Alexandru Pitoc passed away on the evening of Thursday, October 29th, 2020, at his home in Katy, Texas. Alex, as he was known to his friends and family (Sányi in his native Hungarian) was born on Monday, January 26, 1942, to Gyorgy and Ilona (Bilkai) Pyczok in the border city of Oradea, in the Transylvania region of Hungary, two years before it was occupied by the Nazis. Alex told stories of he and his older brother, Gyorgy, being chased back into the safety of their house by their mother during Allied aircraft strafing attacks on the nearby airport and rail station. Following the end of the war, their lives again changed drastically under Soviet occupation, as the territory was ceded to the satellite state of Romania. Five year-old Alex and his family would speak a new language for school and work, change the spelling of their names (Sándor Pyczok became Alexandru Pitoc, Gyorgy became Gheorghe), had their property expropriated by the government, and were told what occupations and education they were allowed to pursue as they were locked behind the Iron Curtain for the duration of the Cold War.
By the time he was 20, Alex had had enough. Nursing a lifelong grudge against oppressive regimes and Soviet communism in particular, he and some friends escaped the country and a second year of compulsory military service by scaling border fences in the dark of night under the noses of armed patrols. They fled west, through the mountains of Yugoslavia, and finally seeking political asylum in Italy, where they were interred in a refugee camp. There, Alex learned his third language, Italian, hopping the fence each morning before dawn to go find construction work and returning after dark with fresh fruit and bread for elderly refugees. A year passed before he got the opportunity to reach his ultimate goal: asylum in the United States. He found his way to New York City, and it was there, in 1967 in Sunnyside, Queens, in an English as a second language class (his fourth language, if you’re counting), that he would meet Fanny Rosario Ortega, herself a recent émigré from Colombia. There is an old notebook of his from that class with some names and phone numbers, and even an occasional English word, but Fanny’s name is the only notation with a star inscribed next to it. On January 25th, 1969 they would marry at Saint Patrick Church in Long Island City, Queens. They would spend the next 51 years together. In 1972 they welcomed the birth of their first son, George, followed two years later by his brother, John Paul.
Alex, having been educated in mechanical engineering in Romania, at first labored in machine shops, but as his degree was not recognized in this country, his opportunities for advancement were limited. Always a hard worker and with a skill for fixing anything, he found work as an apartment building superintendent, a union job that called for a handyman, plumber, electrician, locksmith, and more all in one. He would learn by watching the tradesmen do their jobs. He learned quickly, picking up fluent Spanish from his coworkers along the way (that’s five languages he spoke). He spent many weekends fishing off Long Island, and later in the Pocono mountains of Pennsylvania, where he would go on to build a second home that the whole family cherishes to this day. He would spend his final Thanksgiving there, surrounded by his family who loved him, and doing the things he enjoyed, like feeding the deer in his yard with his grandchildren. He enjoyed so many years feeding the deer in those woods that they would come by the dozens at the sound of his voice, to literally eat out of his hand.
Alex retired to his home in the mountains, like the one where he was raised in the Carpathians, and he and Fanny would spend the seasons between there and Katy, Texas, where they moved to be both close to extended family and a short flight between their sons, with young families of their own on either coast. Alex is survived by his wife, his two sons, and three grandchildren.
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