Geneva Merchant of the Week: Anna Lisznianski Comes to America, Opens Minta Interiors in Geneva

Seventeen years ago, Anna Lisznianski’s mother won the lottery in Poland. It wasn’t a lottery like The Big Game or Mega Millions. But in many respects, it was more of a life-changing event.

The winners were given the opportunity to immigrate to the United States along with their immediate family. Every year, the Diversity Immigrant Visa program determines which countries may participate in the Green Card Lottery. Countries with fewer than 50,000 immigrants over the past five years may become eligible.

Anna’s parents had not planned on moving to America. They had just built a new house when Anna’s aunt talked Anna’s mother into trying the lottery. Chances were they wouldn’t win anyway. More than 12 million people will apply this year according to State Department estimates and 50,000 will be selected from the qualifying entries. The odds are against them, but you’d never know from the excited comments of the hopefuls as they anxiously await the results for this year. It's a little different seeing things from their perspective.

Anna’s mother was one of the lucky ones though and in 1994 she and her husband were faced with the prospect of uprooting their family and moving to America. Democracy was still in its infancy in Poland. The country had just elected Lech Walesa as its first president a few years earlier after the success of the Solidarity movement. Poland’s economy was growing, but there was still inflation, political battles, unemployment, and uncertainty. Anna’s parents decided to make the move. If things did not work out in America, they could always come back.

Anna hadn’t really thought about moving to America. Growing up in communist Poland, they didn’t have many of the things we take for granted here, but they learned to make do with what they could get. Before her brother was born, Anna watched her mother make baby clothes. Anna helped and was soon taking scraps of fabric to make clothes for her dolls. Making doll clothes with her friends became her favorite pastime. They didn’t have Barbie dolls, but then again, neither did most little girls in Poland at the time.

As she got older, Anna made clothes for herself and discovered that she had a flair design and was very good with color. She took the entrance exam and was accepted by the prestigious Stanislaw Wyspianski Art School in her native Jaroslaw. She studied art there for five years. Upon graduation, Anna was certified as an artist and could either work in the field of art or take advanced courses at the university. But everything had changed now. Anna was going to America with her family.

She and her mother left first. They came to Chicago where her aunt and uncle lived. Her uncle found them an apartment near Belmont and Central. Anna hated it. In fact, she hated the whole city until the first time she saw downtown Chicago. When her father and brother came over two months later, they moved to Oak Park and Anna went to National Louis University where she studied English and business administration. During that time she met her future husband, Slawomir, in the on-line Polish chat rooms. Slawomir lived in Calgary and had applied for Canadian citizenship.

After finishing classes at the university, Anna’s parents moved to Palatine. They had decided to stay in America and sold the home they built in Poland. Anna moved to Calgary to be with Slawomir. They were married and now have two sons aged 7 and 11. Anna did not like Calgary. It was cold and stark except for the mountains, which held no attraction for her. And she missed her family. They left Calgary and eventually settled in Algonquin. Algonquin had a sizeable Polish community that included a Catholic church with Mass in Polish, a Polish Saturday school, and three Polish stores in the area.

Her husband got a job as a software engineer in downtown Chicago and Anna decided to put her decorating and sewing skills to work. She opened in 2005 in Algonquin, focusing on soft furnishings such as draperies, pillows, and bedding that she designed and made for clients. As the area grew, Slawomir’s commute to the train station in Elgin took longer and longer. So they moved to Geneva to be closer to the train and Anna moved her business to the former candy store between and on North Third Street. Anna decided to add furniture to her merchandise, starting with the Hickory Chair products because of the quality and variety of styles. Anna has always preferred quality to quantity in the products she sells. The new shop opened in May of 2008 just as the economy was heading into recession.

Things were rough and sometimes she didn’t think she would make it. She spent a lot of the down time speaking on Skype with her uncle who was retired and living in northern Italy.  They spoke in Italian because Anna wanted to keep up on the language she had learned during the summers she used to spend at her uncle’s. Anna also took advantage of the time to remodel and redecorate their gorgeous home on Creekside Drive. In 2009, their home was featured on the .

Earlier this year, Anna relocated Minta to 500 S. Third Street and added the Aggati boutique in an adjoining space. Aggati specializes in imported designer handbags by Gattinoni and shoes imported from Italy, France, Brazil and Spain. Anna felt she needed to add something new to the mix and she wanted to be sure that the boutique sold unique, quality merchandise.

Anna makes semi-annual trips to Italy to see the new designs and she is able to conduct business in Italian thanks to the conversations she had with her uncle. Her husband Slawomir has been very supportive of her efforts and also designed the business web site.

Anna has now lived in the United States almost as long as she lived in Poland. There are still things she misses about Europe—the grand old buildings, the plazas filled with people and music, the streets with their sidewalk cafes, and the sense of history one gets from being in a place that has remained essentially the same for centuries. She feels that Geneva has those same characteristics. Our history may not be as long and colorful as Europe’s, but we strive to preserve that link with our past.

Anna says that she likes to build her designs around a classical piece, blending the new with the old, building on tradition, and creating something of value that can be handed down from generation to generation, something that reminds us of the people and places of our past. In a society that produces more and more disposable products, it’s refreshing to find someone who values the things that last.

Next Wednesday, Oct. 26, will host Vargo’s Dance as Geneva Merchant of the Week. Owner Jamie Vargo and the dance instructors at Vargo’s are seriously good dancers and in seriously good shape, two things that will never be said about me. The last time I tried dancing, they thought I was having a seizure and called the paramedics. Dorothy has all but given up hope.