VALERY McDEVITT Obituary
McDEVITT--Valery Lanyi. also known as Dr. Valery Lanyi, born in 1929 in Baja, Hungary passed on January 16, 2023. Valery's teen years were robbed from her by the Nazis. She and her mother were slave laborers in an Austrian farm camp. After the war, she graduated from Pazmany Peter Medical School in Budapest during which she met her first husband Andrew Lanyi. At the onset of the Hungarian uprising of 1956, they escaped through Austria by crawling under the barbed wire border - if caught they would have been executed. They landed in New York City on Christmas Eve 1956. Over the next five decades she was a leader in physiatry (physical rehab medicine) at Rusk Rehab Medicine, then NYU now Langone, teaching students from all over the world. She happily treated everyone from bus drivers to opera singers to police officers. In 1967, she and Andrew divorced. She married Dr. John B. McDevitt, a world-renowned psychoanalyst and they were happily married from 1970 until he passed in 2008. She mourned the passing of her son George from the complications surrounding AIDS in 1990. Upon her retirement in 2016, it was noted that she was the longest serving employee and the oldest physician at Langone. Her years were filled with the love of travel, classical music, art, an occasional ice-cold vodka straight up and doting on her grandson. She had a rich sense of humor and loved "discussing" politics and social issues. Every day started with a mug of espresso and her beloved New York Times.
Published by New York Times on Jan. 23, 2023.
McDEVITT--Valery Lanyi. also known as Dr. Valery Lanyi, born in 1929 in Baja, Hungary passed on January 16, 2023. Valery's teen years were robbed from her by the Nazis. She and her mother were slave laborers in an Austrian farm camp. After the war, she graduated from Pazmany Peter Medical School in Budapest during which she met her first husband Andrew Lanyi. At the onset of the Hungarian uprising of 1956, they escaped through Austria by crawling under the barbed wire border - if caught they would have been executed. They landed in New York City on Christmas Eve 1956. Over the next five decades she was a leader in physiatry (physical rehab medicine) at Rusk Rehab Medicine, then NYU now Langone, teaching students from all over the world. She happily treated everyone from bus drivers to opera singers to police officers. In 1967, she and Andrew divorced. She married Dr. John B. McDevitt, a world-renowned psychoanalyst and they were happily married from 1970 until he passed in 2008. She mourned the passing of her son George from the complications surrounding AIDS in 1990. Upon her retirement in 2016, it was noted that she was the longest serving employee and the oldest physician at Langone. Her years were filled with the love of travel, classical music, art, an occasional ice-cold vodka straight up and doting on her grandson. She had a rich sense of humor and loved "discussing" politics and social issues. Every day started with a mug of espresso and her beloved New York Times.
Published by New York Times on Jan. 23, 2023.
VALERY McDEVITT Obituary
McDEVITT--Valery Lanyi. also known as Dr. Valery Lanyi, born in 1929 in Baja, Hungary passed on January 16, 2023. Valery's teen years were robbed from her by the Nazis. She and her mother were slave laborers in an Austrian farm camp. After the war, she graduated from Pazmany Peter Medical School in Budapest during which she met her first husband Andrew Lanyi. At the onset of the Hungarian uprising of 1956, they escaped through Austria by crawling under the barbed wire border - if caught they would have been executed. They landed in New York City on Christmas Eve 1956. Over the next five decades she was a leader in physiatry (physical rehab medicine) at Rusk Rehab Medicine, then NYU now Langone, teaching students from all over the world. She happily treated everyone from bus drivers to opera singers to police officers. In 1967, she and Andrew divorced. She married Dr. John B. McDevitt, a world-renowned psychoanalyst and they were happily married from 1970 until he passed in 2008. She mourned the passing of her son George from the complications surrounding AIDS in 1990. Upon her retirement in 2016, it was noted that she was the longest serving employee and the oldest physician at Langone. Her years were filled with the love of travel, classical music, art, an occasional ice-cold vodka straight up and doting on her grandson. She had a rich sense of humor and loved "discussing" politics and social issues. Every day started with a mug of espresso and her beloved New York Times.
Published by New York Times on Jan. 23, 2023.
McDEVITT--Valery Lanyi. also known as Dr. Valery Lanyi, born in 1929 in Baja, Hungary passed on January 16, 2023. Valery's teen years were robbed from her by the Nazis. She and her mother were slave laborers in an Austrian farm camp. After the war, she graduated from Pazmany Peter Medical School in Budapest during which she met her first husband Andrew Lanyi. At the onset of the Hungarian uprising of 1956, they escaped through Austria by crawling under the barbed wire border - if caught they would have been executed. They landed in New York City on Christmas Eve 1956. Over the next five decades she was a leader in physiatry (physical rehab medicine) at Rusk Rehab Medicine, then NYU now Langone, teaching students from all over the world. She happily treated everyone from bus drivers to opera singers to police officers. In 1967, she and Andrew divorced. She married Dr. John B. McDevitt, a world-renowned psychoanalyst and they were happily married from 1970 until he passed in 2008. She mourned the passing of her son George from the complications surrounding AIDS in 1990. Upon her retirement in 2016, it was noted that she was the longest serving employee and the oldest physician at Langone. Her years were filled with the love of travel, classical music, art, an occasional ice-cold vodka straight up and doting on her grandson. She had a rich sense of humor and loved "discussing" politics and social issues. Every day started with a mug of espresso and her beloved New York Times.
Published by New York Times on Jan. 23, 2023.
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