She didn’t know English, had no money and had no family waiting on her arrival.
She did have two small suitcases, a baby stroller and a 7-month-old son, Albert.
Although her new husband, Mo, was stuck back in the camp, all those painful memories of her family and home decimated by the deadly war back in Bosnia had come with her.
Weeks earlier, when she’d traveled from the camp to Frankfort, Germany, to be interviewed for a Catholic Social Services program helping relocate war refugees, she’d been asked where she’d like to end up in the U.S.
After some silent thought, she finally mentioned the one place she could think of:
“I’d heard of Dayton because the peace was made there, so I just said, ‘Dayton.’”
Six years earlier the Dayton Peace Agreement had been hammered out in an intense three-week session at Wright Patterson Air Force Base that had been brokered by U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher and negotiator Richard Holbrooke and had included the presidents of Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Finalized on Nov. 21, 1995, it ended the ethnically fueled 3½-year Bosnian War when it was formall signed 23 days later in Paris.
“When I was leaving the camp, I’d been just goofing around telling Mo, ‘I’m going to Dayton,’” Mira said.
“I’d joke that it made peace between me and him. He’s from Kosovo, I’m from Bosnia. He’s Muslim, I’m Catholic. I love mine (religion) and respect his.”
She said their union was a Peace Accord love story.
It was something good after both had experienced so much bad.
She said her father had been “murdered” in the war in 1993, and her home in the small village of Jelinak had been burned down, as had many others there and in the neighboring settlement of Putis.
Mo had escaped the Kosovo War, which was precipitated by the discrimination and violence that ethnic Albanians had long endured there at the hands of the Yugoslavian government and its troops who controlled Kosovo.
When Mira first had applied to come to the U.S., she and Mo were not married. So, when she finally was accepted — even though she now was wed — her husband was not included.
Mira and the baby’s first flight brought them to New York City, where they spent the night.
“That next morning I still had no idea exactly where they were taking us,” she admitted. “I hoped it was someplace smaller than New York City, and when I asked, they said, ‘Yes, you are going to Dayton.’”
Mira told the story one recent afternoon as she sat at the bar of Jimmy’s Italian Cuisine and Bar in the Oregon District.
She and Mo bought the place — which once housed Franco’s Ristorante at 824 E. Fifth St. — and opened it as Jimmy’s in mid-May. For the past several years they’ve also owned Jimmy’s Italian on Woodman Drive in Kettering.
Their two sons — Albert, who’s now 23 and graduated last December from Wright State with a business degree; and Doni, who’s a 16-year-old Fairmont High student and was born in America — help them at the two locations.
As Mira recounted their arrival in Dayton, Albert sat a few stools away, engrossed in the European soccer championship coverage on an overhead TV. He wore a shirt emblazoned with the logo of the Dutch national team.
“I support them in this because that’s where I was born,” he said with a shrug.
But, as he would emphasize later, the real story for his family has played out in Dayton:
“This is what you’d call The American Dream right here. Some people may doubt there’s such a thing, but if you want an example, please look at my parents.
“I’m so proud of them. They showed if you do it the right way, it can happen.”
It happened, say people who know Mo and Mira, because the couple rolled up their sleeves, worked hard and dreamed of better days ahead.
And it happened, Mira said, because people here opened their homes and especially their hearts to them.
Sonia Zennie is the longtime president of the United Methodist Women at Grace Church on Harvard Boulevard. Two dozen years ago, she heard a talk in Columbus about how churches could help refugees coming to the United States.
She shared what she’d learned with the people at Grace and said the congregation wanted to help.
Zennie and a few other church members were at Dayton International Airport that day — Aug. 14, 2001 — when Mira arrived.
“I’ll never forget seeing her get off the plane,” Zennie said. “She had her little umbrella stroller and her baby in her arms. It had been a long trip, and she looked exhausted.”
Mira remembered she was uplifted once she got inside the terminal:
“They had a ‘Welcome’ sign, and there were balloons and flowers. They’d had just 24 hours’ notice that I was coming, so they knew my name, but not my baby’s.”
Mira and Albert initially stayed in an extra room in the Centerville home of former Grace member Susan Darcy.
“They hadn’t known if I was coming with a boy or girl, so the crib they’d set up had pink material around it and a blue fitted sheet,” Mira said.
“They also had a dictionary for me.”
The next day, Sonia — as she’d do for several months — picked Mira up to take her around Dayton.
“She is my American mom,” Mira said. “I just love her to death. She’s always been so good to me and my family.”
Mira was determined to find a job and give her son a better life than she and Mo had had. She initially worked for Solganik Catering and then in food service at Miami Valley Hospital and the Marriott.
For 13 years she did food preparation at Dorothy Lane Market, where she was befriended by owner Norman Mayne.
“He’s a great man,” she said.
Sonia helped her learn English, explaining different words as they drove around Dayton and when Mira visited her in Oakwood.
Mira also learned by talking to her fellow workers, and especially when she watched TV with Albert.
“I watched kids’ shows, like Barney, Teletubbies and Winnie the Pooh,” she laughed. “I learned from all of them.”
Eventually, she got a small apartment on Wyoming Street and said she spent all her money trying to provide for her son and pay the daily bills while regularly calling Mo back in the Netherlands:
“I missed him dearly.”
‘You pull for somebody like that’
The other day Mira brought along some old photos, including one of her — when she was still Mira Plavcic — and Mo standing together in the middle of the Dutch camp.
“I lived there with three other girls,” she said. “Two were from Africa, and the other was from Serbia.”
