Tag: Tonya Stiles

THE KIDS on GLEN MEADE ROAD (1954) & THE MARCH of ‘PROGRESS’ —Jim Stiles (ZX#94)

Our little piece of The American Dream was one of the first subdivisions to take root in east Louisville, Kentucky, more than 60 years ago. Glen Meade Road was a solitary finger of small two-bedroom brick homes in an area that had been farm land for almost two centuries. We were surrounded by dense woods and wheat fields, bottomless swamps and a pumpkin patch.

During the summer of 1954, we made weekly trips to Glen Meade to see how our home was progressing. The road itself was a mud hole that was last on the list of “things to do.”

If I recall, we paid about $12,000 for our little two bedroom home.

Life on the Prairie …by Tonya Morton

Land and sky. Photo by Tonya Stiles

“When I was a schoolboy my map of the United States showed between the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains a long and broad white blotch, upon which was printed in small capitals ‘THE GREAT AMERICAN DESERT – UNEXPLORED.’” —…

NICK AND ZORKA: An Immigrant Couple’s Lesson about America …by Jim Stiles & Tonya Morton

Zorka (left) and Nick (right) Pavletich, sitting outside their motel, the Maverick Motel, in Raton, New Mexico.

When the Nazis fell in Yugoslavia, the regime that took its place was Tito’s Communist government. While it had some separation from the central USSR rule, life in communist Yugoslavia was a struggle. And Nick’s experiences in other countries as a soldier showed him that life could be different. He decided to leave Yugoslavia by any means necessary.