Oral History Program Nick & Diane Velis Interviewed by Lorrie Rands and Brian Whitney 20 November, 16 December 2014 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Nick & Diane Velis Interviewed by Lorrie Rands and Brian Whitney 20 November, 16 December 2014 Copyright © 2014 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description Immigrants at the Crossroads - Ogden City is a project to collect oral histories, photographs and artifacts related to the immigrant populations that helped shape the cultural and economic climate of Ogden. This project will expand the contributions made by Ogden’s immigrant populations: the Dutch, Italian and Greek immigrants who came to work on the railroad and the Japanese who arrived after World War II from the West Coast and from internment camps. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Velis, Nick and Diane, an oral history by Lorrie Rands and Brian Whitney, 20 November, 16 December 2014, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Nick Velis in his home, 2016 1 Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Nick and Diane Velis, conducted by Lorrie Rands and Brian Whitney on November 20 and December 16, 2014. Nick Velis’ Greek family settled in the western United States in the late 1940s. He describes the family’s several businesses, and what it was like growing up in the Greek community. His wife, Diane, shares her experience finding acceptance in the Velis family. BW: Okay, we’re at the home of Nick and Diane Velis in Ogden, Utah. Today is November 20, 2014, we are interviewing at about 2 p.m. We will be discussing the history of the Velis family in Ogden as well as the Greek community. Thanks for inviting us back. NV: You’re welcome. BW: So we’ll start off with the simple stuff. When and where were you born? NV: I myself was born in McGill, Nevada October 1, 1949 and that was when my father had moved back from the old country and met my mother. They were both American citizens from the beginning. So that part of it was easy. A lot of other people had problems with that, establishing residency and citizenship. We didn’t run into that problem because my father had been born here in the States when my grandfather had moved over here before. So he had moved back and forth a couple of times. In doing so he had children, and when they were born on United States’ soil they were automatically citizens. I was looking through the manifest for the ship my father came over on in 1947 and he was listed in a separate area as a citizen of the United States, which made a great deal of difference because 2 he went through the line quicker and he didn’t have to mess with the thing at Ellis Island and all that so much. He was a citizen, so it was, “Come on in. You’re home.” This was true for several of my aunts and uncles, but not all of them. A lot of them had been born in Greece and when they came over they were Greek citizens, they weren’t American citizens. So they had a little bit more paperwork to go through and I’m not at all familiar with what it takes. It was much more of a hassle than the other situation. BW: Sure. What was the family name? NV: The family name coming from the old country was Velisaropolis. I looked this up once and I’m not real sure if I’m being accurate, but let me throw it out anyway. Veli, the Veli part is from the Turk and it denoted some sort of a government official. Not a specific government official, a “government” official. So that’s where that part of the name comes from, and saropolis, son of, I guess a lot of European names have that. BW: Wonderful, and it was shortened at some point. NV: Well I guess that happened when they came over from the old country. Apparently the people that worked at Ellis Island got really tired of trying to pronounce these names and spell them and what not, so they just took the liberty of shortening the name and making it anglicized, I guess you’d say. That’s how the word, or the last name Velis come about. BW: So your family arrived back here. You said your father came back in 1949? NV: 1947. BW: 1947. 3 NV: What had happened was my, and I don’t know how much further it goes back, but I know at one point in time my grandfather was here and he was a married man. His family was in the old country in Greece and there were two wars. The Balkan Wars, I think 1911 and 1912 or somewhere in there. So he came back to fight for the Greeks. This had to do with the Albanians and the Montenegrins and others getting involved and trying to take over Greek politics. Anyway he came over to fight for the Greeks and I don’t know too many specifics. Meanwhile his first family had died from the plague of 1918, the Swine Flu, so he was on his own, and then he came back over again. He married my grandmother, my father’s mother, and they started a new family. In doing so they moved back to the States. My dad’s oldest sister was born there in Greece, but she’d come over so she wasn’t a citizen. While they were here my dad and my uncle Sam were born, so they were automatically American citizens. Then there was one more son that survived, but he was born in Greece after they went back during the Depression, so he never had the situation with the citizenship. Let me explain something to—my grandmother her name was Ana and she had eleven kids. My grandfather together had eleven kids and I believe it was two or three sets of twins among that, but only four that lived to maturity. I guess that was quite common in the day. So at that point the war strikes and that stops everybody from leaving. Once the Italians and then later the Germans occupied Greece, if you were there, there was no getting away. So at that point in time my dad and my uncle Sam they were in Greece, they were all there actually, the whole family. 