Wilton High senior reaches across decades with podcast
As an ABC scholar, Nadia Voravolya lives in the ABC house at 6 Godfrey Place, which just happens to be the former home of Anne Goslee-Jovovic, whose family moved there 72 years ago. Anne is a member of Stay at Home in Wilton and their mutual address is the connection that spurred the two to have a conversation that may be heard on Stay at Home’s latest podcast, “The Story Next Door.”
The two sat down recently at the ABC House to find they have more in common than a high school senior and senior citizen might think.
Nadia started the conversation by asking Anne how the house had changed since she was last there.
“The room configuration is different,” Anne said.
“We moved in in 1948. The house had belonged to the janitor of the school.” She was referring to Center School on the town green, which she attended.
Other differences? “We had to shovel coal into the furnace,” she said, but “the dining room and the living room are still there.”
When Nadia asked how the town itself has changed, Anne said it is becoming more diverse and Wilton Center has changed quite a bit.
“We basically as children owned the Center. We rode our bikes, without helmets of course, and we rode all over the Center. It was just our place.”
Anne recalled how before Stop & Shop there was a big farm.
“We would go into the barn,” she said. “There were often kittens and we would take milk in there. We jumped in the hayloft.
“I learned to swim at the end of Godfrey Place in the river,” she continued. “Our parents didn’t come. We built a dam so the water was about waist high.”
The area was also a kids’ playground in winter. “Because this was a dead-end street, we sledded down (the hill). It was amazing for sledding. We even slept in the woods sometimes because there were no Lyme ticks. We were very much free spirits. We could go where we wanted.”
Other similarities the two found were their career paths. Anne became a physical therapist and told Nadia how she worked during college at a Fresh Air Fund camp for physically challenged children. “We went hiking with wheelchairs. I taught children without arms and legs how to swim.”
Nadia plans to study pharmacy.
Travel has also figured prominently in their lives. Nadia, who is Thai, told Anne about her recent trip to Thailand with a group of students.
Anne told her that when she traveled to her husband’s native Serbia to be married, she needed an interpreter.
“When I went there it was Communism. I went through Tito, Milosevic,” she said, continuing to tell Nadia how she lived through bombings, attempting to earn money by translating a scientific article on sheep, and eventually becoming a middle school art teacher at The International School.
To listen to the entire podcast, as well as the previous one between Stay at Home member Dick King and Wilton High student Connor Allen, visit: stayathomeinwilton.org /podcast.