100 Years: from Greece to Chicago and Back

By Nick T. Thomopoulos

Growing up in Chicago during the 1930s, `40s and `50s was a life rich in tradition, family and memories. Nick Thomopoulos in 100 Years chronicles the vibrant life of the neighborhood surrounding the St. George Greek Orthodox Church. He tells of the tragic death of his father and the difficulties and joys his immigrant mother faced in raising five young children in an emerging metropolis unlike Zakynthos, Greece. Because of the Great Depression, World War II, the Greek Civil War and the hardships in Greece, Marie received only an occasional letter from her siblings. In 1962, Marie, with Nick, returned to Greece 42 years after she left. Three of her five siblings did not know she was coming, and her husbands lone sister did not know the family was even alive. The story describes the excitement of reuniting with the family.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 19, 2011
• ISBN: 9781469110844

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Copyright © 2011 by Nick T. Thomopoulos.

Library of Congress Control Number:      2010915765

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Contents

Acknowledgments

1 At the Beginning, 1910

The Early Immigrants

World War I

Baptismal Names

Family Tragedy

Eviction

2 St. George Neighborhood

A Noisy Place

The Neighborhood

Helpful Neighbors

Family Activities

Olson Rug Park

Riverview Park

The Iceman

Knife Sharpener

Amusing People

Quarantine Door Signs

Diphtheria

Kick-the-Can

Rubber Guns

Scooters

Pull-the-Purse

Baseball and Football

Shuffleboard

Hide-and-Seek

Snowballs

Family Life

Speaking Greek at Home

Olga and Zetta

The Fire Station

The Chicago Boys Club

Greek Grocery Store

The Radio

Telephone

Victory Garden

Service Flags

Marge (Thomopoulos) Faklis’s Recollections

Olga (Thomopoulos) Bancroft’s Recollections

Playground Games

The Hostess Factory

The Bean Blower

Halloween

Parlay Cards

Baseball and Football

Eight-Pagers

Patrol Boys

3 St. George

The Classrooms

The Greek Flag

Cleanup Week

The School Bell

The Empty Lot

Didn’t Hear the School Bell

Buck Buck

Ditching Greek School

Greek Program

The Peephole

The Softball Team

Ledge Ball

Greek School Snowballs

Three in a Seat

Reform School

A Long-Gone Era

Graduation

Smith Brothers Cough Drops

Koulouria

Name Day

Koumbari

Orthodox Easter

Good Friday

Easter Saturday

Red Easter Eggs

Mayeritsa

Annie Klikas

Vasilopita

Koufetas

Koliva

Paximadia

Parkway Theater

Shoe Repair Shop

Newspaper Boy

Laundry Delivery

Julian Theater

Vogue Theater

Soda Jerk

Montgomery Ward

Landers Restaurant

Cubs Park

Stop-and-Shop

Furla Studio

Marshall Field Warehouse

Fullerton Beach

Indian Cigars

Fifth of July

Lincoln Park Lagoon

Eight Poulos Brothers

Wizard Arrows Football

Congos Basketball

Bob Hale

George Halvas

Peter Pappas

Lewis and Christy

Dave Dibella

Pete Choconas

George Fefles

The Palace Grill

Kappy’s

The Zanes

Georgia (Tsarpalas) Drake

George (Alpogianis) Gaines

George Furla

Hardball

Maxwell Street

Hull House

George Mikan

Pat Pieper

John Dillinger

Biograph Theater

Dillinger’s Biograph Chair

Dillinger’s Biograph Footsteps

Jim Thorpe

The 1945 World Series

The Billy Goat Hex on Cubs

The Police Note

4 After Greek School

Swim Class

Paper Drives

Intramural Track

Blackjacked at Comiskey Park

American Legion Baseball

Navy Pier

Intramural Wrestling

Delta Chi

Dick Browning

Frank Bare

Bob Sullivan

More Intramural Wrestling

Intramural Diving

Tippy

Driver’s License

Translator Exam

Basic Training

The Drunken Sergeant

G4 Logistics

Yakima Maneuvers

Sad Sacks

Audie Murphy

Promotions

University of Washington

Jim Doyne

The Great Depression

World War II

John Faklis

The Occupation of Greece

The Greek Civil War

The Cold War

The Korean War

Family Military Members

The Vietnam War

Dan Thomopoulos

5 Greece from 1453 to 1832

The Ottoman Conquest of Greece

Millets, Taxes, and Bribes

Janissaries

Greek Revolution (1821)

