilia V��ryov� works in movies and tv and teaches acting. She visited us just a few years ago. Magda V��ryov� her younger sister was also a hugely popular actress and made many many movies as well. She visited us in 1980 and her daughters visited us a few years ago. She also has a degree in sociology and after the fall of the iron curtain, became very involved in politics. She served as the Czechoslovak ambassador to Vienna for several years and started a foundation to promote east -west business and cultural contacts. In 1999, she ran for the presidency of the Slovak Republic and came in third place. (Czechoslovakia had an amicable split into two countries, the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic). After that, she served several years as the Slovak ambassador to Warsaw. I see from this speech here given in 2005 that she is now listed as State Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Slovakia [ link ]

Since there were no jobs for him in Paris, he applied to be able to come to the United States and was put on a ten year waiting list. So he went to Buenos Aires, Argentina where other Slovaks lived. He learned Spanish. He lived and worked there for a few years, then was transferred to Venezuela and worked there. After that, he moved to Montreal, where he knew more Slovaks and where he attended Mc Gill University and got a degree in accounting. He also learned English. Finally, ten years had gone by and he was able to enter the United States.
He came to Los Angeles and was taken to some meetings of the Los Angeles Catholic Alumni Club by another Slovak friend. He introduced him to my mom, something they always laughed about afterwards because the other guy wanted to date my mom but she ended up liking my dad better. They married in December of 1961. I was born the following September. After that, my dad went to Cal State LA and then UCLA because he was not happy working in accounting. My mom was teaching and supported him through school. In June of 1965, they had a very eventful week. One day, he received his US citizenship, the next, my sister was born and the next day he received his PhD in Spanish Literature. Thirteen months later, my other sister decided that July was a much better time to be born than September and that 3 lbs 3 oz was big enough to take the world on . We weren�t sure she was going to make it but she did. Our little house was getting way too small for all of us so we moved to a bigger one and he got a job teaching Spanish and Spanish literature at Cal State Fullerton. He worked there till he retired in 1987.

1969 was a very special year for my dad because his brother finally received permission from the communist government of Czechoslovakia to visit us. He was not told until the very last minute if my aunt was going to be allowed to come with him. In those days, they really did not like to let people go at all, much less with family lest they defect. To have the parents of well known actresses defect would not have been seen as a good thing, but they did not want to cause trouble for my cousins so they did go back after their visit, even if my aunt did cry when she saw the abundant selection and quality of foods and goods in the stores here. It was very special to get to meet them. We watched the first moon landing together on our tv. My uncle died only a couple of years after that from a huge stroke so we were very lucky to have seen him.

In 1972, my dad spent a month in Madrid, Spain doing research. We flew over there to join him at the end of that month and spent another three weeks traveling throughout Spain visiting many cities. It was a big adventure; we had reservations in Madrid and for our last week of the trip, in Paris. Everywhere else we went; we just got on the train, arrived at the city and then found a place to stay. We had my grandmother with us and my youngest sister turned six during the trip. We had just arrived in Seville, it was already early evening and we just found a place to stay. Then my mom wanted a birthday cake for her. So she sent my dad out looking. Everything was closed because in Spain in the early evening everything closed until quite late at night, when people would come out for dinner. So he finally came back with the only cake he could find�an ice cream cake he smuggled into the hotel. We had no refrigerator and ate ice cream using plastic bags for plates until we never wanted to see ice cream again! It was a fun trip. The only time our lack of reservations messed up our plans was when we got to a tiny village in the Pyrenees Mountains late at night thinking that we would spend the night there, then take the train to Lourdes, France the next day and then go to Paris from there. But we happened to arrive on the one day out of the whole year when it was the local saint�s festival day, so there was absolutely no room at the inn. We were ready to sleep on the floor of the railway station but my parents really didn�t want to do that to my grandmother. My dad saw a train sitting on the tracks and asked where it was headed. �Paris�, they said, �but it is already behind schedule�. They let us get on the train but we had to do it so quickly that they had us pay for our fares after the train was already underway, rather than have it wait for us to pay at the counter. We slept sitting up all night in a crowded car and arrived in Paris, a day earlier than our reservations. We were allowed to stow our luggage at the hotel but could not get into our rooms until evening so our first day in Paris was spent wandering the city, tired but excited. We were there a week and then flew home with many many memories.

After that, we moved once more, to Arcadia, where my dad could have a somewhat closer drive to work while still not being too far from Los Angeles where my mom was still teaching. My dad�s research, which had been focused on the Spanish poet Jos� de Espronceda, shifted to work on the French poet, Charles Baudelaire. He spent all of his time on him after that, publishing several papers on his poems.

