They Were Immigrants: The Lasting Legacy of My Syrian Grandparents

By Samuel J. Davis

A memoire of a Syrian immigrant at the beginning of 20th century in Southwestern Pennsylvania.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: May 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781543927986

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THEY WERE IMMIGRANTS

Chapter I

In The Beginning

It was Christmas Eve in 1955 or 1956 and it was snowing. My mother wasn’t prepared for Christmas, she got down at holiday time. My father was out, as was his custom and practice. My brother Jimmy, 17 months my junior, and I were home with my mom at the Solomon Hotel on Main Street in Republic, Pennsylvania. One of us, probably Jim, decided to get a Christmas tree. I was five or six years old. My mother gave us two dollars and we walked down Main Street to the corner of Route 166 and made a left turn. We walked another block and arrived at Abe John’s store called the Republic Bus Stop. Abe John was from the old country. He was like us. He was Syrian. His wife, Anice, was always kind to Jimmy and me and Mr. John often stopped my father from correcting us, actually from giving us a beaten. Correction and beaten, as well as fear and respect, were synonymous terms to my father. We, unlike most Syrian-Americans of the day moved around a lot. Some of the moves were in our little town from one of my mother’s family buildings, the Old Hotel, to the other, the New Hotel. We also lived in the new Veterans projects. Yes, there was a old Veterans projects but we never lived there. We were more like Bedoins then we were like Syrians. Damascus I’ve read, is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the World. We moved throughout my youth numerous times. My father was restless and my mother went along in those early days. When we got to Abe John’s store, Jimmy, even though he was probably a foot shorter and was younger, did the talking. Mr. John, we want a Christmas tree, he then pointed, that one over there, here’s two dollars. Abe John smiled. He and his family lived down the hall from us in another apartment at the Old Hotel and he known my mother’s father, my Jidu, Joe Solomon as well as all my aunts and uncles. He spoke with a heavy accent – everyone I knew over 50 did, but we didn’t have any trouble understanding him. We took the tree, I grabbed the trunk at the bottom and my little brother took the top, where we would later put on a star and we began to walk home. It was snowing harder and it was dark. I am sure we got some toys that Christmas, I do not remember what they were, but I do remember getting that tree and walking down my street with my brother in our little town.

My mother was 14 years old when her mother died. I wouldn’t be born for another 12 years. There is a family story about the death of my grandmother. It was told to me by one of my mother’s older brothers, George. Uncle George remembers that my mother had been attending her dying mother, who had been ill off and on for many years. The story goes that the dying woman had asked her daughter for watermelon, and, according to my Uncle George, my mother had just hours before eaten the last piece in the apartment. My mother’s version of the story was a little different. She told me that her niece Natalie had eaten the last piece of watermelon, so she brought her dying mother a piece of lettuce. One way or the other, my mother never again ate watermelon. Grandmother in Arabic is situ. My situ was born in Barshein, a tiny village in Syria. It is an Orthodox Christian town and today has little more than 1,000 residents. Her name was Watfay, but for some unknown reason her obituary, published in June 1938, states that her name was Effie. Her death certificate says her occupation was housekeeper and that she had spent 32 years in that profession. It must have been a full-time job in that she had 14 or 15 childbirths and, at the time of her death, was survived by 12 children. She was 46 years old. My situ’s mother, my great-grandmother, was apparently still living at the time of her daughter’s death, probably still in Barshein. My situ also was survived by three unnamed brothers, who, according to the obituary, lived somewhere in South America.

There were immigration quotas on Syrian immigrants when my grandmother came here. Many who arrived during the exodus of 1890 through 1910 first went to the Carribean, Canada, or South America with the ultimate goal of settling in America.

When my situ was 14 years old she married. His name was Yuseff Saloum and, in America, he was known as Joe Solomon. He was from an Orthodox Christian town called Jawaket. He was older than my situ—he was 15. Grandfather in Arabic is jidu.

Why did they come here? Most were Christians who wanted to escape religious persecution or who did not want to serve as conscripts in the Muslim-run Turkish army. Most, however, like immigrants from every corner of the world, had the dream of personal success. These were very poor people who were, for the most part, illiterate and had been told of the wealth in the new world. The writer Philip Hitti estimated that before WWI almost 90,000 Syrian Christians arrived in the United States. They started coming here, according to Hitti, around 1899. When he published Syrians in America in 1924, the year my parents were born, he stated, It is safe to assume that there are at present about 200,000 Syrians, foreign-born and born of Syrian parents, in the United States. Even then, nearly 100 years ago, if you were born of immigrants, you were, at least by some, considered less than a full-blooded American.

Some sources say that the Syrians who were Orthodox Christians started to come to the United States around 1878 at the earliest. In 1895, the Syrian Orthodox Benevolent Society was formed in New York City. The Society’s organizer was a Beirut born priest of Demascus Syria parents Raphael Hawaweeny. Hawaweeny, who was later sainted by the Church, had established churches in six communities in the United States by 1905. From 1905 through 1915, eighteen more were organized by him. Our church, Saint Ellien’s in Brownsville, Pennsylvania, was built in 1917. My paternal grandfather, Saado al Dayoub who later was known as Sam Davis, was listed as one of the founders of the Church. Joe Solomon, my maternal grandfather, was not. That same year, 1917, it is estimated that the United States was home to approximately 25,000 Arabs of Orthodox faith, collectively known at that time as Syrian Orthodox.

Raphael was followed by a charismatic leader named Antony Bashir who from 1936 through 1966 helped build churches across the country. Metropolitan Antony was an outstanding church leader who oversaw not only growth but a simulation and modernization. English was encouraged in Church services and his administration was financially efficient. Unlike the Catholics, the priests who were for the most part married with families, were not involved with sex scandals. Under Antony’s leadership more than 30 books were written that focused on the Orthodox faith. They were translated and published in English. After Antony died in 1966, the Church was led by another strong and ethical leader named Philip Saliba. From 1966 through 2014, Metropolitan Philip led the antiochian archdiocese. So the Syrian Orthodox Church from 1895 through 2014 had only three leaders who by their record of accomplishment seemed to have been good and talented and honest men. An amazing achievement made possible by the Ottoman Turks who by passing oppressive military service compulsory laws in 1908 gave great impetus for the Orthodox Christians to leave their homeland and come to America.

Immigration would slow to a trickle, though it is only estimated that a thousand Syrians a year came to our shores from 1900 through 1916. In 1924, Congress passed the Johnson-Reed Quota Act. That Act reduced the flow of freedom seekers from the eastern Mediterranean and immigration was curtailed until the Immigration Act of 1965.

There was no effort at consistency in official records for Syrian immigrants. Names, ages, dates of birth, and parental names abound for the same person. Growing up, we were told by my mother that her mother’s first name was Watfay. My grandmother’s marriage license application, dated May 4, 1905, lists her as Watfe Dib. Her own obituary states her name as Effie and her parents’ names as David Namey and Mary Davis; Dib is nowhere to be found. My mother’s own marriage license of 1947 lists her mother’s name as Faye Davis. The same holds true for her date of birth. While her marriage license lists her age in 1905 as 20 yrs, her certificate of death says her age on the date of her death, June 8, 1938, was 46 years, 7 months, 3 days; that