People: Clara Fodor
TAPESTRY OF LOVE FOR AMERICA
For the past 20 years, despite her arthritis, her 74 years of age, her eye problems, and the naysaying of her late husband, Clara Fodor, '70, worked every day on her labor of love: The making of 50 tapestries depicting the unique geography and history of each state. Some tapestries took 2,000 hours to finish. 'People said it was foolish,' says Fodor, born in Budapest as Klara Haluska, now a resident of Linden, TN. 'They say I cannot do all 50, but I tell them I will do it. I've got a little gumption.'
Last fall, she was the featured artist at Chattanooga's National Folk Festival and her finished work was shown round the country, form the Chattanooga Regional History Museum to the Jesse Besser Museum in Alpena. 'It is by the grace of God and the greatness of this country that I received this honor,' she notes.
Ironically, Clara was not allowed to take embroidery classes while growing up in Czecholslovakia because of her poor eyesight. But she learned stitching by peering over the shoulders of a neighbor. Her family moved to the U.S. in 1938, thinking that 'you shake the trees in America and dollars fall--but no, I found out, you have to work for it.'
After marrying Eugene Fodor, her late husband of 45 years, she moved to Michigan, where she graduated from MSU and began a teaching career in Oscoda. 'I came to MSU because everyone told me it was an excellent school and very hard to get in,' she recalls. 'When someone tells me something is hard, I do it.'
With her '50 States' collection now completed, she is doing three for her three children-- one of Hungary, one of Chekoslovakia, and one of the U.S. And after she finishes those? Says Clara: 'People say I have not done Washington DC and the U.S. territories, so here we go again!'
