EUSTACE o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-05-31 published
EUSTACE,
David
Fox
Born Dublin, Ireland October 31, 1931, died peacefully, at home
in Toronto, on May 29, 2003. Brother to Roland
EUSTACE,
Hope
DAVIS and Ruth
DEVLIN. Cherished husband of Roberta
EUSTACE and
father of Steven, Gary, (Lynn,) James, (Mary,) and Talbot
EUSTACE.
Beloved Grandfather and sage of Tara, Connor, and Gemma
EUSTACE.
A true renaissance man. He will be missed by his many Friends
who have known him as a writer, filmmaker, creative thinker,
businessman, insurance executive, magician, a lifelong movie
buff and lover of fine books. Special thanks to Dr. Patrick
SKALENDA
and Beata ROLLINS for palliative care. The celebration of a life
well lived will be held at home on Sunday, June 1st between 2-6
p.m. Donations, in lieu of flowers, can be made to the Canadian
Cancer Society.
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EUSTACE o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-12-17 published
Zoltan TOTH
By David EUSTACE,
Wednesday,
December 17, 2003 - Page A24
Husband, father, grandfather, landscaper, winemaker, blaster,
friend. Born October 4, 1936, in Felpec, Hungary. Died August
11, in Toronto, of cancer, aged 66.
Zoltan TOTH always wanted a horse. Working in a steel factory
in winter, on his parent's farm in summer, he gave all his money
to his family, only asking that one day they would buy him a
horse.
In 1956 at age 20, horseless still and facing the prospect of
conscription, Zoltan decided his horse was elsewhere and joined
the stream of refugees pouring from Hungary into Austria. There
he waited for a response from the half-dozen countries to which
he'd applied for asylum; Canada responded first and several weeks
later he walked off a boat and onto the docks of Halifax.
For the next nine years, Zoltan prepared the ground for his life
ahead. Inured to hard work from the years of both factory and
farm work back in Hungary, he took whatever job presented itself:
window-washing, baking, construction, mining, as well as the
one at which he would end up working for the rest of his life:
landscaping.
In 1965, he returned to Hungary with an iron for his mother and
a new cocksure attitude he'd gained from having successfully
weathered almost a decade in Canada. On his first date with a
striking young school teacher named Zsuzsa (Susan)
NEMETH, he
proposed marriage. Miss
NEMETH refused, but with characteristic
doggedness, Zoltan persisted.
By 1969, Zoltan and Susan
TOTH were living with a daughter and
newborn son in a house on Finch Avenue in North York. By then,
Zoltan had already begun to build the landscaping and snow-removal
business that would have him working hard in the spring and summer,
and have him standing at the end of the driveway in winter, a
glass of homemade wine in one hand, wet-fingering the wind with
the other.
But, while he embraced his new country, maintaining a quiet but
fierce patriotism his whole life, he nonetheless successfully
transplanted important rituals from his old country to his new
one. For 30-odd years he and his buddies (Hungarian men who,
like Zoltan, had come over on the boat years ago and cultivated
a new life in Canada), would gather in their respective garages
over successive October weekends and make wine. Grapes would
be pressed and then, with frugality characteristic of men who
had immigrated with nothing but their own ingenuity, the mash
of grape skins and stems would be reconstituted with sugar water
for a second pressing.
Zoltan had three rules for transplanting trees. "Pick a good
plant, pick a good place for it, and vater the hell out of it."
In 1989, 33 years after leaving Hungary, he bought a Lincoln
Continental -- his horse, he called it. Zoltan had fierce attachments
but also knew how to transplant his dreams and desires to new
places and new times. For almost 40 years, Zoltan ran a thriving
landscaping business but his most successful transplant, the
thing that took root quickly and grew strong and solid and beautiful,
was himself.
David EUSTACE is a friend of the
TOTH family.
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