A Year’s Journey

About the Book

In 1980, a family of twelve—two parents and ten children—leaves the comfort of their home from Timisoara, Romania, crossing many borders to arrive in United States of America.

A Year’s Journey offers a moment-by-moment account of the family’s flight from their homeland across open fields and numerous borders to attain their freedom. The voyage begins with catastrophe. The family loses their home to fire and finds their prospects for regaining stability bleak. To leave communist Romania at that time, they must walk by night to avoid traps and border patrol and make their way to Yugoslavia, where their fate remains uncertain. They consider moving to Australia but are determined not to separate their large family, which proves to be difficult to place together. Even so, some of the older children are sent abroad to Canada and Australia. The embassies of Yugoslavia and Austria, along with other refugee families, assist them through their travels until they finally arrive in the United States, where they await for the whole family to be reunited.

Sharing a harrowing personal narrative, this memoir tells the story of one family’s emigration from Cold War–era Romania to the United States.

About the Author

Georgette C. Doan traveled in 1980 with her parents and nine siblings from Timisoara, Romania, to become a naturalized citizen of the United States. She lives with her husband, Mihai, in Portland, Oregon.