Interview with Jane Boyles
Choosing to move to a new country is not something to be taken lightly. From the first set of immigrants that sailed to America, to our ancestors maneuvering through Ellis Island, it is clear that America is a sampling of the world. Being able to appropriately distinguish between the stereotypes and the realities of immigration is a major factor in the comprehension of immigration and policy in the United States. Whether someone came to America for a chance at a safer, more prosperous life or because of love, they encompass the dedication and hard work that is required.
I had the honor of interviewing Jane Boyles from Berryville, Virginia to learn more about what it means to be an immigrant in America. I had previously had 4 people commit to the interview, but they all backed out. For one reason or another, it just was not working out and I was struggling to find someone who was comfortable with sharing their story and who’s families were comfortable with sharing their story. I posted on Facebook, explaining that I was in a Sociology of Immigration course that included an interview with an immigrant. One of my Facebook friends, Michele Marsden, contacted me within 30 minutes of posting and put me in contact with Jane. After a little bit of phone tag, Jane and I spoke about what the project entailed and set up an interview. We emailed a couple of times before the interview to get a feel for the content I was looking for so that Jane could refresh her memory, as it has been close to 20 years since she became a citizen. Jane and I met over zoom on November 21, 2020 for about 2 hours, where she shared what went into her decision to move to America and everything it included when she got here. The interview felt more like a conversation with an old friend with stories of her life interjected throughout.
In 1995, Jane Boyles moved to America to be with her husband, Jerry Boyles, and help him run his business. Together, they raised two sons and have travelled back to the United Kingdom (UK) a handful of times. But crossing the pond was not as simple and stress free as it may seem. For over 12 years, Jane battled with the fear and anxiety that surrounded deportation while trying to do everything that legislation told her to do, in a successful attempt at permanent residency in America.
Jane is shaking Judge Welshes hand, accepting her citizenship.
The three main reasons for immigration to the United States are for jobs, networking, and policy. People come to America for jobs because they are safer, easier to get, and pay more than compared to their home country. Even though the jobs that immigrants take are bottom of the barrel, dangerous, and low waged for an American’s standards, it is still better than many home countries. Networking is when an individual goes to an area because someone they know is there. The assimilation that these individuals experience is better than those who came before them and, often times, they help more people come to America. Many individuals come to America for policy, meaning they can come to benefit in some way and then return home. An example of this, is a student visa. Jane came to American under the Immigration Act of 1990, which increased the limit on legal immigration to the US, revised regulations on exclusion and deportation, and authorized temporary protected status.
Jane came for love. Jerry and Jane both worked for the same company, Eurotherm International. Jane worked in Worthing at the UK Headquarters and Jerry worked in Reston, Virginia at one of the US subsidiaries. Jerry travelled to the UK for an international sales meeting that Jane organized. He asked her out to dinner where he explained that he was looking at starting his own company in America and that he wanted her help. When the conference ended, the two went back to their homes. Shortly after, Jerry started to call Jane. They began to talk frequently, and the cost of the phone calls became more expensive than a ticket to the US with Jane stating, “He started calling me and those days it was about $1 a minute to call the UK.” Jerry successfully talked Jane into visiting him in the United States in June of 1994, where the two decided that they were going to get married and Jane would move to America.
Pictured above is Jerry’s petition for alien relative in 1995.
Jane returned to England and began the process of preparing for America, explaining that Jerry “…started that process over here because he was the one who had to petition for me to, to come to America.” She sold her belongings, quit her job, packed up her life, and organized the wedding in Worthing. Jerry started the process of applying for the US Immigration and Naturalization Service for Jane’s Visa. Jane explained that this was the Petition for Alien Relative I-130, which would confirm family relationship between the two, giving Jane a Temporary Immigration Visa. They married on June 16, 1995 in Worthing and travelled to the US on June 18, 1995. On July 4, 1995, Jane filed her paperwork for her Permanent Visa and had her first set of fingerprints taken in Berryville, Virginia at the Sheriff’s office. Jane applied for a Permanent Visa and Jerry received a Notice of Action from the Department of Justice that his Immigrant Petition for his Alien Relative had been approved. That means that Jerry and Jane affectively proved their relationship and could continue the process and apply for Jane’s Adjustment of Status for Permanent Residency. This is also known as applying for a green card, which would ensure that Jane did not have to return to the UK to complete the visa process, making Jane a permanent resident of the US.
By this point in Jane and Jerry’s story, you can see the governmental regulation in immigration. This is in place to shape who migrates, where, and how. There are passports, visas, and restrictions to help regulate the people who are coming into America. International migration is the act of crossing political borders that, without a doubt, have many dimensions of admissions. When Jane arrived in the states, so did her anxiety of deportation. The US has consistently changed the laws and regulations surrounding deportation because of the mass migrations that take place to try to find a balance. When questioned if she feared deportation, Jane stated, “Yes. Almost all the time…You know, it just all the time brings it home to me that none of this is to be treated lightly. It’s all as serious as it gets. And I need to make sure I follow the rules exactly, word for word.”
Jane received notice that she was granted conditional permanent residency in the US.
After the instruction to apply for Jane’s Adjustment of Status, she was sent the Designated Civil Surgeons List and had to complete the Medical Examination and Vaccination Record forms. This is an examination that checks to make sure you are healthy enough to be in the US and that you are not bringing any diseases or viruses into the country. This was done upon arrival at Ellis Island sometime between 1908 and 1912.
By this point in Jane’s journey, her and Jerry were expecting their first son. Jerry wrote letters to the Immigration and Naturalization Office in Arlington, VA, asking for a status report on the application. They knew that once their son, Josh, was born the process would become more complicated. In April, Jane got word from the Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) asking her to “…their offices in Arlington, Virginia on May the 15th of 1996, which was one week after Joshua’s due date. And I was just thinking, Oh, I just this is just, my stress level was through the roof. I had a serious inability to cope at that point.” While it was information they had been waiting on, they needed the interview earlier than that. They reached out to Congressman Frank Wolf and received an earlier interview on May 3, 1996.
INS is an organization that came because of the Labor Appropriation Act in 1924 and was organized to monitor the flow of immigration to and from the United States. The problem with it is, undocumented immigrants are not included in the statistics because they cannot be accounted for.
Jerry and Jane needed to keep photocopies stating, “So, all the documentation we had to, we had to produce was to prove that we were not a sham marriage.” This was to prove to the INS that their relationship was legitimate. They carried the original copies in a suitcase, and each one of them carried a brief case with a set of photocopies to their interview. Jerry and Jane were separated for their interviews and Jane shared, “It’s very, very, very intimidating, extremely intimidating.”
Jane had a very young officer who conducted a very short interview of 10 minutes and did not request to see any paperwork before calling his colleague to bring Jerry in. Jerry later mentioned to Jane that he was not asked any questions or to see the paperwork they brought. Jane was approved and her officer printed out her Conditional Permanent Residency and signed and dated it right in front of her. The Conditional Permanent Residency meant that Jerry and Jane were married, and that Jane must hold this status for two years. At the end of the two years, Jane needed to reapply for residency which would give her permanent residency for the rest of her life, or her status would expire, and she would be removed from America.