6 The Trip to Greece in 1962

A Trip to Greece

Our Family in Greece

Greece in 1962

The Flight to Greece

The Athens Airport

A Dumpy Hotel

Mission Impossible

The Search

Mission Accomplished

Taso Mouzakis

The Ancient Ruins

Rembetika

Frontistirio

Mouzakis School

Corinth

The Corinth Canal

Patras

Rio-Antirio Bridge

7 Zakynthos

Geography

Early History

Venetian Republic

Byzantine Empire

Ottoman Empire

Greek Independence

Ionian Islands of Greece

Ionian Islands Song

Dionysios Solomos

The Greek National Anthem

St. Dionysios

1953 Earthquake

Caretta Caretta

Zakynthos Jews

Goatherders

The Taxi Ride

Demetris (Sandy) Avgoustinos

Haralambos

Kimon Fasoulis

Sarakinados

Zante Currants

Olive Trees

The Sarakinados Farm

Fred Bock

Planos

Not Even One Day

Reflections

Elaine Cotsirilos

The Third Degree

Two Jobs and School

1962-1963

The Wedding

The Aristons

Elaine’s Family

Joe DiMaggio

M. Zia Hassan

8 Back to Greece in 1965

Tripoli

Agios Basilios

Agios Basilios Cemetery

The Crowded Bus

Good Boy Wayne

The Gypsies

Keri

The Influenza Epidemic in 1918

Priest on a Donkey

9 Other Trips to Greece

The Drunken Sailor

Topless Beach

The Flower of the East

Cantades

Arekia Taverna

Sarakina Taverna

St. Dionysios Church

The Blue Caves

Theodoros Kolokotronis

Laskarina Bouboulina

The Shipwreck

The Big Flag

The Keri Lighthouse Taverna

Lagana

Piraeus

10 In the Year 2010

Greektown Chicago

St. George Today

Good Friday at St. George

The Michigan Connection

Annunciation and St. Paraskevi Greek Orthodox Church

Sophe Fatouros

The Evil Eye

Marie (Avgoustinos) Thomopoulos Family

Popi (Avgoustinos) Mouzakis Family

Haralambos Avgoustinos Family

Dionysios Avgoustinos Family

Angelica (Avgoustinos) Fiorentinos Family

Adamantia (Avgoustinos) Mouzakis Family

Sophia (Thomopoulos) Livanis Family

Tripoli and Agios Basilios

Chicago Greeks

America and Opportunity

Acknowledgments

Foremost, I am indebted to my wife, Elaine Thomopoulos, for encouraging me to finish this book and for the never-ending flow of editing and helpful suggestions. She was always there to help me when I asked for her opinion on a passage of the book. Thanks to my sisters, Margaret Faklis and Olga Bancroft, for their recall of the early family history. Also to Peter Pappas, Bill Zane, George Fefles, and the late Peter Lemperis for their contributions to the book. Thanks also to Stathia (Cotsirilos) Xanos for proofreading the text and for her helpful suggestions. I appreciate the reviews and comments provided by Marie Sussman, Melina Collins, and Diana Patterson, and also the technical assistance and editing from Christopher Thomopoulos. Thanks to Ted Christie and the many others who have provided me with their recollection of the past. As best as possible, I give credit to the source photographer. Unless otherwise stated, the photographs are from the Nick and Elaine Thomopoulos collection, and most of the photos from year 2000 and beyond are taken by Elaine Thomopoulos.

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Athens 2008, Elaine Thomopoulos, the photographer, with Nick Thomopoulos looking on. Photo by Marie Sussman.

1

At the Beginning, 1910

While growing up in Chicago, my mother, siblings, and I had no relatives in America. Although we had a big family in Greece, for many years, we had virtually no contact and knew almost nothing about them. This was because of the Great Depression (1929-1940), World War II (1939-1945), the Greek Civil War (1944-1949), and the postwar difficulties in Greece (1950s). During this era, my mother would receive an occasional letter from a sister or brother with sparse information on the family. Furthermore, going into the 1960s, none of our relatives in Greece had telephone service. This is the saga on what happened and how, in the end, we found our family.

