On April 24, 2023, Tania Marcotty, age 94, died peacefully of natural causes at home, surrounded by family. The only child of Count Piotr de Szyszko, a lawyer and judge from Bucharest, and his second cousin, Baroness Hèléne von Schwachheim, Tania was born Countess Tatiana-Maria de Szyszko-Dolenga in Iaši, Romania, less than a decade after the family had been devastated and driven from Odessa by Bolshevik Revolutionary forces.
Against the chaotic backdrop of Europe at war, Tania grew up in foster homes and boarding schools, spending her first two years at the pig farm in Romania belonging to Verotchka, a servant of her grandfather’s destroyed estate. As a young child, she was homeschooled by her beloved and gentle foster mother, Jeanne Deroide, in Dunkirk, France, where she was enthralled by life at the seaside—daily roller skating, acrobatics on the beach, exploring tide pools—until her mother arrived unannounced to move her to a grimy Paris flat within the literary circle of exiled Russian aristocrats. At age 11, Tania witnessed the Nazi troops march in to take over the city; two years later, Tania and her mother were deported to Germany for war labor. Tania was sent to a farmhouse deep in the countryside, part of the Kindertransport system approved by the SS as a work camp for refugees like her. She retained a lifelong admiration and appreciation for the village schoolteacher whose six sons lost their lives fighting for Germany, but who also hid Jews in his 12th century farmhouse, raising them and paying for everything out of his own pocket for 10 years. Herr Becker insisted his 42 students memorize poetry and folk songs daily, which Tania was able to recite for another 80 years. He was a strong and kind father figure to a teenager with a fractured home life, and one of Tania’s greatest joys was her friendship with his youngest daughter Roswitha, which she maintained until the end of her life.
At age 15, Tania and her mother forged her passport and fled on the very last train from Berlin, hours before it was invaded by Russian tanks. Tania worked 18-hour days in a convent tuberculosis hospital, then resumed high school among the bombed-out ruins and systematic starvation of post-war Essen, earning the academically rigorous German Abitur with high honors. At 19, with no jobs available for war refugees like her, Tania left Germany to attend nursing school in a small country hospital in Maidenhead, England, where she was awarded the top Silver Prize for excellence in her studies.
When she turned 21,Tania’s father, who had been hospitalized before she was born and whom she’d never met, crossed the miles, the years, and the political barriers with a series of six letters in which he introduced himself and expressed his love and longing for his only child. He told her the full documented extent of their ancestry, dating back to the 11th century and First Crusade out of Lithuania. She learned the names and history of 23 unbroken generations, including Princess Grajina Guedemin of Lithuania (b. 1310), Lord Nicholas de Szyszko, Bishop of Bracslaw (b. 1521), Princess Anne-Dounita Griselda Radzywill (b. 1792), as well as Tania’s great-great-grandfather, Josef the Good, who was known for his efforts to protest the pogroms and mistreatment of Jews and serfs; and her great-grandmother, Princess Cassilda Cantacuzino, who reportedly built the first women’s hospital in Iaši, where Tania was born. Tania’s greatest regret was that she was never able to meet her father, but she was very proud of his integrity, kindness, noble deeds, and accomplishments.
On Christmas night,1947, Tania needed help laying out a recently deceased patient. She called the front desk and Michael Marcotty, a 17-year-old orderly just beginning his studies in mathematics at Reading University, came to help. Tania loved to tell people that she and Michael met over a dead body; he said that he made up his mind, then and there, that she was the woman for him. Married in 1953, their first daughter, Fiona, was born in 1957; their second daughter, Anne, in 1959.
Though her life was settled peacefully in England, Tania was plagued by psychic wounds: the aftermath of growing up as a refugee at the epicenter of World War II, a traumatized and often neglectful mother, and the legacy of a thousand-year-old lineage that had lost everything in a bloodbath. When the Berlin Crisis heated up, Tania’s desperate fear of war became unbearable, and she persuaded Michael to move their young family to Canada for new opportunities in the burgeoning field of computer science. And where there was “an ocean between my little girls and the Russian tanks.”
In 1962 they emigrated to Toronto, where Karina (aka Charlie), their third daughter was born. Three years later, they moved to the Detroit area, where Michael led the computer research department at the General Motors Technical Center. Their son Peter was born in 1967.