When Jane received Notice of Requirement to File a Joint Petition to Remove the Conditional Basis of an Alien’s Permanent Resident Status, she had just given birth to her second son, Jacob. This notice meant that it was time to start the process of receiving her green card. She shared the message she was sent scared her because of the wording. Reading off her notice, Jane recited, “…it said something quite kind of scary that I would have to, I need to ‘file a request for the removal of the conditional basis of your permanent resident, resident status. Failure to file as required will result in the automatic termination of your status and will make you subject to deportation’.”
Pictured above is a copy of Jane’s green card. When she became a citizen she had to turn it in.
The approval of the process would ensure that Jane could live in the US, deportation free for the rest of her life. On April 24, 1998, Jane applied to the US Department of Justice to remove the conditional status on her residency. On May 29, 1998, Jane received her Notice of Removal of Conditional Basis of Lawful Permanent Residence and received her green card in the mail. Jane shared her excitement by stating, “So, in July 1998, with my green card, which I was sent, I was a permanent resident, which meant that I could stay in the US for the rest of my life, I kind of breathed a sigh of relief.”
As the years went on, Jane realized she had no voice in her sons’ education or in the representatives elected in the US. When someone holds a permanent residency, they can live in America freely as well as travel outside the US but cannot vote. Jane began to research what she needed to do to become a citizen of the United States. By this point in time, the internet was up and running and she was able to find the requirements to apply for naturalization stating, “And the rules were, if I was 18 or older, I had to be a permanent resident for five years, I had to be a person of good moral character, I had to have a basic knowledge of US history, and I had to be able to read write and speak English. And I thought, oh, I think I can do all that.” On August 8, 2005, Jane applied to become naturalized. Jerry and Jane paid $390 for the application and she studied alongside her sons to learn the information that she would be tested on.
Above shows a photocopy of Jane’s Notice of Action for removal of conditional status.
In August 2005, Jane received notice that she needed to have her fingerprints taken again but this time they needed to be done at the INS office in Alexandria, Virginia. Through the fall of 2005, Jane completed forms, background checks, fingerprint checks, and medical checks. These steps were all taken as a part of her screening to be a naturalized citizen in America. On February 13, 2006 Jane was called for her Naturalization Interview at the INS Offices in Alexandria, Virginia which she had prepared for stating, “I was able to download, again, from the INS website, the self-test of 100 standard questions that I might be asked. So, question number one, what color are the stripes on the on the American flag? What are the stripes on the American flag mean? How many senators are in Congress? And it goes on, there are 100.” She laughed adding, “Now the boys were at elementary school, and they were learning various things with flashcards. So, I made myself 100 flashcards, and they tested me, which they thought was really good fun.”
She was given an N-652 form after completing her test and interview, which meant that she passed. She was tested in the Eastern Judicial District but lives in the Western Judicial District and could not attend the Naturalization. She shared, “I was disappointed, but I understood, and he said, well, you need to go home. And we’ll write to you. And we’ll let you know when you will come for your oath ceremony.”
Jane is proudly holding her certification of naturalization as her sons look up at her.
In early March 2006, Jane received Notice of Naturalization of Oath Ceremony. It would be held in Harrisonburg, Virginia at the US District Court for the Western District of Virginia. On March 31, 2006, Jane and Jerry “…took the boys out of school, because Jerry and I thought this is the most perfect US civics lesson for the boys to come to the federal courthouse to see me sworn in as a US citizen.” With witness of her sons and husband, Jane was sworn in as a US Citizen through the Oath of Allegiance by Judge Welsh. Jane was so happy and proud to be an American that she went straight to the Berryville voter’s registration office, per Jerry’s suggestion, stating, “So, we did, and we went into the Berryville voter registration office and I had my certificate of naturalization. We said to the voter registrar, who is still there in Berryville, I want to sign up to become, to be able to vote. And she, she got quite emotional herself. She said, You’re the first brand new US citizen I’ve ever had in the Berryville office who’s with, the with your naturalization certificate, who wants to sign up to vote…”
While Jane experienced anxiety and fear, she also experienced happiness and success. For many that want to immigrate to the United States, there are barriers that make it difficult. Things like money, acquired skills, education, health conditions, and cultural values become challenging to overcome. In addition, many immigrants make the journey with young children. These children, often times, do not know they are undocumented until they apply for jobs, their license, or college. Jane stated, “Now, I’m English, and I speak English. And I’m very lucky to be able to read all the paperwork, and all the documentation that I initially got in the mail.” The context of reception differs for each individual but for those who cannot speak English, the challenge is more intense. Jane supported this theory by stating, “I could read them [notice of actions, other documents and requirements], but it’s a different thing if you’re, if you’re a foreign immigrant coming in, and you need to get an immigrant attorney.” Jane and Jerry actively chose not to have an immigration lawyer because of the amount of money it would cost and because they felt they understood what they needed to do. Jane shared that the total for filing fees that she and Jerry paid between 1994 and 2006 was $3,585. In 2020, it would have been $4,835.
Today, in 2020, Jane is a dual citizen of the United States of America and of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. She is a proud wife to Jerry and all his successes and a proud mom to her sons and their achievements. Because Jane is a UK native, both of her sons were given citizenship to the UK when they were born. Both have since given up their dual citizenships for high clearance jobs. Josh, her oldest son, graduated from James Madison University in 2019. Jacob, Jane’s youngest son, will graduate from Christopher Newport University in 2020. Jane’s sister has travelled to America for both Josh and Jacob’s achievements throughout the years.
Jerry and Jane’s story is a real-life example of what it looks like to follow every step to the finest detail in the attempt at citizenship. Jane and Jerry put in hard work, organization, dedication, and perseverance for Jane’s naturalization. Every immigration story is different, comprised of differing backgrounds and reasons for coming to America. I am honored to have heard Jane’s story and be entrusted to share it.
Nearing completion of the interview, I asked Jane if she regretted anything. She became emotional but without hesitation replied, “No, nothing. Nothing. Not a thing. Nothing.”
This picture was taken after Josh’s graduation from JMU.
From left to right: Jacob, Jerry, Josh, Jane, Jane’s Sister
Nicole Perrone (0:00): I’m Nicole Perrone, and I am here with Jane Boyles, and this is for Sociology of Immigration at James Madison University. So, why don’t you start by telling me a little bit about what went into your decision into coming to America?
Jane Boyles (0:14): Well, it was a kind of a strange decision. In fact, because in the early 1990s, I was working for a wonderful company in Worthing Sussex, in England. And I had a, I had a great job, I absolutely loved my job. And the man I’ve eventually married in 1995, Jerry Boyles, was working over here for a division of the same company, a part of the American Division of Eurotherm International. And he was working in an office in Reston, Virginia. And he, we, had both been working for the same company Eurotherm International since the late 1970s. Me, obviously, always in England, and Jerry, over here in America. And so, we have known each other through work for a long number of years. We’d seen each other from time to time, whenever Jerry would come over to England for meetings, I would also be involved in those meetings. But it was always on a on a business relationship. He was married for the first time in those years. And I was also married to at that point. But then in the in the 1980s, Jerry was divorced. And then very early 1990s, I got divorced, and didn’t think any more about my life, other than I loved my job. And I was continuing with my job. And Jerry was also continuing over here.
