Ethel Biro

08/20/1933 - 02/02/2024

Ethel (Etelka) Biro passed away peacefully in her sleep on Friday, February 2nd, 2024 with her loving husband of 70 years, Alex, at her side.

Born in in 1933, Ethel grew up in Tiszanana, Hungary with her sisters Ilona and Juliana, her brother Sandor, parents, and grandparents. She loved animals and, as a child, kept a pet pig on the family’s small farm. She moved to Budapest as a young teenager and there met the love of her life, Alex (Sandor) Biro, while working in a factory. Ethel and Alex eventually married and welcomed their first born son, Martin. After the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, the young family fled then Communist Hungary on a bitterly cold Christmas Eve, pretending to be holiday travelers. They escaped across the border into Austria, hiking through waist high snow and thickets of thorn bushes in stinging, icy wind, to freedom. They settled first in The Netherlands and then in Montreal, Canada before joining Alex’s brother Julius in San Francisco, California in 1960. Their son, Rick was born two years later.

From a young age, Ethel worked many arduous and varied jobs but her dream was to work beside her husband in the silversmithing business he started, Biro & Sons, Inc., on Folsom Street in San Francisco, but life took a different turn. At age 30, she was stricken with crippling rheumatoid arthritis, an illness she lived with for 60 years. Ethel never let her physical challenges diminish her great zest for life or sparkling, mischievous spirit. She loved to travel and to entertain, using the beautiful silver serving pieces her husband and sons created in the family business. Her greatest joy was her family, and the circle of dear friends she and Alex found in America, many of whom had also emigrated from Hungary.

In 1967, Ethel and her family moved from San Francisco to Lafayette in the East Bay Area. An outstanding, selftaught cook, Ethel loved preparing the cuisine of her native Hungary, especialy the elaborate and festive Dobos torte for family birthdays and holidays. She welcomed daughters-in-law Maureen (Martin) and Kathy (Rick) and cherished her five grandchildren, Jordan (David), Martin (Nick), Peter (fiancée Lisa), Alexander and Juliana. A born storyteller, Ethel enjoyed regaling others with tales of her early life and adventures in Hungary, family camping trips with her husband and young sons, and later travels with Alex and their grandchildren to favorite destinations, including Hawaii, Arizona, and Europe. In her senior years, Ethel discovered a passion for writing and published two memoirs about her rich and colorful life, Etelka: Looking Back and Etelka: The Dream Came True. She often expressed deep gratitude for her life in America, her beloved husband, sons, grandchildren and many friends, even as illness challenged her more and more. She adored being the life of the party and was always the first to get up and dance. Throughout her remarkable 90 years, she remained young at heart.

In her memoir, Etelka: Looking Back, Ethel wrote lovingly of her final visit with her mother in Hungary, shortly before her mother died. Ethel’s own words beautifully express how her family and friends lovingly remember her today:

“She never truly left me. She is with me every day. I hear her voice; I feel her touch. And she will always be with me because I am part of her.”

The family will have a private Celebration of Life to remember Ethel this summer.