Susanna Elizabeth Haynal Moravek

1894 - 1989 

Susanna Moravek, an artist, cellist, and violinist, was born in Padina, Yugoslavia, one of five children of Susana and Andros (Andrew) Haynal. Music was an important part of life in both the immediate and larger family. Both of her parents were singers and the influence of a violin-playing cousin led to her taking lessons on that instrument which continued until her twenties, when she switched to cello.

The family emigrated to Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, when she was nine years old, a trip that she would later recall took three weeks and included the sighting of icebergs on the way. When she was thirteen, her parents became Seventh-day Adventists and donated three acres on which an Adventist church was built. In that same year, she won an art award.

During travel in the Eastern U.S., Susanna met her husband, Stephen Moravek, a singer, and following their marriage, they moved to College Place, Washington, in 1917. Her parents came to the U.S. the following year and settled near them in that small community.

Moravek resumed study on the violin the year she arrived in College Place but within the year switched to cello, which she then taught herself to play. She joined the Walla Walla Symphony a year later and played for the next five years. The Moraveks would have two children, Anka-Marie and Paul.

After her family was raised, she completed an art major at the University of Washington and then taught in elementary schools in Prosser and Dixie, Washington, before returning to the College Place area, where she taught art privately and in the schools in nearby Milton-Freewater, Oregon. Moravek enjoyed arranging flowers and doing watercolors, painting numerous flower groupings and nature scenes and landscapes based on sketches done while traveling in Tunisia, Greece, Italy, and other countries in Europe.

Anka-Marie was musically gifted and began study on violin at age 5. She became a concert violinist and violist living and playing in Europe and touring in the U.S. until her death at age 46 in 1974.

Until she was 80, Susanna played her cello in the Walla Walla College string orchestra, where students enjoyed her playing and her sense of humor. She also played again in the Walla Walla Symphony in the 1960s and joined the orchestra at age 88 for a concert featuring former members during its 75^th Anniversary year.

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Sources: Kay Clayton, "Before I get too old," Walla Walla College Collegian, 16 May 1974, 5; Roxanne Lawler, "A Lifetime of music, " Walla Walla Union Bulletin, 4 February 1982; additional WW U-B references, 26 November 1950, 6 and 9 May 1951; 7 September 1952, 19 October 1952, 27 May 53, 7 June 1964, 22 October 1967, 1 November 1970, and others; Naturalization record for Andras Haynal, 18 September 1930; 1930 U.S. Census records.