But in 1993, he came over to England, for a very big international sales and marketing meeting that I was organizing. And we were a worldwide company. And we had everyone from every division around the world, coming to England for this huge international marketing meeting. It was it was really exciting, very enjoyable; we all knew each other, we’d all spoken on the phone multiple times with each other. And so, it was it was a good way of getting everyone face to face. And talking through all the plans, the worldwide marketing plans for all the products that our company was, was producing, and marketing and selling. And, and the products that we were manufacturing, we did all the manufacturing, or primarily all the manufacturing in the UK, industrial process controls. So, for any, any kind of industrial process, our company made the, the electronic process control systems to control those processes, industrial, industrial processes.
And while Jerry was over in the UK, by that time I, I was divorced. And he asked me out for dinner. And of course, we’ve known each other just through meeting every couple of years or so talking on the phone fairly regularly. And he asked me to go out for dinner with him. And I said, Yeah, that will be lovely. So, he said to me, he was thinking about starting his own business over here, leaving Eurotherm but basically doing what he was doing within Eurotherm, but under his own steam and setting up his own business. And he gave me this throwaway comment, oh perhaps you know, you’re not married anymore, you’re divorced and free, how about coming over to the US and helping me run the business? And I honestly thought he was joking. I had never been to America before. I had no intention of leaving my job because I loved it so much. I just it was my dream job. I had a lovely house. After I divorced, I bought my own house, and I just had a wonderful life. So that was that. So anyway, we have a nice dinner. And he told me all about his plans. But then the meeting wrapped up that week. And he came back over here. And very shortly thereafter, he started to phone me. And of course, those were the days there was no internet in those days. And it was just starting in on the military side, but not for not for normal, normal people. So, and phone calls, were just literally phone calls. He started calling me and those days it was about $1 a minute to call the UK. So, he was calling me frequently just chatting through his plans about starting the business. He moved to the house that we live in now in 1993. And he had room in a workshop, which he still uses as our where we run our business is the workshop, and he was just getting this business going and, and leaving Eurotherm kind of starting up. So, he was telling me all about this and I was thinking oh, this sounds really great. Good. You should go for it. You should go for it. And I really didn’t think too much more about it. But he was he was calling me, and we were having great discussions and talks, and we got on really well over the phone.
And then, at one point after about six months of phone calls, and it got to the point when he was just his phone bill was more than the cost of a ticket over to the UK got kind of to ridiculous proportions. He said to me, look, Jane, we’re talking on the phone, why don’t you come over and visit me for a week, because I have a feeling there might be something that we’ve got that we could go further with. So, I thought, well, this is great. I’ve known this man for 15 odd years. Even though I’ve never been to America before, I feel like I trust him, and so I booked a plane ticket and flew over here. And had he picked me up from Baltimore airport and we had a week’s holiday together. And we knew immediately, immediately that this was it. We really wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. So, during that week, we decided that we would get married, but we had no idea of what to do and how to do it. This was in July of 1994. But we just knew that we wanted to do it. So, Jerry said, well, he needed to start the visa process. And I realized that if I was serious about coming over to America, I would need to head back to England and work out how to sell my house, how to just how to leave the UK. So that took a few months, Jerry started the visa procedures here for me petitioned to have a visa. And I started the process of letting work know that I was going to be leaving and why which they thought was a great idea. Of course, they’ve known Jerry for longer than I had, 20 odd years, selling my house and arranging to get married. And that all, actually along with working, that took some time. So, he started the visa procedures, and I got the wedding organized. And we got married in June of 1995. So, he had started that visa process. And the paperwork is in this green folder that I put on my, my document. So, it was in it was, as I said it was in the days before the internet. So, he had to use the, these old-fashioned documents, which are carbon copy documents, everything had to be filled out by hand. And so, he did that he started that process over here because he was the one who had to petition for me to, to come to America. So, he, he did that. Then we got married in June 1995. And then I came over here and then once I was here in America, we then had to do the petition for me to stay here together, which meant that I then had to fill in various forms myself, and have medical checks done, fingerprints done. And back in 1995, they were the days when you had, as you see in old movies these days, black ink on my fingertips, and you press the fingertips onto the pad and everything the old-fashioned way. So, I had to have that done at our local sheriff’s office here in Berryville, Clarke County. And lots and lots and lots of paperwork. So, we started that procedure in, immediately, when I was actually here in the US. And that was the kind of the start of a long, long many years’ worth procedures of paperwork and letter writing and interviews and background checks and fingerprints. And it took a long, long time and a lot of money.
Nicole Perrone (9:03): I have heard that it is quite a process.
Jane Boyles (9:05): Yes, yes. So, let me and because it’s so long ago I let me look at my timeline. So then, the forms all have different names. So, the once I got over to America, I had to do the immigrant petition for an alien relative, which was the, the procedure Jerry had started. And then when I got to the US, I had to adjust my status for permanent residency and then I was involved in doing my side of the paperwork, and I had to have various medical examinations, a tuberculosis check, a chest X ray, blood tests, a vaccination record, and a civil surgeon, a designated civil surgeon. Which is a surgeon, a doctor, authorized by the Department of Justice to examine immigrants, had to examine me and make sure I was fit, and I wasn’t carrying any diseases and that my TB test was okay. My blood work was okay. And he was he was in Vienna. And then by then I found out that I was pregnant with our first son, Josh. So, um, and Jerry and I had not had children for in our previous first marriages. So, we just thought, well, if we do, we do if we don’t, we don’t. But I, I became pregnant within a couple of months of us getting married. So, then we knew that I was going to have at least one or maybe multiple interviews. And we knew that the timeframe for that was fairly lengthy.
After all, the paperwork had gone into the Department of Justice, and the Immigration Naturalization Service. So, we didn’t know about the timeframe, we were just trying to do our best and wait patiently. But by March and April of 1996, we had not heard anything, and on my due date for Josh was the beginning of May of 1996. So, we were as March and April, came around, Jerry wrote letters, because again, this was before email. There was no other way of getting a hold of the immigration officers other than through letter writing. So, he wrote letters, and he, we got no response to any of the letters. He phoned them and he was on the phone for hours at a time which he, which he documented. And nobody answered, or he was put on hold. And it was it was immensely frustrating. While we were trying to be patient while I was pregnant with Josh, knowing that we needed to get the interview with the INS done before I had the baby because after I had the baby, it was just it was just way too complicated. So, on April 18 of 1996, Jerry wrote to Senator Robert Byrd, who was at the time retired senator from West Virginia, Jerry was born in West Virginia, and asked for his help. And we got a lovely reply from him towards the end of April offering his support, but he wasn’t really able to do anything. And then we, we started getting concerned because it was towards the end of April. But the letters crossed in the mail on the 18th of April, the INS wrote to me asking me to come in for my interview, at their offices in Arlington, Virginia on May the 15th of 1996, which was one week after Joshua’s due date. And I was just thinking, Oh, I just this is just, my stress level was through the roof. I had a serious inability to cope at that point.