4 After the Second World War there was a communist revolution and of course Tito took over the old Serbian thing. He put together all these countries; Serbia, Croatia, I think Albania, Montenegro, and turned them into what became Yugoslavia. They also tried to include Greece in that, but it didn’t happen. There was a bloody civil war, but they weren’t able to take over the Greek nation and merge it with the communists, with the Yugoslavians. The Yugoslavians were horrible communists. They would scare the people into becoming communists and if you had any connection with people in the United States they picked on you hard. So my father and my uncle Sam were American citizens and they had to get out of there for two reasons. First of all if they went and fought with the Greek Army, the Royalists, they would lose their citizenship; and number two, if they did that it would be harder for them to get to the United States, and that’s what they wanted to do. Anyway their choice was to come here and live here and not get involved in that fight. My father had a friend and they were friends from forever, and he was over here and he had been in the American Army fighting in Korea, about the same time period. The communists found out about it, the Yugoslavians, and they rounded up his family and killed them all and buried them in the middle of town. My father’s family had the threat of that possibly happening, so that’s why they ended up coming. BW: Now did your uncle Sam come here to Ogden first before your father did? NV: No, actually my father came here. BW: Tell us about that. 5 NV: He came to Salt Lake. His dad’s brother lived in Salt Lake, he’d been here since, oh, 1910, 1905 and I think originally he had been hired as a contract laborer with the railroad. So my dad—I might be wrong about this—had to have a sponsor even though he was an American citizen. So my dad’s uncle Jim sponsored him and he came over. My dad’s mother’s brother owned a restaurant in Salt Lake called Lamb’s Grill, and it’s still there after all these years. My father went to work there. He met my mother at a church outing at Lagoon. See in those days you got to realize that there were church people in Price, there were some in Salt Lake, there were some down in McGill, Nevada, and that was about it. So when there was a Greek deal that was put together it wasn’t just a few people from a certain area. Anyway my dad met her and I guess they fell in love and they ended up getting married in January of 1949 and I was born in October of 1949. Now in those days divorce was not an option, especially if you were old country Orthodox or Catholic. Whatever the situation was, and I’ve never sat down specifically and picked through it because nobody wanted to talk about it. Anyway they ended up getting divorced and my mother run off. I ended up staying with my father and he raised me pretty much. BW: The Greek gathering at Lagoon, was this something that happened regularly? NV: Yes, they did it every year. We were down in McGill about ten years back, but they had a big party like that, a big gathering like that all those years later. Why it wasn’t at Lagoon anymore and why it was there I can’t tell you. 6 BW: Very interesting. So let’s talk about the business your uncle and father owned here. NV: Okay after my mom and dad got divorced my father got drafted during the height of the Korean War. He spent his years in the military and was discharged. When he got out he went to work at Hill Field. Everybody went to work at Hill Field when they get out of the service in those days. He didn’t like it and his cousin Johnny was working for his father-in-law, his wife’s husband, tending bar. Alex, my dad, he didn’t like working for the government, he wanted to go to work for Gus and take a job in the bar, so he did that. Then Gus, his cousin’s wife that helped him get the job, he decided to retire or he got ill, so he rented the place out to my dad. So that’s how he acquired the business and he ran that for ten years. He didn’t own the building or anything, he just rented it. In 1960 he and his cousin Johnny bought a place out on the highway called The Golden Spike. It was kind of a nightclub situation and Dad and my uncle Sam ran it together. That’s how Sam got into the business. So you’ve got his cousin Johnny and my father that owned it, they were buying it together as partners. Johnny had his own place called The M&M Tavern that he rented, he rented the building. He was doing real well with that so he didn’t want to leave that and go out to the place that they’d bought. So he leased that to my uncle Sam, so now you’ve got those three in the business. So Sam and my dad they worked it together. Sam got his own place later on; he still worked with my dad, but he had his own place that he was doing too. So that’s kind of how things ended up. Then after a while, a