Deborah S. Cornelius

DEBORAH CORNELIUS
FEBRUARY 15, 1935 - SEPTEMBER 13, 2023
Santa Fe - Deborah S. Cornelius passed away on September 13, 2023, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, after a short illness. Debby, as she was affectionately known, was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania on February 15, 1935 as Deborah Straw Gutman, the daughter of Rachel Mutchler Wolfe and William Cornelius Gutman. Known throughout her life for her radiant smile and elegance, Debby also had the heart of an adventurer and the mind of a scholar. She often recounted that when she was a child, adults would tell her she was pretty, but that she was much happier in jeans, climbing trees, and getting into trouble with her older brother Neil and his friends.
Debby graduated from Wyoming Seminary in 1952, and then from Connecticut College in 1956 as president of her class. She then cared for her ill father before departing for Europe alone (!) on what was supposed to be a six-month trip. It turned into fifteen years of living overseas. She arrived in Vienna at a historic moment that shaped the rest of her life. It was the year after the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, when the city was flooded with young refugee "freedom fighters," many of whom she met through teaching English classes. After a one-year absence to take an MA in Education and History at Yale, she returned to Vienna to marry István Fehérváry in 1959, with whom she had her children: Krisztina and András. She taught at the American International School in Vienna until 1966, when the family moved to Tangier, Morocco. There, she taught history at the American School of Tangier (1966-69).
The family moved to Santa Fe, NM, in 1969, a place she grew to love and call "home." She joined the faculty at Santa Fe Preparatory School in 1970, where she taught high-school history until 1984. At Prep, she developed the Model United Nations program and was appointed Director of Studies in 1983. Her children, who knew her as a gentle and loving mom, were surprised to learn that at Prep she had developed a reputation for being an excellent but tough teacher with high expectations of her students, many of whom sought her out years later to let her know how important she had been in their lives. She was also beloved of a generation of St. John's College students who came to know her through the parties, hikes, rafting trips, and other adventures that her husband, István, then the Director of Student Activities, organized.
In 1984, Debby left Santa Fe to pursue a long-held dream of earning a Ph.D. in East European history at Rutgers University. She completed research in Hungary during 1987-88, right before the collapse of state socialism, funded by a Fulbright grant. After receiving her doctorate in 1994, she published two books under the name Deborah Cornelius: In Search of the Nation: The New Generation of Hungarian Youth in Czechoslovakia (1998) and Hungary in World War II: Caught in the Cauldron (2011). The latter book was subsequently translated into Hungarian and released in Budapest (2015) to much acclaim.
She married Attila Hunyadi-Buzás in New Jersey in 1991. After his death in 1993, she taught for a few years at Rutgers and Franklin & Marshall College before moving back to Santa Fe in 1999. In the following decades, she reconnected with old friends and made many new ones. While working on her second book, she became an active member of the Santa Fe World Affairs Forum and of Global Santa Fe, a parishioner of St. Bede's Episcopal Church, and a volunteer for the Santa Fe Botanical Garden. She tutored in the public schools and was involved in her neighborhood. Debby loved her book groups and language lessons, and relished the company of the people she knew through them. She traveled often to Ann Arbor, Michigan, Hungary, Austria, and Switzerland, to visit friends, colleagues, and her children and grandchildren. Well into the last year of her life, she took trips to Europe and to Michigan to visit family, rode her electric "Trike," and was working on a new manuscript. She is survived by her son, I. Andras Fehervary, her daughter, Krisztina Fehervary, their spouses (Carlotta Caroli and Matthew Hull); her much-loved grandchildren, Alex and Zsofia Hull, and Giulia and Nico Fehervary-Caroli; her sister, Erica Gutman; and nieces Moira Killoran and Catherine Gutman. In addition to her husbands, she was predeceased by her parents and brother William Cornelius Gutman. Mom, we miss you!
The family is planning a memorial service in Santa Fe for late July 2024.