Dozens celebrate Hungarian culture at Youngstown festival

By CHRISTINE KEELING

ckeeling@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

Members of the the Youngstown American Hungarian Club celebrated their culture today during the club’s annual Hungarian Heritage Days.

More than 100 people attended the festival on Donald Avenue in Youngstown.

“This is my dream,” said Irene Nemeth of Youngstown. “To bring our Hungarian culture to the Mahoning Valley.”

Nemeth, who has organized the event since it began in 1985, proudly showed off artifacts brought from Hungary by older generations and chatted about her family’s history.

She said her mother, Anna Kovach, traveled on the USS Grant and arrived at Ellis Island in 1914, when she was 14-years-old.

“She worked scrubbing floors in a boarding house,” said Nemeth. “They had to earn their own living.”

Those traditions, she said, must be passed on.

Read the full story Monday in The Vindicator and on Vindy.com.