So, we got hold of our then, Congressman Frank Wolf, and asked for help. And he, luckily, he, he wrote back although I couldn’t find the letter, it’s somewhere buried, but I couldn’t find it. He said he would try and expedite the interview and see if he could get it earlier than the date that that I was originally given. And he, he brought the date forward to May the third, which as it turned out was just six days before Josh was born. So, we turned up at the INS offices in Arlington, Virginia on May the third. And the rules for this interview to get my permanent residency status approved were extremely stringent and extremely stressful. Jerry and I had to produce one set of original documents and two sets of photocopies. So, I’m just going to hold up, this is the three-ring binder of one set of photocopies it’s really pretty heavy. We’ve, we’ve packed away, obviously, the originals from this binder back into our filing system. But this is one set of the photocopies, so we had, I carried the original all the originals in a briefcase with me. And then Jerry had another set of photocopies in a briefcase and all the original documents, which kind of took up a larger volume, in a suitcase. We were under the impression that the INS officers would keep one set of the photocopies of all the documents. Now these documents were, which, which they had listed as being necessary for my application. They were our birth certificates, the property deeds to this house, all our bank account details, all our tax returns, all our insurance details, all the titles to all our vehicles, which at the time was a Toyota car and a truck and affidavits to prove they were true, all our divorce decrees our marriage certificate, copies of our passports, my, my British passport, Jerry’s American passport, and all my doctor obgyn appointment records. What, oh, my gosh, what else? And all, all, all Jerry’s tax returns. All his and then our joint credit card statements, and photocopies of the actual credit cards. A copy of our will. All, oh yes, the titles for our cars. Oh my gosh, it just it just kind of went on and on. Oh, and our store card, I had a JC Penney store card at that time, a copy of store cards, and then our copy of our Bank of Clarke County bank statements. So, with two sets of both copies and a set of the originals. So, I was on under the have the understanding that we would need to leave one set of photocopies.
And this is to prove that our marriage was legitimate. Because of course there are people who want to come and live in America. And of course, the one of the easiest ways of coming to live in America is to marry an American. If you’re a foreigner, a man or a woman, and you want to come into America, the easiest pathway is to marry an American citizen because the American citizen is already here living in the country. And the American citizen, Jerry, can petition to have the other person, ie me, come into the country stay there and live here. So, all the documentation we had to, we had to produce was to prove that we were not a sham marriage. In other words, we were a real marriage. In other words, the title of property deeds for this house were in both our names, the title for our vehicles, they were in both our names. So, for the truck, it was Jerry Boyles, Jane Boyles. For the car Jerry Boyles, Jane Boyles. For our credit cards, for our electricity account. For every absolutely everything, they were in both our names, and we were paying the bills as a married couple. It was not a sham marriage. So, we, we thought that one set of photocopies would need to be left with my immigration officer. So that’s why we had so much documentation.
So, we arrived at the INS offices with all this stuff. And as you can imagine, I was just enormous trying to carry everything. So, I just carried one, one briefcase, Jerry carried his briefcase and a suitcase. When we got into this large office, the INS offices that is in Alexand…so we went to various we went to Alexandria too, so this was an Arlington. It’s almost like a warehouse, you go in and you take a number, and the immigration officials are lined up along one wall, almost like an enormous DMV office only, only worse. It’s very, very, very intimidating, extremely intimidating. So, I was just very worried anyway. I was not looking forward to the interview. I knew Jerry and I would be interviewed separately. I would have one immigration officer interviewing me, and Jerry would have another. In other words, they have to be asked similar questions. And they compare the answers again to make sure that we know everything about each other and when we’re question we’re asked similar or the same questions and we and they compare the answers again to make sure there’s a real marriage. So, it’s very stressful. So, we got there, and we were immediately called to one side and said we were not going to be seen in the main area. We were to go upstairs to the INS officer’s office complex to have our separate interviews. So immediately, we kind of relax a little bit. We knew at that point that our outreach to Congressman Frank Wolf had probably worked because this was a very, very unusual scenario. This is not what normally happens. But the fact that we had asked for his help, and he had obviously said, you know, I have a constituent who is a week from having a baby and they were called in for interviews and you, we, how can you help them out? So, we went upstairs, and I was taken into a separate room by my immigration officer. And Jerry was taken into another room with a separate immigration officer. And my immigration officer was, was very young, very, very nice, very young. And he sat behind his desk and I just sat down. And he had he had my paperwork in front of him, I could see it there. I recognized the forms. And he asked me a few questions. Really not very detailed, I cannot remember. But it lasted just five or 10 minutes, and that was all. And he said, okay, I think we’re done. Let me call through to my colleague and get him to bring your husband in. And he calls through and he said, okay, I finished with Mrs. Boyles. Can you bring her husband in? and we’ll, we’ll take it from there. So, Jerry and the other immigration officer came into the room. And my immigration officer said, well, I see you’re on your way to the hospital to have your baby, you’ve got the suitcase there. And suddenly, Jerry and I both realized why everything had been so rushed, because they literally thought we were on our way to the hospital because we had a suitcase. But that was the only way we could bring this, these voluminous amounts of paperwork that we thought they were going to look at the originals. And Jerry said to me, his, his officer didn’t, didn’t even ask to see what was in the briefcase or the suitcase. They didn’t ask to see any of the originals. My immigration officer didn’t ask to see any of the photocopies. They didn’t want to keep any of the photocopies. They just said, okay, well, you’re on your way to the hospital. Let me get the paperwork ready. And this was what he printed out. I don’t know if you can see that, on a very old inkjet printer, signed it and dated it and said, you are now a permanent resident, and said, okay, you can go. We said actually, this is all our paperwork. And they both laughed. And it kind of made the situation a little easier to bear because it was incredibly stressful.
But as soon as I got this piece of paperwork to say I was a lawful permanent resident of the United States, with a number with the date of May the third 1996 signed by my immigration officer, I was really happy. So, we got that piece of paper and we brought all our stuff home again and breathed a sigh of relief. And six days later, Josh was born. And he graduated from JMU in 2019. So that’s, that’s where that’s where it kind of eased up a little bit. However, it doesn’t end there because I was still a British citizen at that point, and I had the old-fashioned British passport. And I had to have my British passport stamped with my, with my visa in order for me to travel back to the UK, which we did a couple of times when Josh was a baby. And then I renewed my British passport, which has now run out and I had to have the new one stamped. So that’s what went on in the in the first year after I got my permanent residency. But that I was, I was a conditional permanent resident in 1996. That meant that, that’s another kind of a failsafe system where the immigration service needs to make sure that this marriage is still completely real. So, two years from 1996. I had, Jerry and I had to go through everything all over again. And I received this piece of paperwork in the mail, which looks like something that you would just kind of throw away. It came in one of those tear off envelope things that you that looks like post that you would just…throw away…
Nicole Perrone (24:23): Yeah, with perforated edges? Yeah!
