by Jane Fleming

Many ASHA healers will remember Rev. Gabriella Enyedvary who served regularly as a healer on Monday nights for over 20 years. She was a tall, statuesque beauty, stylishly coiffed, wearing elegant clothes with simple yet stunning jewelry. She stood grounded and gracefully aligned to give spiritual healing to recipients on a regular basis.  

 

Gabriella Enyedvary had been an active healer with ASHA since the late 1990’s as well as a board member serving with passion, concern and vision. She had a very unique personality, made strong commitments, took immediate action on issues, laid the ground work carefully for any projects in which she was involved and had real staying power with steady focus. Like most healers Gabriella came to ASHA after suffering many of life’s traumas. The following article is based on an interview with Gabriella in 2004:

 

Gabriella’s interest in natural healing began very dramatically. In 1988 she was on the brink of death. She had endometriosis and fibroids that resulted in two major surgeries within a one month period. For another two years she continued to suffer bowel obstructions. After one operation the doctors were so stymied by the total dysfunction of the bowel that they called upon a reflexologist to activate it again, which was successful. However, she continued to suffer repeated obstructions and found that reflexology and a tummy massage for a full hour reversed the situation.

 

In Gabriella’s words she experienced divine synchronicity when a friend who had studied the works of Louise Hay arrived for lunch and to give her a reflexology treatment. The friend recommended the Louise Hay book You Can Heal Your Life which Gabriella immediately purchased. She was very impressed by the advice given and began to buy many more books on reversing health conditions through mental preparation, the body-mind connection and spiritual growth. She developed a life long interest in breaking negative emotional patterns and developed many techniques and was always open to learning more. 

 

Gabriella made the connection between her poor health, negative emotional states and the serious traumas she suffered as a very young child. As a four year old growing up in the beautiful city of Budapest, Hungary, Gabriella experienced some of the horrors of World War II. She remembered playing with a large group of children kept safely in a basement. Although the children were able to play and delighted in each other’s company, they inwardly suffered the terrible fear and helplessness of the adults. 

 

From this experience of deprivation and fear Gabriella grew up determined to get what she wanted and to work for it. By twelve years of age she worked for a Community Cultural Center during the summer selling tickets and subsequently had many other paying jobs. At the age of fourteen she attended Normal School, which offered a four year study program and a fifth year practicum under a licensed teacher, to become a teacher of the primary grades one to four. But once again war interfered with Gabriella’s life and she was unable to finish training as an elementary school teacher.

 

When the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 broke out, Gabriella immigrated to Canada and left her family behind.  She started life as a young woman in Ottawa working as a meat wrapper for a large grocery store. Not surprisingly, she was fired for crying too much! Next she got work in a Ladies Department Store as a clothes shipper and then moved on to the Ministry of Pensions as a file clerk and switchboard operator. None of these jobs seemed satisfying so she tried work as a file clerk in the Statistical Department of the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, moving up quickly to a higher position. Later she worked as a secretary for an architect.

 

While in Ottawa Gabriella met and married her husband, Thomas Enyedvary.  Thomas was a mechanical engineer trained in Hungary.  He immigrated to Canada in the spring of 1957, six months after Gabriella. He was first employed in Montreal with the CNR (Canadian National Railway) but was given a two year assignment in Ottawa for the National Research Council returning to Montreal with his new wife in 1962. Later, Thomas moved to Calgary in 1977 to establish a new home and new job, and Gabriella followed in January of 1978. They have one daughter, Sylvia.

 

After a decade of married life in Montreal, Gabriella realized a need for further education in an area of personal interest. She decided to go to university to study full time from 1971 to 1975. She had a strong social conscience and a compassion for those who suffered so she took a degree from the School of Social Work at McGill University, graduating in 1975. This was followed by a three year practicum: one year spent with a senior citizen’s home to observe and write papers, a year working with foster care families and then a year with a YWCA project to create a women’s shelter and residence.

 

Gabriella felt that her natural talents probably lay in the world of fine arts but her own personal suffering as a young person led her to have a deep compassion for the suffering of others; she was attuned to the plight of those in need. She began work for a community center, Notre Dame de Grace, that created resources for single parents. Through this community center she became involved with Centre-aid, an equivalent organization to the United Way. She became the coordinator for two campaigns for Centre-aid. Gabriella already had latent organizational skills but was also well trained as a social worker in innovative approaches to community building. She brought original ideas to the campaign, one of which was to contact key spokesmen for the organizations that used the funding. These spokesmen became speakers at fund raising events. They told first hand stories of how the fund benefited real people, such as destitute families that got back on their feet, handicapped people that were rehabilitated, etc. The moving stories gave meaning and purpose to the role of donors and increased their generosity.

 

After the family moved to Calgary in 1978, Gabriella was Director of Volunteer Services at Glenmore Park Auxiliary Hospital until 1985. In 1985 she founded and ran the Art Nest Gallery at Glenmore Landing along with Thomas until they sold the business in 1998.

 

Gabriella had a natural interest in the visual arts as well as the performing arts. She was an opera buff, avid theatre goer and art gallery devotee. She felt that she would have excelled in the fine arts if her life had not been so fragmented but her main goal in life became to excel at being herself! She was always busy. She and Thomas enjoyed traveling, and while they never watched much TV, the two of them enjoyed a diet of movie comedies or documentaries. As a productive artist she painted in oils and often had several commissions in process. She also studied Science of Mind and became a licensed practitioner and later an ordained minister. She first attended the Centre for Positive Living associated with the Science of Mind movement which evolved into the Centres for Spiritual Living. Upon her ordination in April 2009 the Westside Center for Spiritual Living was brimming over with bouquets of flowers! Gabriella connected to so many people.

 

Gabriella added many ‘strings to her healing bow’ and was glad to take an active part in ASHA. She considered ASHA an excellent organization of great value and fostered its growth and healthy future. She felt that people with determination kept the organization going and she willingly served on the board for many years. While honoring ASHA traditions she felt that there was always a need for flexibility, for change and for experimentation in any organization. Gabriella was not afraid of change and innovation throughout her entire life as revealed in this interview.  

 

Rev. Gabriella Enyedvary passed peacefully into Spirit on November 30, 2021. Thomas Enyedvary predeceased his wife on February 20, 2020.

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