Not many knew Countess Ilona Teleki de Szek by that title. She kept her royalty status on a low-profile, an exiled member of nobility living in New York.
The Countess, also known as Ilona DeVito di Porriasa, immigrated to the US from Hungary and worked at Merrill Lynch-- that was all she told her colleagues, according to the New York Times.
But what many of them were unaware of was her status: she was born a countess, and was raised in a castle.
They didn't know that she and her family had run away from homeland Hungary to escape the Romanian Communist government.
The Countess died last week at age 73-- her life, an enigmatic question mark slowly being unfolded by members of her family. The layers of her narrative prove that New York City holds the most curious characters. Your next door neighbor could be a member of royalty.
Di Porriasa was born in 1939 in Transylvania to a baroness mother and count father who were Transylvania's representatives to Hungary.
Her family was in danger during the last months of World War II, as the Soviets took hold of Hungary and Romania. The government took di Porriasa's father as a prisoner, and she would not see him for another 20 years. She, her mother and siblings were forced to evacuate the castle, which since has been converted into a clinic and botanical garden.
The remaining family moved into a series of houses, staying where they could with relatives, on farms, even in an old library.
Anti-Hungarian sentiment continued rising in Romania, and the government continued to watch the entire family, even opening their mail and pulling the children from school.
The father escaped and found asylum in the US. He got his family, including Ilona, to join him in 1964 with a heft bribe the Romanian authorities.
Ilona didn't speak a word of English, but worked at a hosiery factory in the Bronx, then as a typist at a financial firm.
Her daughter told the New York Times that her mother wasn't too vocal about her past.
"She didn't really want people to know, because people think of nobility as having something, and my mother really had nothing when she came here," her daughter said.
Her mother eventually fell ill with breast cancer, and died on April 15 with her family, in exile from her country.
"In all the time I talked to her every day, we talked about Hungary and everything, but she never said a word about her being royalty," said Merrill Lynch broker Tom Webster.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