Jane Boyles (24:23): Right. So, um, but it, it said it, it said something quite kind of scary that I would have to, I need to file a request for the removal of the conditional basis of your permanent resident, resident status. Failure to file as required will result in the automatic termination of your status and will make you subject to deportation. So, I knew that I would need to do that before May of 1998. So, at that point, I mean, I had quite a lot of notice to do that. We updated all exactly the same paperwork. You know, we had got more credit card bills more, you know, more Bank of Clarke County bank statements, electricity statements, phone bills, everything we just piled on. Luckily, we kept everything when we kept everything in piles in our office here at the house. So, we just kept the originals in piles, we made two sets of photocopies every time we had a document, we just kept them all in piles. And in the meantime, I found out I was pregnant with our younger son Jacob, who’s born in February 1998. So, as we were collecting all this updated paperwork, I was getting ready to have Jacob. So, but all the time we were we were filling in other paperwork. And going through the to get rid of that this conditional, conditional alien status. So, Jerry, and I had to fill in forms to remove the conditional status. And Jacob was born in February 1998. And in April 1998, I applied to remove that conditional status. So again, things moved quite quickly after that, on May the 29th 1998, I received my notice for removal of the conditional basis of lawful permanent resident status. So, they basically looked at the form I had completed and sent in the mail. They didn’t need to see any of the updated paperwork, although we had it. So, I guess they were they were happy with what I filled in, with the interview I had before the fact that we’ve had another baby in the meantime, that they didn’t feel the need to see all the updated paperwork, even though we’ve made sure we’ve kept it. So, um, I received my green card at the end of July 1998, which was sent to me in the mail. So, in July 1998, with my green card, which I was sent, I was a permanent resident, which meant that I could stay in the US for the rest of my life, I kind of breathed a sigh of relief.
At that point, both the boys were in elementary school, Boyce Elementary in Clarke, and I volunteered there a lot. And I loved it. But it suddenly dawned on me that I had been by then a permanent resident for a number of years, but I had no say at all in their education, in the governing of Virginia, in the governing of America, because I could not vote. It’s really the only difference between being a permanent resident with a green card and being, being a citizen. That, that ability to vote, which by then, by the time the boys were at school, and I thought, gosh, I can’t even vote for a school board member, I have no voice in their education. I have no voice in how Virginia’s run, I need to think about becoming a citizen. This is really, really important. So, I looked into it. And I actually found that by then I had been a permanent resident for over five years, I could actually apply to become a citizen. So, I did. By then the internet had really started to become, actually here’s, a here’s a photocopy, I don’t know if you can see that of my green card. I obviously don’t have it anymore, because I had to give that give that up when I became a citizen, but I kept a photograph of it my Permanent Resident Card.
So, I found online, I could download everything from the INS website. I am a permanent resident; I can become a citizen. And the rules were, if I was 18 or older, I had to be a permanent resident for five years, I had to be a person of good moral character, I had to have a basic knowledge of US history, and I had to be able to read write and speak English. And I thought, oh, I think I can do all that. So, I downloaded um, and luckily the internet was really up and running by then. I down, I downloaded everything I needed, I could download all the forms online. I downloaded a citizenship education document, and I went to Books-A-Million and got this book, so that I knew as much as I could possibly know about US history and I filled all of the paperwork in, though there was still at that point, a lot of paperwork to do. But I had a gap of time when I wasn’t doing any paperwork. But I thought, well, I’m ready to do that next jump from being a permanent resident to being a citizen. So, on August 8 of 2005, I submitted on my form to become a for naturalization to become a citizen. And I had to go and have more fingerprints done. And another background check. All in all, I had one set of ink fingerprints, two sets of biometric fingerprints, and they were the, they were the great ones. In the early 2000s, when I had my citizenship biometric fingerprints, it was literally like a photocopying machine. And I just put my hand on this on the top, where you would put a piece of paper on, and it just took my fingerprint, print biometrics, it was great, it was so easy. Much better than the black ink, which took days to wear off my hands. So, I had to have all that done again, and submit all forms, and I did have to submit extra paperwork. So, I had to submit a copy of my green card, photographs, money/fees, again, Jerry’s birth certificate, our marriage certificate, our previous divorce decrees, our updated tax returns, our updated Bank of Clarke County checking account statements, and both the boys Josh and Jacobs birth certificates. So, I suppose they just wanted updated basic information or what had been happening since I got my green card to the point where I wanted to become a citizen.
So, I did all that in 2005. And that was a pretty quick process. I didn’t know how long it would take me to be called for an interview, I knew I would have to have another interview. And I knew at that interview, I would need to answer US history and civics questions. And so, I was able to download, again, from the INS website, the self-test of 100 standard questions that I might be asked. So, question number one, what color are the stripes on the on the American flag? What are the stripes on the American flag mean? How many senators are in Congress? And it goes on, there are 100. What is the basic belief of the Declaration of Independence? What are the two major political parties in the US? And I had to make sure that I knew exactly what the answers were to all of them. Now the boys were at elementary school, and they were learning various things with flashcards. So, I made myself 100 flashcards, and they tested me, which they thought was really good fun.
So, it wasn’t until February of 2006, that I was called for my interview. And this was at the offices in Alexandria, Virginia. And on that day, I was actually given a form which indicated that I had passed my interview. So right in the office, I was it was an individual office, a very nice office, he had all my paperwork on his desk, and he actually was able to print that out while I was there. But the funny thing was, we were in he was interviewing me in Virginia’s Eastern Judicial District. And hear in Clarke County, we live in Virginia’s Western Judicial District. So, he said that he looked at the formula he said to me, oh, Mrs. Boyles, you live in the western judicial district. And I said, yes, I do. And he said, well, I’ve interviewed you and cleared your interview here in the eastern Judicial District. But you cannot take the oath in the Eastern District. You have to take it in the Western District. So, you can’t take it today. So, I was disappointed, but I understood and he said, well, you need to go home. And we’ll write to you. And we’ll let you know when you will come for your oath ceremony. So, I had to come home here again, and wait, yet again, for another letter from the INS. And it wasn’t until March the first that I received the notice to come to my oath, oath, naturalization ceremony, and I didn’t know at the time until I got the letter. But the office that I had to go to was the Harrisonburg Federal District courthouse, which at the time meant nothing to me. But now having Josh having been at JMU, and I’m a proud JMU mom, I just the irony is just wonderful.
So anyway, on March 31, 2006, all of us, it was a Friday. So, we took the boys out of school, because Jerry and I thought this is the most perfect US civics lesson for the boys to come to the federal courthouse to see me sworn in as a US citizen. So, we went down there went into the federal courthouse, and I swore my oath of allegiance in front of the federal judge in the courthouse, and then had my photograph, Jerry took my photograph after it. And here’s me standing in the courthouse room with Josh and Jacob looking really small. I’m holding my certificate of naturalization. And so that was 2006. And there’s a photograph of me, I’m shaking hands with Judge Welsh. And he’s just about to hand me my certificate of naturalization and shake my hand. And he welcomed me. He welcomed me to the US. So even, even though it’s now gosh 14, yeah, for over 14 years ago, it still means so much to me. So, yeah!
Nicole Perrone (24:25): You made me emotional!
Jane Boyles (36:43): I know I, I… And in fact, when I was just typing out my notes to help me remember everything in logical order, because I haven’t thought about it for, I don’t know, five or 10 years.
Nicole Perrone (36:57): Yeah.
Jane Boyles (36:57): Until, until, you know, we started talking. I thought, gosh, it’s just amazing. To think back.
Nicole Perrone (37:06): Yeah!