Although Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina had been at war, she said those hostilities didn’t carry over into their apartment:
“You’re both there for the same reason so you get along.”
She said she met Mo in 1998 when she was 23 and he was 25:
“I walked in the (recreation) room, and he was playing pool. I paid no attention, but he came up later — skinny, long hair — and I’m like ‘Oh my God!’
“He tried to talk my language (Croatian), but he had an accent and I’m like, ‘Where you from?’ In his language everything was ‘he.’ There was no ‘she’ or ‘her.’ I said, ‘That’s not gonna work.’
“The refugee camp is far from the city, and you had to go out into the woods to smoke. But I was scared so he became my friend, my protector.”
As Mira was telling the story, Mo happened to walk past so she decided to have some fun with him.
“Back then, I was I was a poor, naïve Catholic girl,” she grinned. “But he was a player.
“I tried to fix him up with another girl, but he wasn’t interested. He already had eyes for me.”
Albert, who was still sitting at the end of the bar, leaned his face down toward his open hand as if to say, “Please, I’ve heard enough!”
Just 28 days after Mira arrived in Dayton, the 9/11 attacks happened, and any influx of refugees was temporarily halted.
Nine months later, when Mo got to Dayton, Mira and Albert were at the airport waiting for him.
He arrived with two pairs of pants , a jacket, $30 in his pocket and a stuffed animal for, as he put it the other day, “my good-looking son.”
Soon after getting here, he found work as well.
“I was like, ‘Jesus! You don’t even speak English and you’re a security guard!’” Mira laughed.
He delivered pizza and then Sonia, who would drive him to work, found him a job on the lot of a local car dealer.
First, he washed cars, then he became a lot porter, and he continued to advance.
A plaque now hangs near the front door of their Oregon District restaurant. It’s the Lifetime Achievement Award he got for more than two decades with Evans Infiniti of Dayton.
“They had a big ceremony, and he was crying,” Mira said.
Albert Zennie, Sonia’s husband, appreciates Mo and considers him a friend:
“Once Mo learned the language, he didn’t look for extra help once. He came here, grabbed opportunities that so many other people claim they don’t have, and he made his mark.
“You pull for somebody like that.”
Eventually, Mira’s brother came from a restaurant job in Germany and worked at Jimmy’s in Kettering. Soon, Mira started working there and finally Mo joined her.
Mira began turning out Italian dishes as though she’d made them her entire life.
“I just have a lot of curiosity,” she said. “I’m a Nosey Rosey. I find out what’s in something and then make it.”
Nearly a decade ago, with their life savings and the help of a local “angel” as they once put it, Mo and Mira were able to buy Jimmy’s in Kettering. They worked long hours, made it an entire family effort, and the place thrived.
Albert worked there when he went to Fairmont High and WSU, and Doni — who’s also been a heavyweight wrestler at Fairmont — works there now.
Early this year the opportunity arose to buy Franco’s, though it would mean a strain financially and physically.
“Oh hell yes, there were times I worried about what we were doing,” Mira said. “More than once, I told Mo, ‘Honey, I think we’re chewing more than we can swallow.’”
Although the family now lives in Kettering, she attends Holy Trinity Church across Fifth Street from Jimmy’s. At Mass she said she prayed, ‘Oh God, if we’re going to have any real trouble with this plan, don’t let it go through.’ But I also learned long ago if you don’t take risks, you have nothing in life. You just can’t quit when you hit a bump in the road.”
It worked for Mo and Mira when they came to Dayton, and now it’s working at their second restaurant, which already has become a popular Oregon District dining spot.
And no one is happier for them than Sonia Zennie:
“I can’t say enough good things about their family. They are the dearest people in the world.”
‘The American Dream is real’
Five days ago, Mira flew back to Sarajevo. She planned to see her mother, who’s dealing with health issues, and she’ll visit with her two sisters and her brother who’s now back in Europe.
Asked what else she’ll do, she grew quiet and suddenly her eyes glistened, and her voice quivered:
“Even though my mom doesn’t live there anymore, I’ll go back to my village. I’ll sit and have a coffee and then I’ll go to where our house used to be. Now there’s nothing there but rocks.
“And I’ll visit my dad’s grave.”
That thought made her tears spill.
After three weeks in Bosnia, Mira will return to Dayton.
“I’ll tell them it’s time for me to go back home … and now Dayton is my home,” she said. " I love my Dayton. I really do.
“When I came here 23 years ago, my prayers were answered. Dayton gave me what I needed. It gave me love … It gave me an opportunity.
“That’s what I appreciate about this country. If you want to do it, you can do it. The American Dream is real.”
And she said that’s being proven again and again at their Oregon District restaurant.
“Right now, I have two people working for me in the kitchen.
“I have a young guy, he’s 32. He was in engineering in Colombia. He just got here, and he spoke no English.
“He gave me his phone that does translation, but I told him, ‘No, no. Johan. You’ll never learn.’
“I know from my own self, if I didn’t learn to communicate — and actually talk to people — I’d never have made it here. And now he speaks English and he’s working his way up. He’s very good.
“Then another day a girl came to the back door here. I said, ‘May I help you?’ And she motioned like to eat. I said, ‘Oh my God.’
“She’s from Venezuela. She spoke no English either.
“She wanted to work, and she’s now learned the language, too. She started out washing dishes and now she’s helping me in the kitchen.
“I was very patient with both of them because once I was just where they are.
“When I see them now, I see me.
“When I see them, I see hope.”
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