What began as a family tree of my Slovenian ancestors became an emotional and historically rich story when I found hundreds of letters that my grandmother had saved. My grandparents came from Primorska , the coastal region of what is now modern Slovenia. Their village was in a valley  under a mountain called Slavnik near the border with Croatia.

My grandparents went to west Virginia to cut trees  in 1913 with intentions to return home in three years.  My grandmother and her brother Jožef, who stayed in the ancestral home, had a warm, loving relationship, and their letters over the next five decades form the story that I tell about their daily lives, their intimate thoughts, and views on the changes that shaped their lives. When my Great-Grandfather Valentin died from the Spanish Flu in 1918, his house and four acres were deeded to my grandfather, Janez Fradel, on the condition that he return home. Janez was not quite ready to leave America with his wife and babies, so he asked Jožef to take care of his land until he returned. This took place during the turbulent times in Primorska suffering from the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and its occupation by Italy, a history that for political reasons has seldom been mentioned and my story brings it to life.  It is a history which still stirs up controversy.

I asked my family in Slovenia to tell me more. They said I knew more than they did because after WWII it was unwise for people to talk about the past. I would be the only one who could tell the story of their grandfather, Jozef.  In a mystical way, I felt that my ancestors had appointed me to tell their story.  I know them well. I have read their letters, some so intimate that were only meant to be read by my Grandmother.  I reveal these letters so that the lives of these very ordinary people, unimportant people, who lived through the turbulent times are not forgotten. The authenticity of my story is strengthened by oral history, newspaper articles in the Digital Library of Slovenia, and  the help of my extended family in Primorska and Maribor. The details of the emigrant experience, the experience of losing just one family member to economic migration, then losing dozens from your village for political reasons, changed village culture forever. The direct effect of historical events can be viewed as just a story, or it can  give a deeper meaning to history and current events.