Jane Boyles (37:07): Before to 1994 when this all started. And then 2000, it took 12 years to get from being a visitor to the US to be a conditional permanent resident to be a permanent resident with a green card to become a naturalized citizen in 2006. Now in 2020, and I’m a dual citizen, I’m still a British citizen, and I’m also a US citizen, I have my US passport. And I voted in every election since I became a citizen. Oh, yes, that’s right. The one other thing so after we finished the naturalization ceremony in Harrisonburg, it was the Friday afternoon, we got in the car and headed north up 81 towards Clarke County. And Jerry said, you know, we could go straight to the Berryville voter registration office if you’d like to, and you can sign up to become a brand-new voter. And I said, yes, let’s see if we can get there in time. So, we did, and we went into the Berryville voter registration office and I had my certificate of naturalization. We said to the voter registrar, who is still there in Berryville, I want to sign up to become to be able to vote. And she, she got quite emotional herself. She said, You’re the first brand new US citizen I’ve ever had in the Berryville office who’s with the with your naturalization certificate, who wants to sign up to vote, so that was a momentous day. So, yes. And here I am. So, interestingly enough, the boys of course, could take my British citizenship, both of them when they were born. So, when they were born, they were obviously both US citizens. They were both born at Winchester hospital, and automatically became British citizens from me. However, when Josh left JMU, he got a job as a software engineer for a company in Lorton, Virginia where he’s still working. And they wanted him to get a top-secret clearance. So, he had to give up his British citizenship. So, he renounced his British citizenship and order, in order to get his top-secret clearance. And then Jacob, who graduates from Christopher Newport University next month, he also is getting a job and he is in the middle of his adjudication. He is getting an even higher top-secret clearance with fingerprint with polygraph. He also had to give up his British citizenship too. So, I’m the only dual national in the family now. But I’ll keep mine, I’ll keep both my passports and both my citizenships which is fun to do. So.
Nicole Perrone (39:58): Yeah, that’s awesome to be dual citizen.
Jane Boyles (40:01): Yes, I think so. Yeah, I think so.
Nicole Perrone (40:05): You had mentioned at the beginning that you had been back to Great Britain. Have you been back since?
Jane Boyles (40:11): Yes, we went. We went back for Christmas of 2018. The four of us; Jerry, Josh, Jacob, myself. The four of us went back for a vacation. We stayed with my sister and her husband. So yeah, we did all the kind of touristy things in London! On the London Eye and the open top bus sightseeing tour. And we did, we did, we did some nice things and stayed with her! And went to the London Underground and yeah, it was it was really nice. We loved it.
Nicole Perrone (40:42): Do you keep in touch in touch with your family?
Jane Boyles (40:45): Yes, my sister’s been over to visit many times. She came over to visit for both Joshua’s graduation from Clarke County High School in 2014, for Jacob’s graduation from Clarke in 2016, for Josh’s graduation from JMU 2019. Now, obviously, with Jacob’s graduation, he’s graduating in December. His graduation from CNU is actually going to be virtual, but he will have the opportunity to walk in May. Now, depending how things go. If there’s a vaccine, if she can fly, she’ll come over in May for the for his commencement to walk in May next year. We’re not sure yet. But if she can, she will. If not, you know, I’m sure she’ll come over at some point when there’s a vaccine available and everything’s clear again. So but yeah, we keep we keep in close touch, yeah, mhhm!
Nicole Perrone (51:45): How does it feel? How did it feel the first time you went back after having your citizenship?
Jane Boyles (51:52): Um, it was strange in a way because, um, I could go through when I, I got to Heathrow, with the boys. We all had our British passports, we all we all flew with our British passports, and our American passports and then Jerry with his American passport. So, we arrived at Heathrow and myself, Josh and Jacob, we could go through the UK, great Bush, great, UK Great Britain Passport Holders line, which was just easy. And then Jerry had to go through the alien line, but non-UK Passport Holders line. So that was easy. And then when we came back into Dulles Airport, on their on our return trip, we then tucked away our British passports, I had them in my bag, and we could enter the US, all four of us on our US passports. So, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s funny, it makes travel so much easier. And of course, the boys love to do it, because there they are. At that point, now, they don’t have their British passports anymore because of the renunciation for their top-secret clearances. But at the time there they were heading into Heathrow Airport in in London, with their American accents. And their British passports, which was a, which is a memory they’ll have forever and which I know they love doing so. Yeah, it was it was funny, but memorable.
Nicole Perrone (53:23): It’s definitely, I think that would be so cool to be able to do that. And especially with you as their mother who had lived there for a portion of time…
Jane Boyles (53:31): Right!
Nicole Perrone (53:31): …and grew up there. That’s awesome…
Jane Boyles (53:33): Right!
Nicole Perrone (53:34): …that they are able to experience going back with you too!
Jane Boyles (53:37): Yes, yes, yeah. Um, we were we were there we visited friends who live in the town that I used to live in, in Worthing. So, we visited friends there, who they had visited as they, when they were much younger, when we went over there when they were much younger. And they still live in the same house. And they have some memories of their house. And we had a quick drive around the town and, and it was nice. I showed them the house I used to live in. And I mean, I know you can see, you can see that kind of stuff on Google Earth these days. But it’s not quite the same as being able to see it in person. So, we drove all around. And we, we looked at some of the sights and showed them where I used to live and…
Nicole Perrone (54:20): Yeah!
Jane Boyles (54:20): …and which was really good for them to see, so.
Nicole Perrone (54:23): I know both of my parents grew up in the north and they ended up here, in Virginia.
Jane Boyles (54:29): Right.
Nicole Perrone (54:29): …even when we go back north to visit family, my parents like drive us through the towns and like…
Jane Boyles (54:35): Right.
Nicole Perrone (54:35): …to show us what schools they went to and like…
Jane Boyles (54:38): Right!
Nicole Perrone (54:38): …hang out with their friends. And that’s one thing I wondered with immigrants do they go back? Do they show their families? So that’s awesome, that the boys…
Jane Boyles (54:46): Yes!
Nicole Perrone (54:47): …experience that!
Jane Boyles (54:48): Yes. Yeah, I agree. I agree!
Nicole Perrone (54:51): So, what would you say was the biggest challenge for you with making the decision and becoming a citizen, and all of that?
Jane Boyles (55:00): Well, I think, in retrospect, the easiest decision for me was actually making the decision to leave England. It really was, I knew it was the absolute right thing to do. Jerry and I were completely in love. We, we wanted to get married, we knew that it was exactly the right thing to do. And for me, that was the easy part. I mean, selling my house is easy. Selling my car, leaving my job was easy. Organizing our wedding in Worthing was easy. Jerry coming over to, to England getting our marriage license, getting married, that was the easy part. Him starting the visa process here was easy. It was just literally one piece of paper, which he put in the mail. When I got back here, and then we started the joint paperwork process in 1995 into 1996. And then, by the summer of, we got married in June 95, so by by the fall by the autumn of 95, I found I was pregnant with Josh. And then the paperwork kind of was heating up and piling up all around us. And we got no response at all, from our letters. From Jerry’s letters he wrote, asking, well, when can we expect the interview, my wife is pregnant, we really need some idea of a date for an interview, and holding on the phone for hours on end, which he documented. And when he wrote the second letter in April 96, to the INS, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, he said I’m holding on the phone for hours I’m getting, I can’t get a person to speak to. That was that was so stressful. While I was pregnant knowing that, okay, I had a pretty firm due date of the firstish, second week of May. But you know, you just never know. When the first baby I had really no idea when he was going to be born. The only thing I did know was that he was a boy, that was really all. So, reaching out to congressman Wolf and his office was, was such a help. It was it was a lifesaver, really, that enabled us to move things along in a much more friendly way. The, the immigration officers were was so helpful, so concerned about me, in fact, and I’m absolutely convinced the young man who was interviewing me he was very young in his 20s. I would, I would ascertain he was, he was petrified when he saw that suitcase that Jerry had. And I knew exactly what he was thinking. I knew he was thinking of as an overnight bag. I mean, we Jerry and I knew it was paperwork. But he, all he could see was oh my gosh, they’re heading for the hospital! Is she even in labor right now? So, that was why my interview which we had, I had been so nervous about, I was thinking I was going to have to go through our divorces, marriage, where we lived, um, what the house was like, describing the house. I had heard from other people, you know, you have to describe the house, you have to describe your car, you have to just tell everything about your life in minute detail. And these interviews could go on for a long time. So, when he, he ended it, after just a few minutes, I knew exactly what he was thinking and, and we were right. They both thought that okay, you’re leaving the offices, you are, literally, going to the hospital have your baby. I mean, I was huge. I looked as though I was going to have the baby. But in fact, it was you know, it was a few days later. But so that was, that was the worst time although, although at the time, it was just such a whirlwind of busyness! But getting the house prepared here with you know, with, with everything we needed to prepare for the baby! Going to my obgyn appointments, in Winchester! Getting all of and keeping a little paperwork up to up to date, making sure that if we had a bank statement in the mail, we put the original in that pile. We photocopied it and put two of the copies.
