Local woman’s adoption from Yugoslavia opened doors for other
families
On first glance, Agnes Mifsud’s baby book seems to be just like
any other.
A closer look, however, reveals subtle differences. There are no
pictures of Agnes as a newborn, no list of firsts
– her first step, her first food, her first word.
Local woman’s adoption from Yugoslavia opened doors for other families
On first glance, Agnes Mifsud’s baby book seems to be just like any other.
A closer look, however, reveals subtle differences. There are no pictures of Agnes as a newborn, no list of firsts – her first step, her first food, her first word.
Instead, Agnes’ baby book begins with newspaper clippings and photos of a bewildered looking 4 ½-year-old girl standing in front of an airplane. Most important, there is a copy of HR 5867 – the legislative act first introduced in 1953 which allowed Agnes to be adopted into the United States four years later.
Earlier this year, Agnes celebrated her 50th anniversary of coming to America. Her adoption is special not only because of what it meant for her and her family, but because she was the first child brought into the United States from a Communist bloc country. The adoption meant not only a better life for Agnes, but it helped pave the way for other children like her to find a new home in America.
“I never really thought about [the importance of her adoption] until this year, when I realized it had been 50 years since I came here,” Agnes said. “I’m proud of what my parents did. When I was younger, I would tell people that I was adopted and tell my story, but I didn’t think it was a big deal. Now, I like to think of it as the Lord’s work. I feel like it was meant to be.”
Early years in Yugoslavia
Agneza Matulic was born Jan. 11, 1952 in the small village of Dol, which was located on the island of Brác in Yugoslavia. She was the youngest of six children born to Jack and Antica Matuli. When Agneza was just 7 months old, her mother died, due to complications of typhoid fever. Jack, the village butcher, was left to raise four boys, ages 12, 10, 8 and 6, and two daughters, ages 4 and 7 months. It was a very difficult time for the family, and Agneza’s father struggled to take care of his children.
Antica’s brother, Jack Gospodnetic, had moved to America years earlier, settling in Hollister. He lived with an aunt and uncle until he met Katherine Matulich, a Hollister-born Croatian whose parents were from Dol. The couple married, and hoped to start a family, but Katherine’s health prevented her from getting pregnant. Upon learning of his sister’s death, Jack Gospodneti had an idea – he and his wife would adopt his niece, and bring her home to Hollister.
“It was really hard for my father. He didn’t want to let me go, but he knew he couldn’t care for me,” Agnes said. “And what better way for him to know that I was taken care of than for his wife’s brother to take me in?”
Little Agneza was placed in an orphanage in the town of Split while her family waited for the adoption to go through. There was a wrinkle, however – at the time, Yugoslavia was a communist country, and no communist-born child had ever been adopted into the U.S.
“There was no such thing as an adoption such as the one my uncle was asking for,” she said. “So they got a hold of their congressman at the time, and took the request to Washington, D.C.”
HR 5867, a bill entitled “For the Relief of Agneza Matulic” was introduced to the House of Representatives in 1953, but it took four years for it to become a law. During this time, Agneza stayed in the orphanage.
“I don’t remember being in the orphanage,” she said. “I don’t remember anything really, until I was on the airplane.”
In January, 1957, Agneza’s adoption was officially approved, and the next month, the little Croatian girl found herself saying good-bye to her father and an uncle, before being placed into a large silver airplane, leaving Yugoslavia behind.
“I had a stewardess who was in charge of me, because it was such a long flight,” Agnes said. “She gave me a pair of the little wings like she wore on her uniform. My father had given me a bar of chocolate, and I left it on the plane. I remember I cried over my lost chocolate bar.”
A few days after leaving her first home behind, Agneza was in San Francisco, being pulled into the waiting arms of her new parents.
“I wasn’t sure of what was going on; you can see it on my face in the photos,” Agnes said, as tears formed in her eyes. “But my parents were so happy. They were beside themselves, I think – you see it in the pictures. They are just beaming. It was such a long four years. They never thought it would take that long.”