In their small mid-century modern ranch house, Michael and Tania created an environment of warmth and appreciation for knowledge, science, and the arts. They were constantly making improvements, spending weekends building decks, furniture, and a waterfall in the garden; they filled their home with books, art and music, and frequent guests and visitors. Both were multilingual and exceptionally well read, and dinnertime discussions included wordplay and etymology in several different languages, philosophy, Thomas Mann, Charlemagne, political systems, spherical trigonometry, nature, the nature of things, and much laughter. They were passionate about justice, equality, and human rights, fighting racism and supporting justice in a strong and personal way. After the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King MLK Jr. the Marcottys joined with like-minded pacifists to march in solidarity and protest, bringing their young children to walk along with them. They joined the Birmingham Unitarian Church and served as leaders of the Liberal Religious Youth group and sponsored the young and gifted Black dancer Rael Lamb in to launching his very successful career. Deeply spiritual, and passionate about the concept of healing, they studied Christian Science, indigenous philosophy, and the legacy of the legendary healer Bruno Groening.
They always encouraged their children to follow their dreams, and urged them to become whoever they wanted to be. Tania taught them the basics of what she termed “a classical education,” including extra-curricular—and not always welcomed—lessons in Latin, anatomy, history, embroidery, folk dance, sewing, knitting, baking, French, German, Russian, chemistry, algebra, and mushroom-picking.The family had a myriad of much cherished pets, as Michael and Tania embodied a deep compassion and empathy for the vulnerable, no matter who they were, hosting an elaborate funeral for a departed canary named Tabasco, and picking the bruised strawberries from the vine along with the ripe so they wouldn’t feel left out.
Tania and Michaely wove nature and natural beauty into daily family activities. Always mindful that they may some day return to Europe, the couple packed their children and children’s friends and dog into the station wagon and embarked on several cross-country camping trips to visit the US and Canadian National Parks, instilling appreciation for historical sites and natural beauty alike. Tania insisted on setting up and striking camp with the same surgical precision expected in the hospital decades before.
Tania had a fierce curiosity and a lifelong passion for learning. She worked for years as a translator in four languages, specializing in simultaneous interpreting at high-level medical conferences. She read and wrote and studied, made lists and charts and schematics and diagrams of everything from star patterns to genealogical connections to political systems, and shared them with everyone who might be interested. Combined with her keen intellect, every day Tania demonstrated kindness and compassion and an uncommon desire to help. She put out coffee and lemonade for the garbage men—who would park their truck and sit on the lawn to chat with her—and kept a list of the milkman’s children’s names so she could ask him about them on his weekly delivery route. Tania developed a reading program and tutored dozens of grateful students, writing her own grammar book to combat what she called the “very stupid grammar” of the English language. She and Michael were always ready to provide assistance to those in need, quickly offering a paint brush or hammer, ride, checkbook, heartfelt poem, the perfect gadget found on Amazon, a spare room, or a hand to hold during childbirth or death.
Tania was adored “babooshka” to her seven grandchildren, who called her “Misty.” She wrote them frequent emails that spanned the gamut of astrology, nature, history, poetry, and world events, always punctuated by her soaring spiritual connection to the infinite. Blessed with a photographic memory and an amazing life story, Tania was a consummate storyteller, regaling her family members, friends, and strangers with detailed stories for hours, and had written a 400-page memoir. Unimpressed by status and possessions, she was curious to know and retell everyone else’s stories, and in her later years, became somewhat of a terror on Facebook.
Tania was a survivor in the very best sense of the word. She never quite lost her deep well of sadness for a world that continues to wage war, but she also never lost her expansive optimism and resolute determination to create goodness. Tania's intelligence, wit, charm, creativity, and resourceful resilience were treasured by countless lifelong friends and passing acquaintances, and her passion for helping and making a difference leaves a lasting legacy with all who knew her. Despite all the loss she endured,Tania saw death as a natural part of life, and asked us not to mourn her death with tears. Celebrating her life are her four children and their spouses—Fiona Marcotty and Gary Keenan, Anne Marcotty and Joe Morris, Charlie Marcotty and Kleo Taliadouros, and Pete and Cindy Marcotty; seven grandchildren: Alexa and Dylan Morris, Alexi and Paris Taliadouros, and Victoria, Cassie and Sophia Marcotty; beloved cousins Annick, Isabelle, Nathalie, and Claire-Lise Marcotty-Zimbale, along with lifelong friends the Davis family, the Marshall family, and the Barthel family.
Tania and Michael made it a tradition to plant trees in honor of someone after their death; donations in Tania’s name may be made to One Tree Planted. Michael died in 2014; Tania and Michael requested their ashes be returned to the sea together and a memorial is being planned for this summer.
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