András (Andrew) Boelcskevy

András (Andrew) Boelcskevy, longtime Needham resident, passed away peacefully surrounded by family on April 17, 2019 at the age of 86. Born in Mátrafüred, Hungary, son of Lazlo and Soja (Jovanovich) Boelcskevy. His family fled Hungary and at the end of WWII were displaced persons in Bregenz, Austria. He came to the US in 1950 with his mother, his grandmother, and his four brothers, Bálint, Gáspár, Bence and Lörinc, and for many years lived in Wheeling, West Virginia. He graduated summa cum laude in 1958 from West Virginia University with a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship and married Drusilla (Ice) the same year (divorced 1974).  He received his Masters (1961) and PhD (1970) from the University of Pennsylvania (diss “Rhetorische Darstellungsmittel in Heimito von Doderers Roman ‘Die Strudlhofstiege’”). Dr. Boelcskevy taught German language and literature at UMass Boston from 1966 to 2004. He married Mary Anne Stewart of Quincy on November 29, 1975; they have two children, Anna and Stephen. In the early 1980s, he and his wife Mary Anne translated two plays by Bertolt Brecht for performance under Director Timothy Mayer: Mother Courage and Her Children with Linda Hunt (Boston Shakespeare Company, 1982) and A Man’s a Man with Bill Murray and Stockard Channing (Rhinebeck Summer Theatre, 1984). He was a longtime member of the Democratic Party, AATG, MTA, ACLU, as well as The Goethe Society where he served on the board for many years. After his retirement in 2004, he continued to teach an occasional seminar on Austrian literature and Kafka and was also an avid participant for many years in a reading group.

He was an expert on Austrian literature and an aficionado of trains, of films from Casablanca to Marx Bros. to Predator and Animal House, and of classical music from Mozart to Bartók as well as music of the Beatles. His keen intellect, his old World manners, and his unfailing sense of humor will be missed. He cherished and at times was surprised by the enduring love of his family and many friends. He leaves behind his wife of over 43 years, Mary Anne, and his two children, Anna Gabrielle of Jamaica Plain and Stephen András of Boston. He also leaves behind his three brothers Gáspár, Bence and Lörinc and their families, as well a large extended family of three generations of Stewart in-laws. Among the many friends he leaves behind are his lifelong friend Pirus (Rein Pirn), who has known him since their teenage years in Bregenz, and his dear friend Bill Zwiebel, who goes back to their graduate days at Penn.

His wishes were to be cremated and to have friends and family gather at a later date for a memorial. Family and friends will gather for a memorial on July 20, 2019, 1:00-4:00pm. Email Mary Anne at mboelcsk@bu.edu for location and directions. 

For those who wish, donations can be made in his honor to one of the following: No Kid Hungry (https://www.nokidhungry.org/), EVKids (www.evkids.org), or Town of Needham Fire Department.

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