(My professors called me Grof, but half the time I didn't recognize my last name when they called the roll. In Hungarian, Grof is pronounced with a long “o”; here, everyone read my name as if it were written “Gruff.”)
My professor was worried about me. This was a tough course even for people who had all the right preparation, he told me. It was the first serious engineering course that students encountered. Perhaps it was too soon for me. He offered that if I wanted to drop the class, he would let me do it without any penalty and I could take it again the following semester.
I was stunned.
It was bad enough that I got an F on my test. Even worse was being invited to drop the course. I thanked him for his consideration and told him, with clenched jaw, “I'm going to do better.” From there on, the first subject I studied every day while I was fresh was physics. I studied for as long as it took for me to get on top of the material.
I kept writing to my parents. I had lots to report, but I would have written even if I hadn't, just to keep them informed so they wouldn't worry about me. My father was very happy about my shift to engineering. He was a practical man, and he thought he understood what an engineer did better than what a chemist did.
I started hinting that they should follow me to America. At first, my parents' reaction wasn't encouraging. By that time, the borders were sealed again. Getting across as I had was no longer possible. Furthermore, my father was deathly afraid of finding himself in a place where he didn't speak the language, which was anywhere but Hungary. I started lobbying for them to study English. After a while, they did, and I encouraged them by including English comments in my letters. I used my messy cursive writing when I wrote to them in Hungarian, but whenever I switched to English, I would print the phrases to make it easier for them to read.
In one of their early letters, my parents mentioned that Gabi had returned to Hungary from Romania and visited with them often. I asked if it would be all right for me to write to Gabi directly. I was afraid of any repercussions resulting from his keeping in touch with a dissident friend. My parents didn't think there would be a problem.
After a few exchanges, though, Gabi's letters dried up. I kept writing to him, but I had no answer. My parents reported that he had stopped coming by. Then one day, my parents were walking down the street and saw Gabi walking toward them. But when Gabi saw them, he crossed the street to avoid having to say hello. I stopped writing to him after that.
Jancsi, Bubi, Imre, and Peter all got to America. We went our separate ways, but we kept occasional contact with each other. Jancsi ended up across the country at Stanford, where he had rel- atives. Bubi got a job as a TV technician in New York and was studying English. Imre got a scholarship to the University of Michigan and was on his way there. Peter was enrolled at Princeton, where an uncle of his was a professor.
I also heard from the friendly crew member on the ship. He called to invite me to dinner, and one Saturday night, his wife drove up from Brooklyn to collect me. We had dinner in their sparsely furnished apartment, with their two little kids playing in the corner. They were very impressed with my progress on the college front.
Another day, a woman telephoned for me. Her name was Magda. She said she was my mother's niece and lived in New York. My mother had never told me about her. When I wrote to her about Magda, she answered that she had lost contact with her after the war. Magda, however, did not forget about us. She thought that some of us might have made our way to America in the wake of the revolution, so she checked with Camp Kilmer for the names of my father, my mother, and other relatives until she came across mine.
She came to visit. She was younger then Lajos and Lenke, a single woman, good-looking and sophisticated. She said she would have gladly taken me in. I liked her a lot. It was good to know that I had another relation in this huge place.
Some weeks later, the time came for the second big physics exam. My rigorous regimen paid off. This time, I got an A.
I was feeling better about my academic prospects, which was just as well because I got word that my faculty advisor, Professor Kolodney, wanted to see me. Professor Kolodney was a lean, middle-aged man whose low-key demeanor was at odds with the perpetually amused glint in his eye. He asked how I was doing in my classes. I was glad to be able to report my good news in physics. Then he asked me the question that just about everybody else asked: “How do you like America?”
Ordinarily, my answer would be a short and perfunctory, “Fine, I like it very much.” This time, something made me go beyond that. Having just braved the elements on a particularly nasty day, I burst out, “America, I love. New York, I hate.”
The whimsical eyebrows raised. “And why is that?” he asked calmly.
“Because it is cold and wet and ugly,” I said.
Professor Kolodney thought about this for a little while. Then he asked me about Budapest. I described it as a beautiful city where water and mountains meet, where the sun always shone and the wind never drove rain into your face. Of course, this was not the case, but from the distance of space and time it seemed to have been so, at least for me on that grim, gray day. Professor Kolodney thought again, then offered, “Maybe you want to move to California. You're likely to find what you describe in San Francisco more than any place else in America.” He then switched the subject to discuss which courses I would have to take the next semester, but the idea of California buzzed in my brain. I might want to live there after I finish, I thought. It sounded exciting.