Agnes remembers being surprised by what she saw when she walked into her new home. Originally, she had been scheduled to arrive in November, and her parents had excitedly purchased their new daughter Christmas gifts. When Agneza’s arrival date was postponed, her parents chose to leave up the Christmas tree, the presents and all the decorations. Agneza says she walked right into Christmas morning.
She doesn’t remember much else about her first few days in her new home, but Agneza’s baby book tells the story. There are the photos of her getting off the plane, welcome notes and congratulatory cards. Today, hanging on the wall of Agnes’ dining room, there is a gold-framed photo box, containing the white knitted hat, the white sweater, the socks, a photo of Agneza holding the flight’s timetable while sitting on a suitcase and even the little TWA Airlines wings that the Gospodnetics’ new daughter wore the day she joined their family.
Growing up in Hollister
The Gospodnetichs’ lived on a small, 10-acre orchard on Buena Vista Road, on the outskirts of Hollister, an area that was home to several Croatian families who had settled in San Benito County. An ‘h’ had been added to the end of the family’s last name, originally spelled Gospodnetic, to ease pronunciation for their English-speaking neighbors. Their new daughter, renamed Agnes, loved the orchard, and spent afternoons running between the apricot, prune and walnut trees and squishing mud created from the irrigation water between her toes.
“I grew up in those orchards,” Agnes said. “I would work side-by-side with my dad and he would speak Croatian with me. We were so close. I called them Mommy and Daddy, because that’s all I really knew.”
Agnes spent the next few months getting to know her new family and surroundings. In the fall, she was enrolled in kindergarten at Sacred Heart Parish School.
“My mom went to school with me every day to translate for me, because all I spoke was Croatian,” Agnes said. “It was hard, and my mom told me that the kids would talk to me in English, and I would say mean things back to them in Croatian because I thought they were making fun of me. It took me until third grade to learn English well enough to go to school by myself. That’s when my parents told me the story of my adoption. They wanted me to hear about it from them, rather than the kids, because children can be so cruel.”
Agnes learned English from her mother, who would go over homework assignments with her daughter each day. As her English improved, the quiet girl from Dol gradually came out of her shell. She was thrilled when her mother threw her a birthday party when she turned 8 and she was allowed to invite all of her friends.
“I was really shy, but my mom pushed me all the time,” Agnes said. “She would tell me ‘You can’t let people get in front of you,’ but it took me a long time to understand.”
She was still, however, most comfortable around her family.
“I loved my life. We went to church every Sunday, and afterward we would visit family,” she said. “Saturday was wash day, and we would spend the day doing chores. During the week, I was a real homebody. I just liked being with my parents.”
Her favorite place to be, remembers Agnes, was the orchards.
“During the summer, I never knew what a vacation was, because I had the orchards. I worked with my dad, picking and cutting fruit, washing trays, drying fruit. You can’t really have those experiences today.”
Once she reached high school, however, Agnes became more outgoing. While her grades may not have been not the best (“I did okay”), she had many friends and enjoyed hanging out with them.
“High school was a lot of fun, much more fun than elementary school,” she said. “My class was so small, everybody knew everyone. I met people who are still my friends almost 40 years later. We call ourselves ‘The Fab Five’ and we get together all the time. I have another group of friends who I meet at Starbucks every Thursday.”
Agnes graduated in 1970, and then went to Gavilan College for two years, earning a business degree while working as a secretary for the San Benito County Chamber of Commerce.
Shortly after graduating, Agnes met her future husband, Mike Mifsud, while babysitting for his older brother, Bill. Mike was living in San Jose at the time, but would come out on weekends and work with Bill at Dabo Liquors. Bill showed Agnes a picture of his little brother in his Air Force uniform, and asked her what she thought.
“I said I thought he was okay – it was just a picture after all,” Agnes said. “But later on, I was babysitting, and around 12:30 in the morning there was a knock at the door. It was Mike, and he said he was staying there at the house, but I was a little leery because Bill had not told me. But I let him in. He told me later that when I opened the door, he was just struck. He said he wanted to ask me out for coffee, but he never did.”
