SERBIAN WOMAN FROM AMERICA ABOUT 4 DECADES OF FRIENDSHIP WITH STEVE WOZNIAK! Bižić: He wanted our passport, THIS IS A REAL WONDER!

"Steve Wozniak, our Woz, told me that he was interested in securing a Serbian passport because it is one of the best passports for travelling around Europe and he always has speaking engagements somewhere. Woz is already acting on Serbia’s behalf all over the world and he really wants to help promote Expo 2027. This news has already made him new friends in the Serbian community", says Mim Bižić, a legendary Serb woman from Pittsburgh, who was born in America as the third generation of Serbian immigrants and who can teach all of us a lesson or two about Serbia and Serbian history.

Baba Mim, as she is known among Serbs and beyond, has been friends with the co-founder of Apple for almost four decades. The computer genius and engineer Steve Wozniak was recently presented with a Serbian passport in Belgrade at the beginning of December last year by President Aleksandar Vučić. On the occasion, Wozniak said that he was now a Serb living in America. Mim Bižić was especially happy to hear this, as well as sorry that she couldn't go with him to Belgrade.

"When he first told me about his plans, I told him that he should take me with him to Serbia, to which he replied that I was one of the main reasons why he wanted to do all of this", says Mim and adds that Wozniak has since been worried that the whole business about the passport now has a political connotation.

Mim was one of the first people who knew that Wozniak was preparing for this trip.

"He told me that he was thinking of going to Serbia, after going to so many other countries to speak one after another, but I told him to slow down because he was travelling too much in such a short time frame. You saw what happened in Mexico (he ended up in the hospital in early November 2023). He suffered from a mild heart attack and dizziness. I was shocked as the whole world was, but not surprised. The fact that he was still able to go to Serbia was a small miracle.”

“He is so very precious to all of us, to the world”, Mim underlines.

How does a Quaker Valley Edgeworth Elementary School teacher from Sewickley, PA know the Apple co-founder so well? And who is she anyway? Milana Mim Karlo Bižić was born on July 30, 1941, in Pittsburgh, a city where the Mamula family (1898 and 1900) from Lika moved to in the late 19th century. Her mother Latinka (Laura), was the youngest of seven surviving children. Not long after the Mamulas, her grandparents (Samojilo Karajlović and his wife Stana Batalo Karajlović) also arrived in the US from Kordun, in 1907 and 1912 respectively. Their son Milan was the oldest of 8 surviving children.

At a Serbian event in Pittsburgh on Vidovdan in 1962, Mim met her future husband Gus (Kojo) Bižić. They wed in the St. Elijah Serbian Orthodox Church in Aliquippa, PA, in 1963. Baba Mim says her greatest treasures are her dear son, Nikola Nick Bižić and granddaughter Jocelyn, now 17 years old.

BABA MIM

She likes the nickname "Baba Mim," so much so she has a website of the eponymous name - babamim.com.

"We called my paternal grandmother Stana Batalo Karajlović – “Baka” - and my maternal grandmother, Anđa Mamula was known by the entire Serbian community in Pittsburgh as "Baba Anđa."

“I am honored that my granddaughter, Jocelyn, always calls me "Baba." I say it's the best nickname ever! But I like being called "Teta Mim" or "Baba Mim" or "Baka Mim" by the rest of the Serbian community. It's a beautiful sign of respect,” says Mim and adds: "Anyone who spends 10 minutes with me knows that I am an American of proud Serbian descent. I always promote our Serbian people. My late husband Gus used to say: "After meeting her, you're ready for a Certificate in Serbian history 1-0-1!"

Mim was far more than a teacher who nurtured Serbian traditions and customs. This amazing woman was ahead of her time! She realized a long time ago that the future lies in computers, so she began to use them creatively in classes with her students, as well as for teaching her colleagues.

1 / 4 Foto: Privatna Arhiva

"My students and I won first place at the Apple international competition in 1985 in Washington DC, and that's where I first met Woz, who gave me a computer for our school. We won our computer adventure with our Ancient Egypt project. As a reward, Apple sent me to MacWorld in California, where I saw Woz again. We also won in 1986 with the Ancient Greece and Rome project, and then again in 1987, with the China and Japan project. Then I was inducted into Apple's Hall of Fame, but I couldn't compete for two years. The rationale for that was - "No one has a chance against you! No one can come close to you!" Mim remembers.

As a consolation prize, they sent her to Hawaii where she worked on writing lesson plans for Apple Computer Clubs.

In 1989, when her "ban" expired, Mim and her students won again with the theme "Etching Women Back Into History, But Using Our Computers To Do It!".

1 / 5 Foto: Privatna Arhiva

“In that Women's study unit, we proudly presented Mileva Marić Einstein and planted Serbian spruce in her honor in our Edgeworth Elementary School yard in Sewickley, PA. It’s still there”, she says and adds:

“In 1990, Apple asked me to write lesson plans for a new permanent exhibit at the Smithsonian called "Flight Enters the Computer Age." These plans had to be written for teachers who could physically take their students to the museum in Washington, DC, but also for teachers who could travel there only virtually, from as far away as the state of Washington. These activities led to the fact that the Smithsonian Museum named me the National Science Teacher in 1990”, explains Mim.

Steve Wozniak came to Pittsburgh in 1988 for Mim's Apple Pitts Computer Club, which was reported by several newspapers, and then again when she was retiring as a librarian in 2004.

Mim also told us an anecdote from 1987, when she was in Washington for an award ceremony.