He had a swimming pool put in and loved to swim and take us to to the beach in the summer. He also loved the mountains. We grew up speaking Spanish and English with a little bit of French and Slovak and eating foods from everywhere. When they were married, my mom did not know how to cook Slovak and Hungarian foods. He found an old lady who had books in Hungarian and translated recipes that had measurements in them such as �pinch,� �handful� and �gill�. The recipe for Chicken Paprikash began this way, �Climb the fence and steal the neighbor�s chicken�. He loved ice cream and always had at least two different flavors in the freezer, usually Kona coffee and some form of chocolate. Ice cream and cookies were his favorite dessert. Every day on the way home from work he would call my mom from the market and ask her what groceries she needed. This helped her get home sooner, it also ensured that he could come home with more ice cream for him and flowers for her. She always had fresh flowers.
While the other children we knew all had to wait until Christmas for presents, we always knew that December 6th was the feast of St. Nicholas. Back in Czechoslovakia, children would put their boots out the night before for him and they knew that in the morning, they would be filled with small presents and good things to eat. So we always put our (rain)boots ( hey this was LA!) out the night before and had fun running to see what was in them in the morning! He used to tell us how on St Nicholas day, St Nicholas, and angel and a devil would visit his school. The good children would get candy. They were told that the devil had coal and a spanking for the bad ones.
In 1987, he retired from the University. After that, he spent more time on his research and volunteering at his church. He and my mom visited Czechoslovakia, the only time he went back and the first time he had seen it in 40 years. There was a lot of change going on with glastnost and perestroika, but my mom was still aware that shadowy figures followed them from a distance and watched where they went and who they saw. They visited my aunt, my cousins and their families and went to his home town.

Starting in 1991, with the birth of my daughter and my sister�s daughter, he became a grandparent. I later had two more boys and my sister had one more girl. My mom retired and they had a few years together before his health really started getting bad. He had always had blood pressure problems but six years ago, he had to have a five way bypass and a valve replacement. That and a pacemaker later helped, but his health was really starting to decline. After that, he lost a kidney to cancer and over time, the other one began do work less and less efficiently, it was the failure of this other kidney that was the most immediate cause of his death yesterday. Alzheimer�s disease began to take its toll 3-4 years ago. Although the most difficult part was when we had to have his driver�s license taken away and he still did not realize that there was a problem, we were lucky to have been spared the years and years some people go through of late stage Alzheimer�s disease. While he was no longer a safe driver and his personality began to change, he went through at least a year, maybe more of time that was relatively happy for him, even if it must have worried my mom quite a bit. He had not been an especially outgoing man and he started wandering off on walks. He would go out and meet strangers and make friends with them, a good thing since they sometimes ended up having to help him find his way home and some of them became friends with my mom and started looking out for the both of them. One couple down the street came over often with their little boys and my dad used to love to go swimming with them. When the lady had her baby daughter he was as excited about it as he had been with his own grandchildren. It was so cute. My mom would take him to the park to walk and he would want to join the birthday parties and have cake. People were very good to him. The last two years saw him spending more and more time in the hospital as his general health declined and his only remaining kidney began to fail. This was the hardest part but though his memory and health was fading, he still knew us most of the time around Christmas. Although he enjoyed seeing the kids, his memory of exactly who they were was no longer there but he was still happy to see them. I am glad for everyone�s sake including his own that his other health problems took him before he had to spend a lot of time like that. There were times in the last few weeks where he didn�t know my mom, and he was unconscious a lot of the last few weeks but I think when he opened his eyes as they were bringing him in the door of his house that he knew he was at home. I think it was a good thing that he was able to be at home, freed from the tube and stress of the hospital. He had oxygen, a comfortable hospital bed, morphine for pain relief and people and family keeping him comfortable. He had an interesting and good life, but we are happy he is out of pain now.

User comments

by emossuck @ 19 Mar 2006 21:05

I really think you should read this at the funeral, it is a very good tribute to his life and him as a person. I think my biggest regret is that i never really got to talk to him about all his travels that much. But as long as we all stick together well all be ok.
by dsstrlght @ 19 Mar 2006 22:52

At dinner tonight, my sister's mother in law was marveling to her husband about how odd it would have been for them years ago, when they were young and still living in Cordoba, Argentina, to think that one day a man who they did not know, who had come to live in Buenos Aires, (the distance from Cordoba to Buenos Aires is about the distance from LA to San Francisco) would move to LA, they would also move to LA and that his daughter would marry their son.
by dsstrlght @ 26 Mar 2006 13:07

My dad had always loved fountains and he had one installed a number of years ago in his front yard. He used to fuss with it and turn it on when people came over. At first he had a cord running our to it, later they had an underground electical line put in that went under the driveway and came up to the fountain. It stopped working a couple of years ago and though they had had electricians out to look at it it had not worked in those two years. After they mortuary took my dad away last Saturday afternoon, people started to arrive to visit my mom. We realized the fountain was running but not that it hadn't been working all that time... we just thought our mom had turned it on till she told us that. It is working every day now. It was running yesterday when we came back from the funeral.

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