Meet the Grand Marshals
By Michael Buhler
Sun editor
Lou Batori claims to be running out of steam. “As you age, your energy depletes by 5 percent each year, so I’m in negative territory now,” he chuckles. But this 99-year-old Glen Arbor resident is actually full of vigor, skiing virtually every day last winter at Crystal Mountain, and riding his bicycle daily 17 miles around the Glen Lakes. In July, Lou will become a Centenarian, perhaps the first ever in Glen Arbor.
Lou and his wife of 41 years, Judith, have been residents of Glen Arbor since 1981. Judith, just as vigorous as her husband, has been coming to the area since she was a girl. “My father was a public school music director,” Judith says, “and we had been renting cottages in Harbor Springs for several summers. One year we came to Glen Arbor, and that was it: ‘This is place, this is Heaven!’ we all decided, and we have been here ever since.”
To see Lou and Judith, one would guess their ages decades less. To hear them move smoothly from English to French, interject some Hungarian, and return to English again with a multilingual joke, it is clear that they are sharp as tacks. And the grace and sure footedness with which they move about reminds one more of dancers than retirees. Tired? Hogwash. They just returned from a trip to Hickory, North Carolina — on a Honda Gold Wing motorcycle, Lou at the throttle, Judith in the sidecar, often trailing a silk scarf. Running out of steam? Hardly.
Lou was born in Hungary in 1910, and it gets interesting right away. That part of Hungary is now known as Romania, and in particular, Lou was born in Transylvania — a stone’s throw from Dracula’s castle. The Batoris, he says, are of nobility, and even had a gruesome connection to the vampire legacy. Thus, Lou says, “when my grandfather the doctor gave me inoculations as a child, in addition to smallpox, I was inoculated against vampire bites.” He smiles. Judith, knowing that was coming, retreated to the kitchen.
As a boy in Hungary, Lou and his half-sister lived without electricity until he was about eight years old. Around age 12 the curious engineer tried to bring light into his room so he could read late at night — and ended up blowing all the fuses. He was never found out.
During World War I his stepfather was an officer in the army, and Lou, his mother, sister, and aunts lived with the doctor grandfather. Fearing the Russian advance, Lou’s mother packed up the children and caught the last train headed east. The only train cars available were open coal carriers, and Lou remembers having the time of his life. The grandfather and aunts were safe, and after the war they reunited with Lou’s stepfather who was director of the state-owned tobacco factory.
When he was 14, Lou’s biological father felt he needed a more worldly education, so Lou attended boarding schools in Switzerland, Germany and England. Upon graduation at 19, “without parental consultation or knowledge,” Lou purchased his first motorcycle, and convinced a friend to join him on the journey through rutted, muddy roads from London to Hungary. The trip took six weeks, and they had no trouble, and no breakdowns. “The motorcycles then were simple, and really like motorized bicycles,” Lou recounts, “and we had an exhilarating trip.”
Lou came to the United States in 1929 to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and went on to join Sperry Gyroscope as a Research and Development engineer for about 15 years. As World War II came to a close and the Communists were confiscating property in Hungary, Lou’s biological father came to the United States and convinced Lou to leave Sperry and join him in the Batori Computer Company, which made an intricate navigational calculator (“like a round slide ruler,” Judith says. Photos can be found online). Batori Computer’s final products were backup calculators for the Gemini space missions. As the world moved to digital calculators Lou decided it was time to close the doors, and he joined Grumman Aerospace in the mid-‘60s as a specifications engineer.
Meanwhile, Judith completed a Classical education (she speaks French, Greek and Spanish in addition to English), and continued to visit Glen Arbor, where her parents and eventually brother built cottages near Lake Michigan. Judith’s parents helped to found the Glen Lake Community Reformed Church, with her mother as organist. Judith was an executive for 25 years as Buyer and Manager at Macy’s in New York, and it was their love of exotic wheeled vehicles that brought Judith and Lou together. Judith drove an Austin Healey, and Lou a Jaguar XK 120. They married in 1968, and Lou’s first trip to Glen Arbor was in 1969 to Judith’s mother’s cottage.
As retirement neared, Judith convinced Lou to settle in Glen Arbor in her brother’s winterized cottage on Lake Street. “I wasn’t very anxious to leave New York,” Lou says. “We had all our friends and our work life there. Judith was absolutely determined to get up here. I analyzed the situation and decided it was cheaper to move here than get a divorce.” He says this too with a chuckle, but this time Judith just gives him a look.
Lou has been known for all these years as the man who rides his bicycle around both Glen Lakes — or skis — daily. Five years ago Lou’s chain jumped gears and froze the back tire, landing him hard on the pavement, and he broke his hip. That curtailed the skiing for a while, and Lou now stays on the more level roads, avoiding his old favorite of Inspiration Point hill. They are thankful to the Glen Lake Fire Department for coming to his aid. Judith says, “I adore (Paramedic) Dena! She’s come to help us a few times. Everyone here does: we live in a wonderful, warm-hearted community.”
Lou is glad to have retired here. “This is a small village, very quiet. But scrape the surface and you find some amazingly talented and educated people here, more than you might elsewhere. I like Glen Arbor because it is gentle and genteel.” Judith adds, “My family decided ‘this will be our heart’s home,’” and it is.
Lou and Judith will be the Grand Marshals of the Glen Arbor Fourth of July Parade. Lou will celebrate his birthday this summer with friends and family at a private affair that will include Judith’s daughter and two sons, and Lou’s daughter.