The Early Immigrants

In an attempt to survive the economic chaos in Greece at the turn of the century, many Greek families sent their sons to the U.S. These youths, some as young as fourteen, were expected to work hard in America and then return to Greece, purchase Greek land for their families, and provide dowries for their sisters. In Greece, the vast majority of these immigrants had been rural farmers, but in America, they tended to settle in cities like New York, Chicago, and Baltimore. Many of them initially found jobs as dishwashers, laborers, shoe shiners, or street peddlers. Other Greeks, however, went west to Nevada, Utah, and California to work in the mines and on the railroads. Still others went to Florida where they fished and dove for sponges.

Many came to Chicago since there were jobs in the food business of produce, peddling, and restaurants. The new arrivals often lived near the produce markets at Fulton and South Water Streets. This is where the produce was brought to Chicago for distribution to restaurants, stores, and the food-peddling businesses. Nearby was the Near West Side triangle formed by Halsted, Harrison, and Blue Island Streets, which became known as the Greek Delta. The famous Hull House and the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church also were located in this area. At the same time, a number of Greek-owned restaurants, coffee shops, grocery stores, and barbershops were opened. By the 1930s, Chicago had approximately 30,000 first- and second-generation Greek-Americans.

Dan Avgoustinos was one of these early immigrants who settled in the Greek Delta area. He came in 1914 from the small village of Sarakinados on the island of Zakynthos in Greece. He had gone to school in Zakynthos and also in Athens and was a learned man. He had four sisters and a brother living on the family farm in Zakynthos. Dan was the second eldest of the seven children of Demetrios and Olga (Morphis) Avgoustinos. Demetrios and Olga were married in 1887. Dan thought his extra education in Greece would give him a better opportunity in America, but it didn’t help. He soon found himself working on laborer jobs along with his fellow Greeks. Furthermore, in 1917, during World War I, Dan was drafted for duty and served in the U.S. Army.

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Chicago 1910: Corner of Washington and Clark Streets.

Photo by Kaufmann, Weimer and Fabry Co.

World War I

In 1914, a Serbian assassinated an heir to the Austro-Hungary throne. Tempers flared, and shortly after, World War I began. Austro-Hungary declared war with Serbia, and soon after, Germany invaded Belgium. Austro-Hungary and Germany formed the Central Powers. They were joined by Bulgaria and Turkey. On the other side, the Allies included France, Belgium, Britain, Russia, Serbia, and Italy. When Britain entered the war, the commonwealth countries, Canada, Australia, India, New Zealand, and South Africa, also joined in on the allied side. Later, Romania, Greece, and Japan also came in on the side of the allied forces. The U.S. remained neutral even in 1915, when a German U-boat sank the British liner Lusitania with 128 Americans on board. In 1917, Britain intercepted a German proposal to Mexico asking them to declare war on the U.S. in the event the U.S. entered the war in Europe. The telegram, which was printed in the U.S. papers, revealed how Germany would help Mexico take back from the U.S. some territories in Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico. With pressure at home mounting, the U.S. entered the war in 1917 on the side of the Allies. At the start, the U.S. had a small army, but they drafted over 4 million men and soon began sending 10,000 troops to France every day. Altogether, 70 million military troops were mobilized on all sides and more than 15 million died. The war ended in 1919, and an armistice was signed on November 11, 1919.

By 1920, only one of Dan’s siblings was married—Diamantia, his eldest sister. He saw opportunity in America and arranged for the second eldest of the sisters, Marie Avgoustinos, to come to Chicago to get married to a friend of his. An anxious Greek groom, a farmer in Colorado, awaited her. When Marie came to Chicago she stayed with her brother on Halsted Street, getting ready for the prospective bridegroom to come to visit.

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Dan Avgoustinos, U.S. Army in World War I.

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Zakynthos circa 1918: Marie Avgoustinos.