Woz's new GS computer was then unveiled on the steps of the National Archives as America celebrated the 200th anniversary of its Constitution. “The class for the Constitution ceremonies was supposed to be led by a movie star, but he was high on drugs. That's when Apple asked my son Nick, who was celebrating his 17th birthday that morning, to fill in as the instructor teacher. Neither my husband nor I had any idea he had been asked to do so. In the end, when Nick used a stylus pen to write his name - "Nick Bižić"- and put the 3 dots over his name, I thought my heart would burst with joy! I thought I would die of happiness!" Mim exclaims.

Christmas

Mim is eagerly looking forward to Christmas. On Christmas Eve, she will be with her church family to bring in the Badnjak to the Serbian Orthodox Church of St. Elijah and sing "Oj Badnjače" and "Rozdesstsvo". The wheat, which she planted on St. Nicholas Day, is flourishing. She will also bake bread with a lucky coin inserted in it. After the Christmas church service on Sunday, she and her sisters will go to her cousins, the Trklja family’s home in Pittsburgh where they gather every year. Mim also keeps three candles of her grandfather Nikola Mamula, which are almost worn out. The family then recites the prayer "Oče Naš" as quickly as possible so as not to burn down the 76-year-old candles too quickly. She also sent us a photo of her granddaughter, Jocelyn, from 13 years ago, carrying wheat in Houston, Texas, where she lives.

An important figure in Mim Bižić's life was her mother, Laura. "She taught us that no one is better than us, despite money and prestige, but that no one is below us either. Equality for all!” Mim points out and adds that when they lived in California, from 1943 to 1945, their mother worked for Kaiser Aluminum, teaching the ladies who escaped from the Dust Bowl in Oklahoma, how to process data. Mim still keeps the little notebook Laura used to record the women's wages, who were working for pennies and half cents per minute.

"At home in Pittsburgh, our Mother and Father took turns running our shop Karlo Confectionary store. Mom did it during the day, while Dad worked at the Serb National Federation as an English Section Editor for the American SRBOBRAN. But Mom also worked in a plastic factory from 4 to 12, burning her fingers taking out the plastic tiles cutting them into pieces of eight and boxing them when each contained a full set. My Dad would come home from the office to take care of the store until closing. Then Mom would come home from the factory after midnight and mop the large floor of the store so that it would be ready for the next day," says Mim and adds that even though her mother was crippled from the age of seven and wore a hearing aid, nothing prevented her from making a better life for herself and her family.

In 1943, a very young Mim and her mother were featured on the front page of the local newspaper. A fire broke out in Baba Anđa's and grandfather Nikola's home, where the sick baby Milana (Mim), who had just gotten out of the hospital after almost dying from double pneumonia, was staying temporarily because the young Karlo couple did not have a working furnace in their first rented store. Laura received a phone call and rushed to save her daughter and mother before the firemen arrived.

"My father Milan also worked for the San Francisco Chronicle during World War II, but he quit when the paper started publishing anti-Mihailović news and promoted Tito", says Mim.

There were, says Mim, so many wonderful anecdotes with Woz.

"When I met Woz in Washington in 1986 for the second time, he said that he would like to send his son, Jesse, to be in my class. That was such a great honor! And when I bought my first iPhone the first day it went on sale from the Apple store, I immediately sent him an email via my iPhone, telling him that I had just bought it. He answered me immediately: “You, too?” At first, I was sceptical, but now I love it! The young Apple salesman was flabbergasted to see an email from Woz!

Years later, when we met at the University of Akron (Ohio), I got him to sign my original iPhone at a restaurant we went to after his lecture. He had warned me that everything he signed with his pen would fade, but I didn't care because I had my iPhotos to show that he had done it", Mim reminisces.

"He sent me an email when he was performing on 'Dancing with the Stars' and so many fans voted for him for many weeks. Unfortunately, he didn't have the best partner and was later eliminated as she was too stiff for his fun-loving personality. But they are still good friends."

How would Mim describe what Serbia means to her in three words?

"Faith, family, love or... I will tell you a Serbian folk tale in which a young peasant wins the hand of a beautiful princess after no one before him had been able to answer three riddles: “What is the sharpest, the strongest and the most beautiful thing in the world?”The young man thought for a moment and spoke like a true Serb: "The sharpest thing is that the world is the TRUTH. The strongest is LOVE. And the most beautiful is FREEDOM”, Mim says. Her sister Ruža adds: “Tesla, Đoković and Jokić”, and her friend continues: "God, country, family!"

Pittsburgh, according to Mim, has always been a multi-ethnic city, and PITT University has famous multi-million dollar nationality rooms that were started in 1934. Ours is the Yugoslav Room and bears the coat of arms of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. There are also French, Scandinavian, Chinese, Greek and German rooms. “We always celebrated "Unity Through Diversity," acknowledging the worth of each ethnic group”, Mim adds.

“In 1988, I took Woz to meet my mother, Laura Mamula Karlo. I remember her asking him for his last name and his ethnicity. He looked confused as where he lived in California wasn't so ethnic-centric and said he was American. "We are all Americans," said Mom, then told him that she had friends with the same last name who were Polish or Ukrainian,” Mim reminisces.

She keeps in touch with Wozniak almost every day, she points out.

"I just wrote to him that we should go to the Tesla conference in New York on January 13, but I know he's too busy", Mim notes.

“I wish everyone in Serbia, especially the Danilović, Karajlović, Mamula and Marković families, a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Mir Božji, Hristos se rodi!"

Jelena S. Spasić

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Bonus video:

Kurir