KATJA SZARAFINSKI

KATJA SZARAFINSKI

A German and an American Citizen

By Melissa McCance

Walking into Katja Szarafinski’s spacious farm-style kitchen is like entering a warm, peaceful nest. Besides owning the Allen Day Spa at East of Edon, Katja is also a fiber artist who dyes and spins her own yarn. There were baskets throughout the room, each holding skeins of yarn in rich colors. After we settled at her table, Katja resumed her work of spinning clouds of carded wool into beautiful gray yarn.

“I’m from the Hessen region in central Germany—the land of the Grimm Brothers,” she explained. Her father worked for the post office, and she has three brothers and a 91-year-old mother still living there. Katja left formal education after middle school as she felt that she wasn’t gaining much from it. Katja dated a G.I. in Germany for 18 months who led her to believe he’d be taking her to the U.S. That ended when he disappeared suddenly and she discovered he had a wife and four children living on base. (!)

Undaunted, Katja decided she could make the move on her own and connected with a German day spa owner living in San Antonio who wanted to hire her because of her training in European skin care. The woman helped Katja secure her green card, a process that took another year and a half. She came to the U.S. in 1980 and worked for her in San Antonio for two years, after which she relocated to Austin where she lived for eight years. While there, she met her husband who was from Michigan. Three of her five children were born in Texas; the final two were born in Michigan after the couple moved here.

She could have applied for citizenship after two years here and did start the process of citizenship several times, but it was an expensive endeavor with a houseful of young children along with her desire to visit her family in Germany from time to time. “I actually had all the rights of a citizen except for being able to vote, and it just didn’t seem to be the best use of our funds at the time.”

In the late 1980s, Katja and her husband moved to her current location southeast of Allen, Michigan, where they built their house. After her divorce in 2007, Katja opened the Allen Day Spa at East of Edon and offered massage and esthetician services. She has since discontinued the full-body massages, but still does facials, manicures, and pedicures.

“I love working at home, I love sharing my home with my clients, I love sharing my garden with my clients. I have my fiber arts studio—this whole house is becoming my fiber arts studio,” laughs Katja.

Coping with tightened travel security after 9/11 is what moved Katja to obtain her U.S. citizenship. “A lot of airport officials did not know what to do with my ancient green card,” she explains. “I started getting funny looks when I showed a green card with a 20-year-old photo. They would look me in the face and say, ‘Don’t you need to renew this?’ This was one of a rare batch of green cards that had no expiration date. I don’t know if it was an oversight or a misprint at the time, but I sure enjoyed never having to renew the card!”

Once she made the decision, it took five years to complete the process. The combination of Covid and Katja wanting to keep her German citizenship complicated everything, including Germany requiring two trips to Chicago. But, on October 18, 2023, Katja finally became a U.S. citizen.

“I’m looking forward to smooth sailing from now on when I travel,” says Katja. “I want to make one more trip to Germany to visit my mother, and I can get in the ‘short line’ at both ends of the trip because of being both a German and an American citizen. Here’s hoping, anyway!”