family member of my dad’s from the old country, 7 he moved over here. He came from Canada and Dad brought him in and Sam lent his portion of The Golden Spike; I hope you understand this. BW: Yep, we’re doing fine. NV: Alex George was the guy’s name, he took over anyway that half that wasn’t already taken over. When I came back from Vietnam, Alex wanted out of there, the one that’d come from Canada and took over, so I took his part and then I worked there about nine years. I had a real hard time getting along with my dad for a while. So I left there and he stayed. I had a place downtown, I had a buddy that became a partner. My little brother worked for my dad for a little while. Anyway, Dad got sick and he couldn’t run it anymore, so they sold it, the business, not the building and stuff. That was kind of the end of it. My uncle Sam retired, uncle John died, he had a stroke. My dad had some heart attacks, made it tough on him. So they just kind of wore themselves out in that situation. Most of the kids went to school to stay out of the business. My one cousin became an attorney and another cousin became a real estate broker. They all did pretty well without being in that—it’s a tough business. So that’s kind of the story there. BW: Was the bar and restaurant business, did that line of work seem to be pretty common for Greeks? NV: Yeah, gosh there was the H&H Tavern, there was Andy’s, there was the M&M, and there was the Falstaff… LR: The Falstaff, was that the name of the original bar that your dad went and worked at? 8 NV: Yes. Let’s see, Falstaff, The King’s Club, Blue Magic, trying to think. I don’t know, but those were all bars in Ogden owned by Greeks. Most of them didn’t have food. Most of them just sold beer. LR: Nick, how are you doing? You doing okay or are you about done? We can end here and come back, that is not a problem. NV: Yeah that’d probably be good. BW: That’s fine. We’re halfway. Today is Tuesday, December 16, 2014, the time is 2 p.m. We’re at the home of Nick Velis in Ogden and we will be discussing his childhood and growing up in Ogden area. Thanks for having us back, appreciate it. So why don’t you just tell us some of your memories growing up in Ogden and in particular the Greek community out here? NV: Okay I mentioned before that my parents separated and got divorced. They were living in McGill, Nevada. They split up and my father came to Salt Lake and my mother stayed down there. When the Draft Board found out they was divorcing he got drafted into the American Army in the Korean War. My mother stayed in McGill, but her father died and that meant they couldn’t live in company housing anymore, which they were living in. So she and my grandmother moved to Salt Lake, and I don’t know all of the details on this but there was this old Greek gentleman down in Salt Lake that apparently had lost his wife and somebody kind of got them together and they end up getting married. He wasn’t too comfortable with the idea of my grandmother having her child, my mother and me there. So they had to make some adjustments on that. So my father served his 9 time in Korea and when he came back he actually took custody of me. So I lived with him. Of course I couldn’t live with him steadily because he worked and everything. He was out of the service, but he was working. So anyway he had different people that he paid to watch me. That’s how I grew up. BW: How old were you when he took custody of you? NV: I was 4 and most of the people that he had watch me were Greeks. So I picked up the background being with those people because they were old country Greek folks. They had their old country ways, so to speak. That went on for several years, and then he end up marrying my stepmother. He bought a house and we all moved in together. So there was me, my stepmother, my dad and eventually my little brother came along not too much later. I didn’t get along with my stepmother very well, but the one thing she did do for me is she broke me into the ways of the church and the Greek culture. So I learned a lot of things through her about Greek culture and what went on which I thank her for now, but at the time I thought she was being unreasonable. It’s kind of hard when you’re a young kid, you’re growing up in America and you know ways are different here than they are in other places. So I had to adjust to the Greek ways which I knew partially, and then I also had to adjust to the American ones. So it was kind of tough. BW: Can you think of any examples? NV: Well some of the ways I dressed. I don’t know how it is nowadays but back in those days everybody dressed the same and you had to all look alike. My stepmother and dad they wouldn’t go on with it because they wouldn’t spend the 10 money. It was expensive. So that was a good example. I was still quite proud of being Greek and I was really fond of most of my friends that were Greek and my relatives you know. BW: So your stepmother was Greek? NV: Yeah. BW: How did your father and stepmother meet? NV: His first cousin was married to her sister. So I guess they dated double. It’s kind of funny because Johnny and Tessy, my aunt and uncle, they had kids of their own. Then my stepmother and dad had kids of their own also, but I was a third cousin to everybody and my little brothers and sisters were first cousins. Kind of