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ELIZABETH LUNGOCIA has sur- vived some ugly times.
And they created in her a de- sire to make the world around her beautiful.
In her world, gardens of ribbon flowers bloom from backgrounds of black and pink silk.
Delicate lace and embroidery adorn everything from pillows to towels to chair covers.
Cross-stitch and needlepoint samplers of birds and butterflies are framed and hanging on the walls.
"I love to do the beautiful things," she said.
Lungocia is a lace maker and embroiderer.
The 60-year-old Stafford County resident escaped communist Romania in 1990 with her daughter and son, Jeanine and Daniel, who were then 18 and 16. A Baptist, Lungocia had been the victim of religious persecution.
She was assaulted by a police officer, and her husband, a communist, left her alone to raise their children. Because of her religious beliefs, she lost her job as an office worker and was prevented from getting another.
"For two years, I had no job. I tried to work on a farm to pick fruit, but they wouldn't allow it," she said. During the reign of Nicolae Ceausescu, which ended in 1989, much of Romania was engaged in agricultural production.
"They said my place was to be working in an office," she said, in English still thick with a Romanian accent. "They wouldn't give me a job picking fruit because I was supposed to be in office with typewriter.
"I did embroidery, but it did not help me to feed my family."
Lungocia learned needlework and lace making from her mother, she said.
"Since I was born, my mother, she was doing embroidery, lace, everything," she said. "In first grade, the schoolteacher asked me to teach all the classes how to do embroidery, needlepoint, lace, everything."
She and her children left Romania with the clothes on their backs. She carried with her only her memories and a consuming desire to be free.
"We had to leave in secret. It was very dangerous and scary situation," she said. "It wasn't easy to put my life, my children's lives, in danger to be killed at the border."
Lungocia searched for 10 years before finding someone to help her leave the country. Her brothers, who escaped before her and lived in Stafford, sent her money to pay for the family's escape.
"It was all the money I got my entire life working," she said. "It was 150,000 Romanian lei--Romanian dollars."
The man who helped her escape came for her and the children in a car. When they got close to the border with Hungary, they had to wait for the border guards to change shifts.
"It was nighttime on November 28," she remembered. "We arrived around 7 p.m. and then rain start. He ordered us to lie down on the grass so we would not be seen by the guards. We stayed in that position all the nighttime. It was raining over us.
"When the guards were changing shifts, we had a few minutes to jump over the wall."
That first border was a false one, Lungocia said, and by this time the man who was helping them had left them because he was afraid of being captured and returned to Romania.
She and her children crossed the real border themselves, then became lost in Hungary.
"We were in another country. We had no passport, nothing," she said.
A farmer suggested the family talk to the Hungarian border guards. The guards put them in a holding facility overnight.
"We really didn't know what kind of place was this place," she said. "They took us in a bus with no windows, and we couldn't see where we were. We were interrogated five times."
Lungocia was afraid the Hungarians would send her and her children back to Romania, where she would face a long jail sentence or even death because of her escape. So the family decided to escape from Hungary and head to Austria.
"We were sure we would have freedom in Austria and not be returned back to Romania," she said.
The family sneaked past a border with an electric fence, but then had to cross three channels of water to get into Austria.
Some young men loaned them a children's plastic boat, which got them across two bodies of water. Then the boat broke and they had to swim across the last channel.
"Our clothing, legs, arms got frozen. It was very cold," she said.
Immigration officials in Austria treated the family's injuries and interviewed them about their escape.
The family lived in Austria for about two years before coming to Stafford, where her brothers lived, in 1991.
Lungocia's father, who came to the United States to visit her and her brothers, stayed here until he died.
"He loved this country. He was so proud to be in America. 'Canaan,' that's what he named this country," after the Bible's promised land, she said.
Because of her family's experiences in the United States, Lungocia's needlework often includes a history lesson.
"I like to know a lot about American history and make things that bring back that history," she said. "That way you can touch history, not just see it in a book, but touch it."
Lungocia reads books to learn about what her craft was like during different periods in American history.
She does embroidery with thread and ribbon, makes lace by hand, and does cut-thread work, where the actual fibers of the material are worked to create designs in the cloth.
"That's difficult to do, but I like to make it," she said. "I can't stop doing that."
She creates all her own designs, never even putting them on paper.
"I don't even have to write them," Lungocia said proudly. "Since I was a child, I learned from my mother: 'You make your own design. Look at nature, plants, flowers, and you make the same.'"
Lungocia also works as a contractor, cleaning homes. Her daughter, Jeanine, drives her.
"She drives, because I am busy making lace while she drives. I can make half of this," she says, pointing to lace trimming a towel, "on the way there. Finish other half on the way back. Sometimes I have to tell her to drive a little slower because fast driving shakes me."
Four years ago, Lungocia started selling her work at a small shop downtown. She now has Elizabeth Embroidery in space inside Caroline Square on Caroline Street.
"When people like my work," she said, "I am so proud of it."
Lungocia's daughter helps by putting up displays inside the shop.
Her son works as a mechanic in Manassas. Lungocia made the bridesmaids' dresses for his wedding in July of last year.
She attends the Romanian Baptist Church that meets each week in Dumfries, and she said there is a large Romanian population around the Garrisonville area. She finds comfort in others who share her heritage, because, despite the bad things that happened to her there, she still misses her the country where she was born.
But she considers herself, in every way, an American.
"I feel like we are home here, in this country, rather than Romania," she said, "because we have freedom here. Thank God the American government allowed us to come."
To reach LAURA L. HUTCHISON: 540/374-5485 lhutchison@freelancestar.com