Viera Jamrich
<p>Viera Jamrich was born in Nitra, western Slovakia, in 1952. Her father Ludovit was an accountant and her mother Antónia was a clerk at a canning factory. When her father was promoted at his work, the family moved to Prievidza. Growing up, Viera also spent time in Kamanová, where her mother’s family lived, and Topol’čany, where her father inherited land and built a house. Viera was attending a technical high school when, following the Warsaw Pact invasion in August 1968, her mother decided to emigrate. Viera accompanied her mother to Vancouver where she took English classes and found a part-time job. Viera’s mother was unhappy abroad and, although Viera did not want to leave, the two returned to Czechoslovakia in August 1969. After graduating from high school, Viera studied mechanical engineering at Slovak Technical University (STU) in Bratislava. Her first job after graduation was working for the engineering company Montostroj. Later, she joined the faculty at STU and taught engineering classes. At this time, Viera married and had a son named Marek.</p><p> </p><p>In early 1982, Viera began making plans to leave the country for a second time. Because she felt it would be difficult to travel while working at the university, she quit her job there and found employment with an aviation company. After receiving the necessary permissions and visas, Viera went on a two week trip to Turkey in June 1982. She claimed political asylum while there and lived in a refugee camp in Istanbul for five months. She subsequently traveled to Italy where she stayed in a refugee camp in Rome for several months before flying to the United States. In March 1983, Viera arrived in New York City and says that, when she got off the plane, she felt like she was ‘back at home.’ An acquaintance of Viera’s helped her find a job as a draftsman in Bethesda, Maryland. She says that as her English improved, she was able to work her way up to an engineering position in the same company. In 1989, Viera received American citizenship and was granted permission to travel to Czechoslovakia. She visited very soon after the Velvet Revolution and brought her son back with her to the United States. Viera is an active member of the Slovak American Society of Washington, D.C. and has hosted the society’s picnic, helped organize the Svätý Mikuláš [St. Nicholas] party, and served on the board of directors. Today, she is an engineer for the U.S. Postal Service and lives in Fairfax, Virginia.</p>
National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library
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Anne McKeown
<p> </p><p>Anne McKeown was born in Pribiš, Slovakia, in 1945. Although her parents were living abroad due to her father’s position as a diplomat, her mother returned to her family home to give birth to Anne. They returned to Marseille, France, when Anne was six weeks old and lived there for the next five years. Anne’s brother, Patrick, was born in 1949. That same year, Anne’s father, knowing that he did not want his family to live under communism, resigned from his government position and applied for asylum in the United States, Canada, and Australia. In 1950, they received permission to move to Australia, and settled in Melbourne where her father got a job with Caterpillar and her mother took in boarders. Anne says she had a ‘wonderful’ childhood in Melbourne and particularly remembers attending the Slovak dances that her mother helped organize.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>In 1957, Anne and her family moved to Whiting, Indiana, under the sponsorship of old friends who were from the same town in Slovakia. She graduated high school at the age of 16 and enrolled in the nursing school at Purdue University. After graduating, Anne moved to the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C. and began working at Northern Virginia Doctors’ Hospital. She subsequently worked as a doctor’s assistant in a private office and then as the assistant to the chief of surgery at Columbia Hospital for Women in Washington, D.C. Anne met her husband in 1968, and they married two years later in Whiting. Anne says she vividly recalls her first trip back to Czechoslovakia in 1973 where she was viewed with suspicion because of her Slovak origin.</p><p> </p><p>As an active member of the Slovak American Society of Washington, D.C., Anne has recently been involved in planning the annual Svätý Mikuláš [St. Nicholas] party. Her husband, Jim, has taken an interest in her Slovak heritage and enjoys painting traditional decorated <em>kraslice</em> [Easter eggs]. They split their time between Falls Church, Virginia, and Bratislava, where they own an apartment.</p>
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