The resting place of Mrs. Györgyné Apponyi

The figure of Albert Apponyi's mother, Countess Júlia Sztáray (1820-1871) of Nagymihály and Sztárai, is shrouded in the darkness of the past. The complete lack of sources makes it impossible to describe her personality. We know almost nothing about her except what her son presented to posterity in his memoirs in a terse manner. Based on this, an image of an ideal mother emerges, who did everything to ensure a cloudless family life for her children and husband. This portrayal corresponds to the general picture that emerged from the pens of contemporary and later noblemen and their biographers regarding their relationship with their mother. However, Júlia Sztáray spent a significant part of her life suffering from illness, which determined the lifestyle of the family members. They moved from one European region to another according to the Countess's health condition and the cures prescribed by the doctors. Her death deeply shook the whole family, a neo-Gothic tomb chapel was built on their Eberhard estate, where she was laid to rest, and this tomb chapel later became the family's burial place. Perhaps it was the mother's prolonged illness that caused the parents to strive to ensure a happy childhood and harmonious family togetherness for their children, as Apponyi later put it: "although they were able to enforce the necessary strictness in our upbringing, they firmly believed that childhood should be happy, one whose memory would gild the later serious years with sunshine."