SPRINGFIELD, Ohio — Margery Koveleski didn’t know it at the time, but her life’s work began in 2018, when her former pastor asked the mother of six if she could interpret Sunday services for a group of recently arrived Haitians. Church services led to teaching English classes, which led to interpreting at a community health clinic, which led to opening an office in the back of a Haitian grocery store. There, for nearly five years now, Margery has helped Haitians settle into this midwestern city of 60,000 that became a flashpoint for the country’s immigration debate during the 2024 presidential campaign.
At first, a lot of Margery’s work revolved around setting things up: utilities, cell phones, health care. Then, as President Donald Trump escalated his immigration crackdown to unprecedented levels, her focus shifted to winding things down. Margery is now a lifeline for her Haitian neighbors as they fight to stay in a country where fewer and fewer legal pathways are available to them. Without a last-minute reprieve, the clock has likely run out on many of their American journeys.
Margery has called Springfield home since she moved here about 24 years ago from New York, where she was born and raised. She learned Haitian Creole as a child by translating for her maternal grandmother, who joined them in New York from Haiti. Now, she shares the language of her ancestors — and her calling — with her 27-year-old daughter, Laura Koveleski, who moved home to Ohio from Florida about three years ago…