When I arrived in Boston there were not many Czechoslovakians in the area. Most of them were older people who had come to the United States right after WWII and the Communist takeover in 1948, and they had organized themselves around the Masaryk Club. Pepa told me that there were only 2 Czech girls around our age, Marie and Anneta, and that the rule between us was to stay friends and nothing more, since a romantic involvement could spoil the friendship. After my experience in Austria I was not particularly interested in joining the Masaryk Club, but I met with Marie once in a while. She helped me practice for my driver’s test using her car, which I appreciated. I kept the rule Pepa had asked for.

After my sister and mother arrived, they became more involved with the older members of the Masaryk Club. After the Soviet invasion of 1968, a new wave of younger Czechoslovakian refugees began arriving in the Boston area, and the Masaryk Club became involved in helping them settle, working together with AFCR. One time I went with my mother to visit the former Countess of Lobkowicz, who was living on an estate in Dover, Massachusetts. My mother could communicate well with her and enjoyed the visit. On the estate there was also a young couple with a child, placed there by the Masaryk Club. The husband’s name was Tibor — I have forgotten the rest — and he was originally Bulgarian, had lived in Czechoslovakia for a long time, and met his wife there.

About a week after that visit, the president of the Masaryk Club called and asked whether I could inquire at Honeywell, where I was working at the time, about a possible job for Tibor. He was an experienced electrician but did not speak much English. I said I would ask in personnel what was possible. A few days later I received a call from Tibor himself, asking me to my great surprise when and where he should report to start his new job at Honeywell. When I told him there was no job, he explained that the Masaryk Club president had told him I had a position waiting for him, and that based on that assurance they had moved him and his family from the Dover estate into a rental apartment in Brighton, where he was now responsible for the rent. I called the Masaryk Club president and she apologized — they had needed the Dover place for other refugees and had wanted this couple to start being on their own.

I was very upset. I spent the next week or so trying to find Tibor a job. I told him he did not need to wait for someone Czech to find it for him, that I would show him how to do it himself. Using the yellow pages, I called every electrician in the area and explained that Tibor was an experienced electrician who did not speak much English yet, but could do the work and was willing to start at a lower salary to prove himself — the same approach I had used when helping my sister find her plumbing job. It took more than 20 calls before I found 1 electrician who was willing to talk to him. I drove Tibor there and told him I was not coming inside with him — that he had to prove he could communicate about his profession on his own, using paper and pencil and his hands if needed. He got the job.

I heard later that after a year or 2, Tibor and his family returned to Czechoslovakia. It had been too hard for them here. I saw other examples of the same pattern — the older Masaryk Club members pushing professional people into laboring jobs in steel factories and such, instead of helping them get established in their actual professions. After I started at MIT, people asked me several times which Czech had helped me get accepted there. They had a hard time believing that I had done it entirely on my own and dealt only with Americans. I understood their surprise, but I also knew that dealing only with Americans was exactly what had made the difference.