by their granddaughter, Helen Warner pg 253 Big Hill Country 1977
Andrew Nagy came to Canada from Hungary in the early 1900s. He filed on a homestead near St. Brieux, Saskatchewan. St. Brieux is about fifty miles north of Humboldt in an area dotted with small lakes. The early homesteaders there had their work cut out for them clearing land before breaking it up for cropping.
He married Suzanna Miko in 1913. Suzanna had also come to Canada from Hungary, immigrating with her parents as a young girl around 1900.
A few years after they were were married, tragedy struck the Nagy family during a diphtheria epidemic, when their oldest son and oldest daughter died from the dread disease. Mr. and Mrs. Nagy felt that they needed a fresh start, so the homestead was sold and the family moved to Alberta. They lived in Lethbridge and Ft. Macleod before coming to Cochrane in the late 1920s with their five children, Amy, Vera, Mike, Mary, and Andy. They lived on a farm north of Cochrane, and the three older children went to Cochrane Lakes School. Later, the Nagys moved to Cochrane. Three more children were born, Helen, Elizabeth, and David.
Mr. Nagy worked for John Boothby, Calgary Power Company, and at the Exshaw Cement Plant. He died in 1948.
Mrs. Nagy lives in Cochrane and is a very active member of St. Mary’s Catholic Church, the Canadian Legion, and the Booster Club. She thoroughly enjoys getting about and visiting her family, two of whom live in the Cochrane area. Amy married Hamish Begg, and Elizabeth married Robert Stone of Dog Pound. The other members of the Nagy family live in Calgary and various parts of British Columbia.
In 1965, Mrs. Nagy returned to Hungary for a visit but unfortunately found it very difficult to contact many of her or her husband’s relations. Sixty years of absence from her homeland, which has been ravaged by war and revolution, meant that things did not seem quite the same as they had in the old days.