But first I had to get back to my courses. In order to expedite my graduation, I needed to start taking the course sequence offered by the Chemical Engineering Department. The first course in the sequence was called “Chem E 128.” This was a legendary course with an intimidating reputation; rumor had it that half the students flunked it. Only those who passed Chem E 128 could continue with the chemical engineering courses and become chemical engineers. Those who flunked, the condescending rumor went on, became physics or psychology majors. I wanted to get going with my sequence of courses, so I needed to get into Chem E 128.
Professor Kolodney wondered if it might be too soon for me to take it. He said that the only way I would be allowed into the course was if I got permission from the chairman of the department, Professor Schmidt, who taught this course. So I went off to see Professor Schmidt.
His office was guarded by a secretary who wouldn't give me the time of day, let alone an appointment. I waylaid Professor Schmidt after his class. He was a short man, middle-aged, with a fierce mustache and graying hair severely combed back. He wore a gray dress shirt and a tie. He was very intimidating. I got straight to the point.
I told him my predicament while all around us students were noisily milling about in the usual postclass hubbub. His piercing eye never left mine as he asked which courses I was taking that semester. When I mentioned my physics course, he asked who my teacher was. Then he asked about my grades. I swallowed and told him that I had flunked the first test but got an A on the second. He looked at me quizzically, then said that if I continued to do well in the physics course, he would let me take his class.
I took a deep breath and blurted out, “Professor Schmidt, I wonder if you could help me with my other problem.”
My scholarship from the World University Service was only for the current semester, I explained. I needed to get another scholarship for the following year. He frowned, then said that I should come see him in his office later.
I showed up as instructed and smugly pranced by the disapproving secretary as Professor Schmidt gestured for me to come in. His office was minuscule, with barely enough room for him and his desk. I edged my way onto a chair. Professor Schmidt asked me how much money I got from the WUS. After I told him, he pulled out the longest slide rule I'd ever seen. It must have been more than two feet long. Without saying a word to me, he started computing something and muttering to himself. Then he put down the slide rule and asked, “How would you like a job instead of a scholarship?�
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I didn't know what to say.
He explained that the Chemical Engineering Department had the budget for one student assistant who would help him and his secretary. The job paid $1.79 an hour, which was very good wages because the other jobs around the college paid only $1.00 an hour. Glancing at his slide rule, he figured that if I worked twenty hours a week, I would make as much as I got out of the scholarship.
I quickly calculated that by next semester, I would no longer have any physical education requirements, so I could drop out of the fencing team and gain some time that way. And the idea of working for this man really appealed to me. I said yes.
The job wasn't going to start until the next semester, but Professor Schmidt said it was mine.
Meanwhile, another important development took place. I applied for my green card. My official status in this country was as a parolee by order of President Eisenhower. That was signified by an identification card, a white piece of plastic with my name and personal data on it. The white card gave me the right to be in this country, but it did not give me permanent resident status. As I understood it, I had been let in but was still in limbo.
The green card would signify that I was here to stay and would be on track to become a U.S. citizen in five years' time. This was extremely important from the standpoint of bringing my parents here. As relatives of an American citizen, they would have preferential status in being admitted to this country.
Things were falling into place, but there was one detail that still bothered me: my name. I liked being Andy. I hated being Gruff. When I complained to Lajos and Lenke about it, they said I could change my name easily enough if I wanted to. They told me that a friend of theirs had Americanized his name some years earlier so that the pronunciation of the Americanized version sounded the same as the correct pronunciation of his name in Hungarian.
I started doodling with different spellings. The most obvious thing to do was stick an “e” after my name. G-r-o-f-e. I showed this to a classmate and asked him how he would pronounce it. He said, “Oh, Gro-fay, like the composer of the ‘Grand Canyon Suite.’” I went back to the drawing board.
I tried another version. I wrote G-r-o-v-e. I took it back to the same boy. He said, “Oh, that's how you say it. Grove.” It was a serviceable rendition of how G-r-o-f was pronounced in Hungarian and was certainly a lot closer than Gruff.
I went to see each of my teachers and told them that I was changing my name to Andrew Grove. For good measure, I added a middle initial: S. It stood for Stephen, the English version of Ist-van, the middle name that I had never used in Hungary. Nobody had any problem with my new name, except for my physics teacher, who again asked to see me after class. He solemnly told me that it was really not necessary to change my name, that I should hang on to my identity and not give in to any pressure to Americanize. I explained to him that my name was what people called me by, and when he pronounced “Grove,” it sounded more like me than when he pronounced Grof as “Gruff.” He shrugged and said okay.