Nick Thomopoulos, who immigrated from Zakynthos in 1910, also lived in Chicago. He was the eldest son of Maryetta (Liveris) and Christopher Thomopoulos from the town of Keri on the island of Zakynthos. Nick had two brothers and one sister still in Keri. In the 1920s, there were very few Greek women in America; and when Nick heard that Marie was in Chicago, although he never met Marie, Nick wanted to marry her. He lived in the apartment building next door, and sometimes in the evening—with the windows open and with his guitar—he serenaded Marie.

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Chicago circa 1918: Nick Thomopoulos sitting and friend.

Marie preferred to marry Nick rather than spend her life on another farm. They got married in May 1921. Nick had a barbershop in the Greektown area of Halsted Street, and Nick and Marie settled nearby and started a family.

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Chicago 1921: Marie (Avgoustinos) Thomopoulos and Nick Thomopoulos wedding.

Meanwhile, in the mid-1920s, Dan Avgoustinos was summoned to Zakynthos to help run the family farm. Haralambos (Bobby) Avgoustinos, Dan’s younger brother, was studying medicine in Athens. So Dan, who was still single, went back to the farm. He left Marie with no other relatives in Chicago other than her husband and her small children.

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Athens, Greece circa 1920: Haralambos (Bobby) Avgoustinos.

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Chicago Halsted Street circa 1921: Nick Thomopoulos (front) in his barbershop.

Nick and Marie and family moved from Halsted Street to Lincoln and Sheffield. Nick opened a grocery store, and the family lived upstairs. Two years later, the family moved farther north in Chicago near the St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church. Nick again opened a grocery store, located at Lawrence and Rockwell.

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Chicago circa 1928: Unknown woman on left, Marie Thomopoulos (center) holding Catherine Thomopoulos and Efiemia Godelas is on right.

Baptismal Names

Over the years, the family grew, and one by one, all the children were born. Altogether they had seven children: Margaret (Maryetta) was the eldest, and then Olga, Christopher (Kristoforos), Catherine (Aikaterini), Demetrios, Dan (Dionysios), and Nicholas (Nikolaos). Christopher and Demetrios died from diphtheria before they were two years old. The naming of the children mostly came from prior family names. Margaret was named for her father’s mother, Olga for her mother’s mother, Christopher for his father’s father, Demetrios for his mother’s father, Dan for Saint Dionysios of Zakynthos, and Nick for his father.

Family Tragedy

During the depression era, on a cold December day, Nick was delivering two chickens to a customer. A truck lost control and struck him on Lawrence Avenue. Someone came to the apartment and told Marie to rush to Swedish Covenant Hospital. Nick died soon after. Marie was now in Chicago with five small children. I was the youngest at four months old. Marie spoke no English and had no relatives in Chicago. The family’s financial status suddenly changed from comfortable to poor.

I was baptized at the St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church, with Spero Furla as the godfather and his mother, Theodora Furla, the godmother. Spero, a young boy from the neighborhood, was a few years into grammar school. Before my father died, my baptismal name was set to be Theodore Nicholas. But since I was baptized after my father died, my baptismal name was changed to Nicholas Theodore.

Eviction

Marie received no insurance or settlement from the truck company and had little savings. One spring day, Margaret and Olga came home from the Budlong Grammar School and saw their mother Marie sitting on the couch on the lawn, in front of the apartment building. She held Dan and Nick in her lap, with Catherine sitting on her side. The rest of the furniture was also on the lawn. Some boys asked Marie if she needed help in bringing the furniture inside, but Marie did not understand what they were saying, and after conferring with Margaret, the boys were told, No, thank you. While Nick was alive, the family could well afford to pay the rent in the large apartment, but after he died, the rent was too high for Marie to keep up the payments. The family was evicted.

The Greek families offered to raise the money to send the family back to Zakynthos. Marie did not want to go back to the farm and saw better opportunity for the children in Chicago. The Greek families (one had a truck) helped Marie gather the furniture and moved Marie and her children to Osgood (now Kenmore Avenue) and Diversey near the St. George neighborhood where the rents were more reasonable. Two years later, the family lived on Sheffield and Diversey just down the street from the St. George Greek Orthodox Church.

2

St. George Neighborhood

The St. George Greek Orthodox Church of Chicago is located in the Lincoln Park area in Chicago’s