DES TOMBE, MARIA Maria des Tombe used to say, with a wry smile, “Life happened to me.” By this, she meant the war, followed by the siege of Budapest and the Russian army’s abduction of her husband. Then the Communists nationalized her family home. But that was just one of the many colorful chapters of her long interesting life, most of which she authored herself. She lived on three continents, learned three languages fluently, married and separated from three men – all by age 50. And she was only half done.
Born Maria Racz into a wealthy, literary family in Budapest, she was the youngest of three daughters and characteristically rebellious. She was sent to a French convent school at a young age, where she learned to play tennis, and scandalized the nuns by painting her fingernails red. Petite with striking green/blue eyes, “Puci” accepted the proposal of a man twice her age, Istvan Szigethy, and they were married when she was still a teenager. They spent only enough time together to have a daughter before the Russians sent her husband to a gulag in Siberia. In 1951, she made her first attempt to escape Hungary with her young daughter. They were captured at the border and she spent 8 months in jail where she befriended inmates by telling them bedtime stories. At the end of the 1956 Hungarian revolution, she finally escaped from Hungary and began the second chapter of her life, as a refugee in New Zealand. She found work as a town planner, first in Wellington, then in Christchurch. She fell in love with the countryside and a Dutch refugee from Indonesia, Alfons des Tombe. The true love of her life, however, was her daughter, Anna, whom she followed to Canada in the 1970s. Here, she reinvented herself again, as a young grandmother.
Fiercely stubborn and independent, she lived alone at the top of an apartment tower with a line of mischievous dogs. Despite her new setting, Maria always retained her old-world elegance. She wore trim dresses that cinched at the waist, silk scarves, and graceful shoes. She insisted every portion was too big for her and was repeatedly scandalized by her son-in-law’s and grandsons-in-law’s dinner manners. She knew how to savor life’s delicious things — the summer light bouncing through trees, the taste of Boursin cheese and chestnut puree, the challenges of bridge games and 1000-piece jigsaw puzzles. Most weeks she read two or three books, literary fiction, mysteries and poetry. At a recent Christmas dinner, when asked what she was grateful for, she raised her glass and pronounced “freedom.” She was ready to die and believed her spirit would join the universe’s energy. Throughout her final days, she was surrounded by family and love.
She is survived by her daughter Anna Porter, step-daughter Ines des Tombe, son-in-law Julian Porter, granddaughters Catherine and Julia Porter, step- granddaughters Jessica and Sue Porter, grandsons-in-law Graeme Burt and Cameron Ainsworth-Vincze, and great-grandchildren Lyla, Noah, Ava and Violet – all of whom loved to clamber up onto her cottage bed to play games with her.
Her family will be hosting a small private ceremony, in keeping with her wishes.
If you’d like to honor her, please help a dog in need, by donating to the Toronto Humane Society in her name.