by Márta Boros Horváth
A former member of the HAAW, the Forever Young, one time member of the Social Committee, father of four daughters and grandfather of numerous grandchildren and great grandchildren, Lajos Gothard passed away.
Lajos was a one-of-a-kind character, an upright Szekler. He often had run-ins with authorities, and he liked to play cat and mouse with the police. Nothing harmful, just a kind of a “game” that his Szekler mind would produce.
He also frequented Esperanto meetings both in Transylvania and in the USA.
He was a very keen observer of people and events. A proof of this is his memoir, “Túl egyenesen álltál, Ödön!” (2006). He wrote, finished and published it even though he didn’t know how to send an email, at least at that time. Still, he dutifully and with determination typed his stories on his computer in Hungarian.
Our heartfelt condolences to his family, both in the US and in Transylvania where he lived ever since he moved back there several years ago, after living in Seattle from the early 1980s as a refugee from Romania. May he Rest in Peace of the Lord.
“See you, again in the dust of the Earth,
See you again in the ray of the sunshine,
See you again in the garden of the moon
Or one of the stars of the Milky Way,
To a happy reunion, see you again!”
(by Sándor Reményik, translated by Márta Boros Horváth)
At a Forever Young meeting at Mercer Island
Visiting the HAAW property in Cle Elum in 2021
His book which was published in 2006
