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Ethnic Life Stories Trail of Trees Episode 15 - Ioana Popescu
Ioana Popescu was born in the capital city of Bucharest, Romania, in June 1968. She was the second child between Ana and Eugen Popescu. The family lived in a tiny apartment in the center of the city and a decade later moved to the countryside.
Popescu enrolled in kindergarten when she was three and started learning English from a young age, but she said she was terrible at it. After graduation, she wanted to go to a school to learn biology and chemistry.
Her cherished family memories take place at the seaside, where her parents and her brother George, two years her senior, would spend many weekends at their cabin. More turbulent memories in Popescu’s story are growing up in a communist country, where she describes the quality of life started to really decrease in the second half of the 1980s.
Britain was Popescu’s first step outside of Romania - and she left her home country again in 1994 after accepting a job as a teaching assistant in Cincinnati. She said she wasn’t homesick at all because she was excited to be in the U.S. and adapted easily.
During her first year in Cincinnati, she met her would-be husband, George. The two were married in June of 1998 and found themselves in the Ozarks in 2001 when Popescu came to Drury University for an interview and accepted a position as a professor in the biology department.
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Read all of Popescu's story and the rest of the Ethnic Life Stories Project stories by clicking here.
Follow Friends of the gardens on social media! We post park events, promos, and announcements of new ELSTOT releases on our Facebook and Instagram.
Find out more about Friends of the Garden by visiting our website, friendsofthegarden.org.
Interested in supporting the 501(c)3 nonprofit that maintains and enhances the gardens and trails at the Springfield Botanical Gardens? Find out more by clicking here.
Music is Bach Cello Suite no. 3 by Colin Carr from the Free Music Archive.
Episodes are edited, recorded, mixed, and published by Diana Dudenhoeffer.
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By Friends of the GardenIoana Popescu was born in the capital city of Bucharest, Romania, in June 1968. She was the second child between Ana and Eugen Popescu. The family lived in a tiny apartment in the center of the city and a decade later moved to the countryside.
Popescu enrolled in kindergarten when she was three and started learning English from a young age, but she said she was terrible at it. After graduation, she wanted to go to a school to learn biology and chemistry.
Her cherished family memories take place at the seaside, where her parents and her brother George, two years her senior, would spend many weekends at their cabin. More turbulent memories in Popescu’s story are growing up in a communist country, where she describes the quality of life started to really decrease in the second half of the 1980s.
Britain was Popescu’s first step outside of Romania - and she left her home country again in 1994 after accepting a job as a teaching assistant in Cincinnati. She said she wasn’t homesick at all because she was excited to be in the U.S. and adapted easily.
During her first year in Cincinnati, she met her would-be husband, George. The two were married in June of 1998 and found themselves in the Ozarks in 2001 when Popescu came to Drury University for an interview and accepted a position as a professor in the biology department.
__________________________________________________________________________
Read all of Popescu's story and the rest of the Ethnic Life Stories Project stories by clicking here.
Follow Friends of the gardens on social media! We post park events, promos, and announcements of new ELSTOT releases on our Facebook and Instagram.
Find out more about Friends of the Garden by visiting our website, friendsofthegarden.org.
Interested in supporting the 501(c)3 nonprofit that maintains and enhances the gardens and trails at the Springfield Botanical Gardens? Find out more by clicking here.
Music is Bach Cello Suite no. 3 by Colin Carr from the Free Music Archive.
Episodes are edited, recorded, mixed, and published by Diana Dudenhoeffer.