My Great-Grandparents both immigrated to the United States from Hungary. According to immigration records, Martin Hevezi arrived in the U.S. in 1906 at the age of 28. He first settled in The Miner’s Village in Cornwall, Pennsylvania, about 80 miles west of Philadelphia. He worked as an iron mill laborer. At the time, many immigrants from Eastern Europe including, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary and Ukraine, were making their way to the village where they worked low-skilled jobs. Many of them only worked in the mines long enough to save money and buy land and eventually send for their families in Europe. Cornwall was one of the largest open-pit mines.

A year after Martin arrived, Margaret Szillagyi went through Ellis Island with her Mother, Father Joseph, and two brothers. She was 13. The family traveled to Cornwall,PA where Joseph also became a mine worker, and one can only assume that Martin was introduced to Margaret through her father as they worked together, and were both Hungarian.

Two years later, Margaret married Martin in Lebanon County, PA on August 28, 1909,with her parents consent. He was 31 and she was 15.

Martin and Margaret’s Marriage License. (notice how she signed her name as “Margit”)

After they were married, the new couple moved to Philadelphia were Martin worked for a furniture company and Margaret worked in a cigar factory as a cigar maker.  Margaret’s parents stayed in Cornwall, and her father continued to work in the iron mines.

 Women rollers at the T&O Cigar Co in Philadelphia- one of largest cigar companies in Philadelphia at the time, perhaps where Margaret worked. – The cigar industry employed over 4,300 women in the early 1900’s, most of them immigrants.

Philadelphia abt 1910 

According to the 1910 Census, they were living at 840 Cantrell St. in Philadelphia. Two of their 6 children, Martin and James were born there. Below are a few Google images of what the area looks like now. The house is still there. It was updated in 1925, but the brick work is original.

(House with black door)

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(street view from in front of the house)

I’m unclear when exactly they moved to Indiana, but it was sometime between Sept 1912 and July 1914. Margaret’s parents moved to Gary as Joseph got wind of the booming steel industry and continued his work in the mill. Martin and Margaret followed her parents.

They settled in Indiana and had 4 more children, Rose, Alex, Joseph and Elizabeth (my grandma). They both applied for U.S citizenship sometime between 1910-1920, they the received their final certificate of naturalization in 1943 and 1944.

Martin and Margaret