So, it was a kind of a 24/7 thing to be ready. And then when we got the date to go in, we thought okay, well this is it. You know, this, this is, this is what we’ve been waiting for. We just need to get this over and done with them. You know, and then we’ll be, that’ll, that’ll be the first big step. And then of course, two years later going through it all again. When I had Jacob was just, a, a tiny baby at that point so. It was it was really 12 years of it always being in my mind, not always being the front of my mind. But always being in my mind.
At times, it moved always to the front of my mind when I had to have the conditional taken off. And I hated being called an alien, but that’s the correct legal name for what I was, I was a resident alien. And I was a conditional resident alien. So I wanted that conditional taken off, I want, I didn’t want to be a conditional alien, I wanted to be a resident, just a resident alien, knowing that at that point, I’d get my green card. So, you know, every few months, every few years, it came back to the front of my mind, when I was called in for another background check. I had three full background checks, you know, fingerprint, checks, everything, the works. And, and then, and then, after I got my green card, then went to the back of my mind for a few years. But then as I said, I thought, gosh, I need to be able to vote. I want to be able to have a voice in our school board member, in our congressional representative. And by that time, Congressman Wolf had retired. So, there was a whole new slate of congressional representatives in Virginia. And he and his office had been so helpful. But there were there were different representatives at that point in the early 2000s. So, I needed to make sure that I could vote. So, I thought I have to become a citizen. So, it came to the front of my mind again. But that process was actually fairly short. Because I, I basically met the criteria. And I was still married to Jerry, we, we were still living in the same house. Updating the paperwork was pretty straightforward. At that point, the boys were at school, so I had time to do it. And, and it was, it was much more straightforward. So, it didn’t take nearly so long. So yeah.
Nicole Perrone (62:12): At any point, did you feel afraid of deportation or having to leave and not coming back to America?
Jane Boyles (62:20): Yes. Almost all the time. I knew that even though my British passport was stamped. It was absolutely nerve wracking, leaving Dulles airport. My, my father got very ill when Josh was a baby. So, when I was a conditional permanent resident, I had a stamp in my passport. He had lung cancer, and he died, when Josh has a baby. So, we had we had to leave here with Josh, and go, go to England to see him. And coming back was absolutely nerve wracking, would I be allowed in, you know, would they believe the stamp in my passport, and it was fine. They looked at it. And they, initially and I and it was fine.
But when I had that little tear out, notice saying you need to reapply in two years, otherwise you will be, you WILL be subject to deportation. You know, it just all the time brings it home to me that none of this is to be treated lightly. It’s all as serious as it gets. And I need to make sure I follow the rules exactly, word for word.
Now, I’m English, and I speak English. And I’m very lucky to be able to read all the paperwork, and all the documentation that I initially got in the mail. First of all, in the late 90s, early 2000s, we got everything in the mail, and then latterly in the early 2000s that I could download from the internet. I could read them, but it’s a different thing if you’re if you’re a foreign immigrant coming in, and you need to get an immigrant attorney. Now, at the beginning, Jerry and I wondered whether we needed to get an immigrant attorney to help us but in fact, we, we felt we didn’t need to. Because I could speak English we could work out what we needed to do enough ourselves in order to navigate, Jerry, Jerry’s just walked into the kitchen. We knew that we could navigate the paperwork ourselves. So, we didn’t we didn’t need we didn’t need one. And plus, that would cost a whole lot more money too. So, we just we just went ahead and did it ourselves. But a lot of people do need to do that.
So and as you saw with my with, with the last page of my notes that I sent you, the costs of the paper work at the time, between 1994 and 2004, 05, 06…Going from when we started the process to when I got my citizenship was three and a half thousand dollars. So, and I just went on to the INS website and found that in 2020, going from the first petition for alien relative, going to the application for naturalization, now costs almost $5,000. It’s a lot of money. And for somebody, not like us who needs help with the paperwork, because it is very complicated. And you have to make sure that everything is done within those timeframes. Otherwise, that wording in that piece of paper I got, you will be subject to deportation, if you file a paperwork late. And I, I used to remember I think, well, will I have INS officials coming to my door? Telling me I’m going to be deported. And yes, that’s exactly what would have happened. Or if I’d have committed a crime. Now, things like a speeding ticket or the parking ticket would not have led to me being deported. Obviously, a felony would have done. But that’s exactly what would have happened. INS officials would have come to the door and four hours to pack your bag and you you’re being deported.
So yes, it was on my mind. Not all the time, because we made sure and I made particular sure to be, to know exactly when I had to submit paperwork. Whenever I got a notice for fingerprint checks or medical checks. We did it exactly when we were called to do it. Whenever I got a notice that I had to go for an interview we made sure we did it at the exact time. So, but it was always, it was always a fear that I could, I could be deported. Yes, because I was in that, in that intermediate zone when I was a conditional, permanent resident alien, before I became a permanent resident That, that period of time I could be deported. And then between being a permanent resident with a green card and becoming a US citizen, I could also be deported as well, if I committed a felony, because even with a green card, there’s a danger of, I could I could be subject to deportation, for sure. Now I’m, now I’m a US citizen. That’s different. But before there’s always a risk of deportation, yes.
Nicole Perrone (67:48): So, going back to what you were saying about the comprehension of the paperworks. At any point, were you immensely confused about the laws that surrounded what you needed to do to get you where you want to be?