Now I had to find out how to make my name change official. To my surprise, I was told that all I needed to do was start using the new name. When I became a citizen, my name change would take place formally. In the meantime, however, no papers needed to be filed. I just had to be consistent about using my new name. America continued to amaze me.
That night when I wrote to my parents, I ended my letter by carefully printing in English, “FROM YOUR SON ANDY, WHOSE NAME WILL SOON BE ‘GROVE.’”
Epilogue
I've never gone back to Hungary.
To be sure, as the years went on, political and economic life both improved, at least as far as I could tell. Hungary even ended up becoming a member of NATO. But although I've retained fond memories of Hungarian music and literature, and I still look with some warmth at picture postcards of Budapest sent to me by friends who visit there, I have never desired to revisit it myself.
I'm not entirely sure why. Maybe I don't want to remind myself of the events I wrote about. Maybe I want to let memories stay memories. Or maybe the reason is something simpler than that: My life started over in the United States. I have set roots here. Whatever roots I had in Hungary were cut off when I left and have since withered and died.
Meanwhile, my life here has flourished.
I graduated from City College three and a half years after I started, at the top of my class. The New York Times even wrote a little blurb about it, with the headline REFUGEE HEADING ENGINEERS' CLASS. I got married. (My wife and I met when we both worked summer jobs in a resort in New Hampshire; she was a waitress, I was a busboy.)
Soon after graduation, we piled into an old car and drove out to California so I could go to graduate school at the University of California at Berkeley. Somewhere on Highway 40, I saw a sign indicating that we were nearing the Sierra Nevada. The words jumped straight out of the Karl May books I had read when I was a kid. Now, here I was, about to drive through these hitherto mythical mountains.
I fell in love with the San Francisco Bay Area from the moment I drove through a tunnel north of San Francisco and saw the city glittering in the sunshine. It was everything Professor Kolodney had suggested it would be. It was beautiful. It was friendly. It became home. I've lived in the Bay Area ever since.
Five years after I landed in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, my parents were allowed to leave Hungary and joined me in California. They got simple jobs: My father became a clerk at a title company and my mother a cashier/wrapper in a department store. They held these jobs until they retired in the 1970s.
Both of my parents learned English, my mother easily, my father with difficulty. Partly spurred on by his necessity to get along in America, but equally motivated by his desire to talk with my wife and his grandchildren (we now had two daughters), he finally overcame his difficulty with foreign languages. He was proud of his accomplishment.
My father passed away at age eighty-two. My mother is still alive and, in fact, has offered her critical views of the manuscript of this book.
My parents' friend Jani also escaped from Hungary at the time of the revolution. He ended up in Australia. He and his wife once visited my parents in California.
Romacz stayed in Hungary, retired, and lived out his days in a rented room in a friend's apartment. My father wanted to help him, but Romacz rebuffed all offers of financial assistance; when my father insisted and sent him some money anyway, he returned it. He died alone, as self-sufficient as he had lived.
My aunt Iren and my uncle Sanyi both passed away. My cousin Marika is my only relative in Hungary who is still alive. My mother keeps in close touch with her.
Lenke died a few years after I moved to California. Lajos remarried; he passed away many years later, but not before he saw me succeed in the business world. Paul grew up and had a family of his own.
Of my friends from Budapest who escaped in the wake of the revolution, Jancsi and Peter both became professors at American universities. We've run across each other a few times over the years. Bubi became an engineer; he died of a heart attack in his fifties. Imre is also in California, where he is now retired. His son looks more like the Imre I remember than his father does.
I lost track of my friend Gabi after trying to contact him, as I described. He has become part of the closed chapter that Hungary represents.
I have loved my life in the United States. The doors that the International Rescue Committee and Professor Schmidt opened for me were just the first of many. I went through graduate school on scholarships, got a fantastic job at Fairchild Semiconductor, the high-flying company of its day, then participated in the founding of Intel, which in time has become the largest maker of semiconductors in the world. I rose to be its chief executive officer, a position I held for eleven years, until I stepped down from it in 1998; I continue as chairman today. I've continued to be amazed by the fact that as I progressed through school and my career, no one has ever resented my success on account of my being an immigrant.
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bsp; I became a U.S. citizen. I was named Time magazine's Man of the Year in 1997. My two daughters now have children of their own. In fact, it was the arrival of the grandchildren that stimulated me to tell my story.
As my teacher Volenski predicted, I managed to swim across the lake—not without effort, not without setbacks, and with a great deal of help and encouragement from others.
I am still swimming.
Swimming Across: A Memoir Page 26