By her own description, Aniko Judit Borondy, nee Vojtko, a Livingston resident for the last 33 years and a native of Miskolc, Hungary, was a very resourceful woman. In her lifetime, she learned five languages, including English, and moved more than a half dozen times, living in Spain and Portugal before returning to Livingston in 1981.
Mrs. Borondy died at home, succumbing to throat cancer March 8. She was 81. Services will be 3 p.m., Saturday, March 15 at Caldwell United Methodist Church, 8 Academy Road, Caldwell.
Mrs. Borondy was petite and blond, her slight frame belying her indomitable constitution. She was urbane, witty and charming, calling everyone “sveetie” in her very imitable Hungarian accent. She loved to play cards, especially bridge; and had no mercy when it came to winning. Mrs. Borondy was an accomplished pianist and sang on the radio as a child. She loved books and taught herself English by re-reading in English all the books she had loved in Hungarian.
A wonderful cook, Mrs. Borondy loved to entertain. She opened her home to everyone; her children’s friends, neighbors, colleagues, political refugees, misfits and loners. Every Christmas found her surrounded by family and friends, from Japanese exchange students to people she met and befriended in the supermarket, bank or corner store.
An architectural student at Technical University of Budapest, Mrs. Borondy left Hungary during the 1956 revolt against the Soviet Union, following her new husband. Both were “Freedom Fighters.” The young couple was smuggled to the Austrian border in a newspaper delivery truck courtesy of Mrs. Borondy’s late father-in-law, a newspaper typesetter and an official in the printer’s union. They crossed the border and walked to Vienna where they applied for refugee status with the American Embassy. Mrs. Borondy left the country with two sweaters and the skirt she was wearing.
A plane ride with the first American pilot to fly a bombing mission over Budapest during World War II landed them at Kilmer Army Base in New Jersey. They settled in New York City where Mrs. Borondy attended Columbia University.
The first of her four daughters was born in 1958 in New York. Relocations and more children followed. A second child was born in Barberton, Ohio; a third in Livingston, NJ. The family moved to Natick, MA, then to Lisbon, Portugal, returning to Livingston in 1967 in time to welcome another girl. They moved to Barcelona, Spain in 1969.
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