Obituary

by Matthew Piner

Gabor Antola Szalontay

B. 2/28/1939, in Budapest, Hungary.

D. 7/31/2020, at home on Baring Street in Powelton Village, West Philadelphia, age 81 years.

Gabor slid out of his “Bio Pajama” into the world of spirit on Friday, July 31, 2020.  He died at his home in Powelton Village in West Philadelphia of natural causes *.  Neighbors may remember his slim, well dressed figure either cycling about town, driving his Silver BMW or on his pensive late night walks. He loved to sun himself on the rooftop. He loved the trees, the birds and the sky.

Gabor was the proud son of  Dr. Jasper Szalontay and Sara Benyo Szalontay.  Szalontay or Von Szalonta – meant “from Szalonta” – a small Hungarian village near the Romanian border.  His father was head of the Hungarian Red Cross and died when Gabor was just 6 years old from WWII bomb shrapnel in 1945.  

When he was 17, Gabor came to the US as a refugee, one of tens of thousands seeking asylum from the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956.   He told the tale of being nearly shot and bayonetted while hiding in a truck under some hay, then running through a mine field to Austria in the middle of the night. 

Gabor had to grow up fast – relying on his wits and his inherited good looks.

A gifted athlete – tall, slender and strong - he attended the University of Texas at Austin on a swimming scholarship, originally studying medicine. But he also had a great love of drawing and Art, and soon discovered Architecture as his calling.  After a short stint in the Midwest, he came to Philadelphia seeking the best Architect in the country at the time.   He simply walked in without an interview or portfolio, and while most of the staff did not understand or appreciate him, he was quickly valued in the office of the late Architect Louis Kahn as Kahn’s Muse and “conversation partner”. Gabor’s mind was a perfect match for the Architect’s cosmic ideals of Architecture as a timeless Art of Silence, Light and well proportioned Matter.  

Gabor had a deep understanding of himself, and of people as an intuitive “seer” of the underlying Psyche.  He was sincerely compassionate about helping humanity in the realms of housing and nutrition.  He was a man greatly ahead of his time - an early proponent of prefab Tiny Houses, of a clean, plant-based diet, and of holistic healing and wellness.  He said our next Millennium will be the “healing millennium”. He said the next big thing after coffee will be — OXYGEN.

Gabor was a brilliant, wise, intense and a kind and spiritual man.  He lived with the essence of agape - a universal love of life and others. He lived an ascetic, humble and simple life. He described himself as one who loved communicating ESSENCE. All who knew him sensed they were in the presence of a special human being – a man of ideas and thought who chose his words with great care and precision.  

He will be remembered by many for his long time dedication to the practice and philosophy of Macrobiotics as an approach to life and to eating in particular.  One teacher and author described Gabor as “the Tesla of Macrobiotics”**.

He revered organic Brown rice as the ideal balanced food, calling it the “crystallized energy of the sun”.  

Here are 2 quotes of his that he felt were important:

“Architecture is the Room of the Home of the Soul.”

And what he felt was his most important discovery of “the Uniting State”:

“Please be assured that: The Sea of the Sky is full of Souls who are Ready to Help us”.

He asked for a stone to be engraved with what he called the “7 realms of light and joy”: 

Advance, Elevate, Better, Develop, Perfect, Improve and Renew.

 His favorite word was “YES”.

Author’s note: There are many missing pieces to Gabor’s life story. If anyone has information to help make this more accurate - please contact me. (See Memorial Blog page for contact info).

• SOMETHING ADDITIONAL

- by Matthew Piner - student and friend of his for some 35 years (met him in 1985 while an Architecture student at U Penn). Matthew spoke to him almost every day for the last 6 weeks or so, including the day he died.

People ask “how did he die”?

We all die someday - and understandably, people want to know. 
He was very proud to be extremely healthy and vigorous for all his life - owing largely to his adoption of a Macrobiotic lifestyle. He maintained a disciplined and strict adherence to an organic, plant based diet for many decades.

Long story short: He had a lung affliction - but not Covid.  He felt it was brought on literally by accident. He also felt he was a victim of the pharmaceutical approach to healing.
On Oct. 7 of 2018, he was hit by a car (a truck?) on his bicycle, suffered full body damage to skeletal (spinal) system and internal organs - he said he never fully recovered. 

He told me that the woman that hit him was so distraught - was upset and crying that she did not see him - he picked himself up and gave her a hug. He then picked up his mangled bike and walked home - telling concerned bystanders that he was “OK” and did not need an ambulance. He said he got home, realized the seriousness of his injuries, called 911 and was taken to the hospital.

That’s vintage Gabor.

I only learned about the lung issue this past June (when he reached out for help to get a different Doctor assigned) - that he had been suffering for over a year, diagnosed initially as COPD and updated as “Bronchiectasis without complications”.  He said it was as a result of a fungal infection that they did not treat.  They only treated his symptoms of Hypoxia (low blood oxygen) - as necessary to keep him alive. 
He was suffering from the treatment itself, having to do Albuterol with a nebulizer every 4 hours - plus he was constantly on Oxygen. He said it felt like he died and was reborn every 4 hours. For over a year.
Due to that, he also was suffering from sleep deprivation and his heart was fatiguing from the Albuterol (opens up the lungs, but speeds up the heart).  In the final days he told me his heart was bothering him.
He was wasting away - down to 128 lbs. on his 6’-2” frame - so he was extremely weak and had to walk with 2 canes or be in a wheelchair. He was in and out of the hospital - he called the ambulance his “taxicab”. He said the people in the hospital kitchen appreciated that he wanted Vegan food - and enjoyed whipping up various and heaping versions of Oatmeal and pureed vegetables. He said he ate huge quantities of food - but continued to lose weight. We talked about the various “end of life” issues, he even considered the notion of an “assist” - but he told me he thought about it and did not want that.

I was not there - so I don’t really know - but I believe that on Friday July 31, 2020, after carefully setting out a package of his bank statements and a hand written “Will”, he crawled into the tub, performed his ablutions, skipped the treatment and quietly and peacefully fell asleep forever as Gabor.

On one slip of paper he left a note, carefully scribed in his inimitable hand writing.

7/31/2020/1:23 P.M.

“Darling ONES,

Darling ONE

I DID DIE ONE:

i.e.: natural death.”

The final “time stamp” he left on the note was 2:00 P.M.

He was ready to go - to leave his washed and cleaned “bio pajama” as he called it - and meet what he knew to be the certainty of God and the Afterlife on his own terms.

To the end he was extremely lucid, strong in his mind and speech as always.
I will miss his voice and his always carefully chosen and insightful words.

Particular Thanks to Sarto Schickel for his kind service and sharing the difficult discovery of remains.

** Attributed to Edward Esko.