The Yellow Dahlias

A Collection of Short Stories

This foreword is written by the author’s son, Peter.
This is a superb collection of 48 short stories my mother wrote in her senior years. There are a few fanciful stories, but the majority are nonfiction accounts.
They are accurate recollections of my mother’s young life in Hungary, growing up under German, then Russian occupation. The stories continue through the heroic and tragic Hungarian Revolution, during which my mother left the country of her birth.
It was an arduous journey to finally arrive in Canada, her new home, as an immigrant with nothing but the clothes on her back. Yet, it was better than the life she left behind, and every day of her life, from that point forward, she embraced being a Hungarian, but just as much becoming a proud Canadian.
There are many stories of her struggles as a new immigrant and also the satisfaction of overcoming those while carving out a comfortable life in her new home.
One day, my mother told me, “I would like to put my stories into a book.”
With a grin, I replied, “Mom, the stories are simple. No one wants to read simple.”
My mother raised a finger and corrected me in a loving way only a mother can achieve. “But they are beautiful, and some are quite funny.”
Knowing she was right, I was at a loss for words, so she continued. “Think—if the largest worry of the day was reading a story and trying to decide if you should smile or laugh. Wouldn’t that be wonderful.”
She was right.
As a result, here is the collection of her short stories.


This book is age appropriate for 13+.