My childhood village is Garbou.
Gârbou commune lays just East of Sălaj County, in the hilly area of the Simisna-Gârbou Hills, and covers a total surface of 100.62 sq. kilometers in the hydrographic basin of the Brâglez. It was first attested in documents dating from 1336, under the name of „Gorbo”. In time, the smaller villages of the commune had their ups and downs, mainly because of economic, social and historical developments in different periods of time. In the middle of Gârbou village vestiges of a fortified Roman settlement have been discovered, most likely a Roman castrum, which has stood at the base of building the Haller family castle. Linked with the Gârbou commune is the name of the great political figure Alesandru Papiu Ilarian, born in Bezded village, who was an important leader in the 1848 revolution, a university professor as well as a member of the Romanian Academic Society and, later, the Romanian Minister of Justice.
When I think about my childhood I feel like in a trance...I remember my grandmother, always in a hurry to finish all the chores, feeding the chicken, the pigs, the cow and beyond all this cook something and take care of us, her three neices. I was too small to help with the washing, the cooking, but me and my cousin we had to feed the chicken, close the chicken coop and feed the dog. It was Heaven on Earth for me to go there, 400 km away from my hometown.
I remember going to gather the hay, going to the forest and helping my grandfather prepare some wood to take home for fire. Of course we had to have some free time, we used to spend it playing with other children, going in little trips and discover different things like a bush of blackberries or pick some mushrooms.
In one of our adventures we decided to visit the castle. It's called the Haller Castle. It's dated since 1766 and it represents a valuable architectural complex. It is made up of a residential pavilion, a church , a gate, well and defense walls. The evolution of the Haller domains in Gârbou, because this is the name of my grandparents village, is closely linked to that of the domains in Jibou belonging to baron Wesselényi Miklós, also known as "the Jibou auroch". There was a permanent competition between the two, in the political and military field, as well as in the sentimental one.
„In his youth, Baron Wesselényi Miklós loved Nemes Zsuzsa, who, when married, became countess Haller of Gârbou, but whom, in reality, was the mistress of the Austrian emperor Joseph the Second”, we are told from the "Jibou Auroch" book, a chronicle of those times. “Hearing about the affair, the baron, nicknamed the Auroch because of his particular physical strength and wild nature, quit the imperial army and married Cserey Heléna, despite his family's and the Vienna court's protestations. When the beautiful blonde of Gârbou started to plot against the young couple, the baron gathered a small army of men and went to attack his female neighbour. Condemned in justice for this act, Wesselényi the elder was eventually caught by soldiers, beaten and sent to Kufstein prison. After her last meeting with the emperor, Nemes Zsuzsa, Countess Haller, suffered a nervous breakdown and smashed everything in her house: mirrors, porcelain, marble statues. She then fainted with her ladies in waiting barely managing to wake her up again. Seeing as she couldn’t have handled travelling by coach, her husband had to rent a sedan chair to take her in Gârbou. On the way, the Countess thought she was seeing a man carrying coffins and she jumped up from her pillows, and started running down the road, very scared, the doctor accompanying her trying in vain to help her. In the end, the woman gathered everyone around her – her husband, doctor, carriers, servants and nearby peasants – and publicly confessed her deed. In the Gârbou mansion things had become unbearable. The Countess had tried several times to jump out the window, so eventually she had been tied to her bed.
Some of these stories I heard from my grandmother. She was a little child when Gârbou was in austrian and hungarian possession. She told me many stories about the wealth of some families, hungarian or austrian and the poverty of the Romanian population. Romanians were considered to be servants. I didn't know all about the castle. My grandmother used to scare us saying that there is a female ghost wondering at night, dressed in white. Now if I think about it, it could be Countess Haller. Because her fate wasn't so good to her as you will find out next time.