Jane Boyles (68:05): Um, not immensely confused and worried about it, because, and I have got it in this pile of paperwork. But I have a large book from the immigration naturalization services that goes through all the procedures. So, I was following along all the procedures and the timeframes beginning with the petitions going through all the paperwork, the fee structure, the fingerprints, the background checks, the medical checks, the being called for interviews, the resubmission of the paperwork, to get that conditional status removed. Having my British passport stamped, getting my US paperwork stamped. So no, I mean, I’m very lucky, I can read everything and understand it. I’m extremely lucky and fortunate to be able to do that. Sit here at the kitchen table and just spread everything out and understand what I have to do, which forms I have to fill in where I have to send them how much money we write a check and how much money we have to send with the form on where we have to send it and then we get the receipt back that they’ve, what they, they sent receipts back whenever they received our checks. So, that we knew that they had received check, which was good that that you did before the internet, you know you could now you can, I had an account when I became a citizen when I was going through the naturalization process, process. I had an account. But before that we just had to wait for the mail, to get a Notice of Action from the INS. That Notice of Action told me that they received a check. Thank you very much. We received your check. You’ll be waiting to hear you’ll get another notice of action in the mail, to tell you what the next step in the process is. So, it’s very much a waiting game, just looking for the next envelope from the IRS to arrive. So, but no, I felt comfortable that I knew what I had to do. Um, it was it was nerve racking, if I really sat down and thought about it too much, but with two young children, I didn’t have a lot of time to sit and think and worry about it. You know, it was something that was going to happen in due course, and the boys being so young at the time, so all my time anyway. So, I just had to get on with it.
Nicole Perrone (70:41):
Yeah, it sounds like you balanced. What was going on with your personal life pretty well and you were able to enjoy what you experiencing here, in real time.
Jane Boyles (70:52): Yes, yes.
Nicole Perrone (70:55): You said you came over and you worked with a business with Jerry, how did…
Jane Boyles (71:00): Right!
Nicole Perrone (71:01): …your impression of like work and a profession change between what you were doing and what you’re doing now?
Jane Boyles (71:09): Right! So, when I when I was working in England, I was working for the managing director of the of the subsidiary of Eurotherm International, in Worthing. So, I was involved with the management team. And it was quite different to Jerry and I, and mostly Jerry running our business. We still kind of do, although not so much these days, Jerry is kind of semi-retired. But Jerry is was doing and still, to a certain extent is doing much as he was doing when he was working for Eurotherm, putting together industrial process control systems. But because again, we had the boys were young, most of my time was spent with the boys, Jerry was working at the workshop at the bottom of the garden. And I was looking after the boys. And so, I wasn’t working at a job outside of the home. We were running our business from here at home.
Nicole Perrone (72:09): When you decided to come, did you have a vision? I know you had mentioned previously that you, neither one of you had kids and your other relationships…
Jane Boyles (72:18): Right.
Nicole Perrone (72:19): …if it happened, it happened.
Jane Boyles (72:20): Right.
Nicole Perrone (72:20): Did you have any kind of like, dream or like, aha, I have to have that? And if you did, did it come true?
Jane Boyles (72:28): Um, no, not well, I could No, not really. Jerry had moved into this house in 1993. He lived previously in Leesburg. He wanted to live out in the country with, with room for workshop space and office space to run the business of that point was thinking about setting up. So, he bought this house property in Clarke County. And I moved over here, only seeing this house once when I came over here in 1994. On, on the holiday prior to getting married 95. So, I really didn’t come over here with any with any particular dreams, I was just really happy to be here. It was a giant adventure. I had only been over here once in before in 1994 for one week. So, this was this was an incredible adventure to come over here. And to live over here and to be married and to start our lives together in Clarke County here in this same house that we’re living in. And, and it was no it was just really a whirlwind from the moment that we got here to be honest. After we after we got here in 95 after we got married because we were running the business. I found out just you know, a couple of months after we got married, I was pregnant. The winter of January 95. Going into 96 was the worst winter for snow that this part of Virginia had experienced for decades. It was just mind boggling. I came from the southernmost part of England. I lived on the south coast of England. And if we had a dusting of snow, we went into panic mode. It was just it just never snowed. And if it did, it was gone in an hour kind of thing. So, we had so much snow that I have a photograph somewhere of Jerry just standing off the deck of the kitchen. He’s up to his waist in snow. It was just awful. I had no idea what I was what I was heading into this first winter in Virginia. It was awful. So, um, yeah, he just said You’re welcome. So, it was a, it was, um, we were just taking it a day at a time really, you know, navigating the INS for my paperwork, navigating being pregnant and having a baby, navigating running our own business, navigating living in this house being married, the weather. It was yes, I mean, looking back on it, I think, gosh, how on earth did I do it? Now the boys are out on their own. Josh had graduated, got a job. Jacob will graduate, has a job. You know, and it’s just the two of us here now, which is great. And looking back on it, I think to myself, wow, that was just incredible. But you know, you do what you have to do. You just take it a day at a time. And, you know, you just make it work. So, we made it work.
Nicole Perrone (76:02): I have heard that the food in the UK differs from the food here in America. Is there any one thing that you miss that you can’t get in America?
Jane Boyles (76:14): Well, um, actually nowadays, it’s really unbelievable. That the things I miss I can get on Amazon, which is just crazy. So, there’s something in England called custard, which is not American custard, which is English custard. And it’s, and it’s made by a company called Ambrosia. And it’s a liquid thick, creamy, sweet liquid that you have with apple pie, and you pour it over, you have it with apple pie or apple crumble, or any kind of dessert. And you can now buy it on Amazon. And it’s, it’s crazy, it’s. So, I used to miss that. But now you can buy it on, on Amazon. I buy my tea, I drink English tea, the English way in a Brown Betty teapot. And I just I buy that from England and have it shipped over. You can buy English tea in Martin’s in Winchester. But it’s just not quite the same as is this really good tea. So, I don’t really miss English food as such, because a lot of American food you can adapt to English way of eating, and I enjoy American food anyway. And Jerry likes English food. So, it’s kind of a mixture. But I don’t really miss anything in particular. Now, if I couldn’t buy English tea, tea bags, I would miss that terribly. But I, I buy it and drink it all day every day. So, I don’t miss it at all.
Nicole Perrone (77:54): You got to love the internet and what it can do for us!
Jane Boyles (77:57): Yes, definitely.
Nicole Perrone (77:59): So, I just have one more question for you. And that is, do you regret anything?
Jane Boyles (78:06): No, nothing. Nothing. Not a thing. Nothing. Well. Um, I think the one thing I’m really… sorry! I think the one thing I’m really lucky about is that Clarke is such a beautiful place to live. Absolutely. And in fact, this whole area of Virginia is just gorgeous. It’s so, so much like parts of England. Um, dry stone walls and actually in cloud particularly farmland with horses and cows and, and, and farms. So just, just being here and seeing this, the scenery, the landscape, just doesn’t make me miss England at all, actually. So no, I have no regrets whatsoever. It’s been a journey, but it’s a journey I’ve loved and looking, looking back on it, which is what I’ve been doing this week to get ready for the interview, has made me realize how lucky I am and how fortunate I am to have started this journey in Worthing, England, in 1993. I guess, although Jerry and I have known each other since the late 1970s would you believe? So, but to have started this journey and in the early 1990s to my citizenship to my naturalization in 2006 and here I am now with both boys grown up and moved out.
Nicole Perrone (80:09): I love it. I want to thank you for sharing your story with me and being vulnerable and accepting and just really allowing me to hear who you are and how you have become the person you are today.
Jane Boyles (80:23): Oh, thank you, Nicole. I’m really, I feel honored that you wanted to hear this story as part of your journey of coursework too. I think it’s wonderful, absolutely wonderful.
Recent Comments