Agnes moved to Redwood City in 1971, but a year later, was home to attend a friend’s wedding. Mike and Bill were bartenders at the reception, and Mike was struck once again.
“My parents were there also, and when they walked past the bar, Bill pointed to them and told Mike ‘See those two people? Those are your future in-laws,'” Agnes said, smiling at the memory. “My cousin Carol gave Mike my phone number. Finally, he gave me a call and we started dating in 1973.”
The couple’s first date was dinner and a movie in San Francisco – “I remember thinking ‘who takes a girl to the city on a first date? No one,'” laughed Agnes. “But it was wonderful.” The courtship, which began in August, moved quickly, and by New Year’s Eve, the couple was engaged.
“He asked me to marry him through a poem, and I said yes, yes,” Agnes recalled. “When he asked my father for permission, we had wanted to marry in June, but my father said no, because it was apricot season. So we married in September.”
Today, the Mifsuds are nearing their 33rd wedding anniversary, and share three children – Michael, 31, Kevin, 28 and Vanessa, 21.
“We moved really fast,” Agnes said. “We met, went out and got engaged in just four months. But here we are, 35 years later from the day we met, still happily, happily married.”
Agneza’s story
Agnes Mifsud is something of a whirlwind. The stay-at-home wife/mother kept herself busy – she raised her children and cared for her family; she worked in her children’s classrooms; she helped to care for both her parents and her grandmother before each passed away. She goes to church, goes on outings with family and friends, and is co-editor of “The Kalifornski,” a Croatian newsletter. She loves dancing and music, and keeps her heritage alive by playing Croatian music continuously at home.
“I’ve always felt that my thing in life, what I was meant to do, was to love others,” Agnes said. “Sometimes my kids will tell me I’m goofy. But I love life. I enjoy people. Whatever I can do to help others, I will do. I’d rather do that than have had a career.”
In 1981, 24 years after first stepping onto American soil, Agnes Matulic Gospodnetich Mifsud went home. She brought her sons, Michael and Kevin, then 6 and 3, on the journey, and a case of nerves, made even worse by the fact that her parents were not able to make the trip.
“About a month before we were supposed to leave, my dad had two aneurysms, and of course, he couldn’t go,” Agnes said. “I told him ‘I’m not going, because you need me here,’ and he told me ‘You have to go. Your father is waiting for you.'”
Upon arriving at the airport in Zagreb, Agnes and the boys were met by one of her brothers and his family. After a few days there, they took a train and a ferry to get to Dol-Brác, where she had been born. She was greeted by her father, her sister, her three other brothers and all of their families.
“It was unbelievable,” Agnes said, as tears streamed down her face. “We were all crying in happiness. I didn’t know what to expect. I felt like a little girl again. The time went by so quick.”
While on a boat ride with her father, Agnes turned and noticed her father was crying.
“I asked him why, and he said the whole time I had been in America, he felt like I thought he had wanted to get rid of me. And of course, I didn’t – it had never entered my mind,” she said quietly. “But after we talked, and cried, he felt much better.”
That first trip is the only time Agnes and her entire Dol family has been together. She has made several trips back since then, and thankfully, she says, she was able to see both her father and a brother one more time before they died in the mid-1990s.
Her children have been raised knowing their Croatian heritage, and in 2002, son Michael spent six months in Brác, learning the language and certain traditions. Agnes makes Croatian meals and enjoys cooking and crafts, traits she says she learned from her mother.
“I am so thankful for everything they gave me, everything they did for me,” Agnes said. “I am really just thrilled by what my parents did. They did not give up, no matter how long it took. They really wanted me, and today, because of them, I am a very positive person. I don’t worry about things, am always laughing. I have a morning ritual – I don’t start the day without my prayers and thanking God for another wonderful day. It has been a great, great life.”