weird. BW: What were some of those things that were distinctly Greek that a person that doesn’t know anything about Greek culture would want to learn about? NV: Well it’s not so much now, but the food. Now people know more about the food and really, really like it. It became very popular, but late ‘50s, early ‘60s, people didn’t know much about Greek, Mediterranean cooking. So it kind of kept them from free-wheeling it, but eventually through things like Greek Festival and stuff like that people outside the Greek culture learned to enjoy Greek food and it got really popular. BW: It’s amazing how food is such a cultural identifier. NV: Yeah even now that’s usually one of the bigger conversations. If I just run into you and told you, “Hey I’m Greek,” and this and that. Then you told me, “Well I’m 11 studying whatever,” probably the food angle is what we’d spend most of the time talking about. So yeah you’re right there. BW: What about language? Was it mostly English spoken in the home and in the community? NV: At first no. My stepmother didn’t know any English to speak of, she knew a little bit. My dad spoke very broken English. Some of the others spoke English, but not very well. Now as time has passed they learned to speak better English. You know when they just been here half a dozen years or so they had a real hard time. BW: Did you ever get the sense that they felt that that was holding them back from opportunities? NV: I don’t think so because they weren’t—what’s the word I want? Competing with the outsiders. They were competing with each other. So the competition there wasn’t so much to learn English, it was almost more to learn Greek. DV: Make more money than the other guy. BW: So it sounds like the community was pretty insulated then if there was competition with each other and not from the outside. NV: Well I’d say that. You know there was a large group of bar owners, I think we talked about that. They kind of stuck together and they kind of used that as a comparison. Then there was, there were others that were in the car business. DV: Yeah the Cutrubuses. NV: Some of the younger ones. That’s how I saw it, maybe I’m wrong. BW: No that’s okay, that’s what we want is your perspective. 12 DV: I can add something too because I’m white, they called me white. They didn’t want anything to do with white people. They had friends who were white people who came in the bars and stuff, but they thought they were definitely above white people, so they didn’t want you to mingle with them. That’s why he had such a hard time being involved with me because I was a divorced Americanaka. That was a no-no. BW: So that was actually my next question. When you have a separate community and you’re in a host society that’s predominantly white, in this case predominantly white Mormon, what kind of discrimination did you feel both ways? NV: Well from the Greeks I was a rung below because I should’ve married another Greek and kept the culture alive. On the other side I couldn’t become Americanized because I didn’t really get into that culture. Well that isn’t what I want to say. DV: You stayed Greek Orthodox. Any other religion besides Mormon wasn’t going to fly in those days at all with the indigenous culture, is what you might say, because there was a prejudice against anybody who wasn’t Mormon. NV: Well, another thing is, my folks were divorced in the late ‘40s early ‘50s. Greek people didn’t divorce so much, it’s very small. So that made me different as well and so it made it harder to deal too because I was out there on that count. It wasn’t what it would be for the run-of-the-mill Greek immigrant people you know. BW: So I see a pattern when I talk to the people who come in from various countries. Food, language, religion and in this case a strong marriage culture. All of these things seem to create an identity. What I’m interested in, in your case, is you’ve 13 got a father who is like you said divorced, but also who served the United States military and went out to war despite speaking broken English and feeling probably more Greek than American at times. NV: Oh yeah. BW: That to me is interesting how to negotiate your identity, I guess you could say. What do you hold on to and what do you let go of to become more American? NV: You know I almost have to ask Diana because I wasn’t so aware. I don’t know that my father cared to get Americanized that much. Do you think he did Diana? DV: Nope, he did his own thing and whatever he had to do to accomplish that he’d do, but he wouldn’t join in. He probably had pals in Korea that were other soldiers and stuff but I don’t think he would’ve ever considered them as an equal with him, I don’t think so. I know my father was a good blonde man of Norwegian descent, and he used to come up to Nick’s uncle Johnny’s bar when he worked in the Indian School in Brigham. The Greeks were outgoing and friendly people, but they liked my father really well and they actually liked me pretty well. The Greeks liked me a lot more than my mother’s people did because they were Mormons and I had kind of broken away from them. So actually the Mormon culture had much more prejudice against me… BW: As a former member. DV: Yeah, I was like a foreigner because I understood exactly what they were talking about. The Greek ladies, some of them told me I was too stupid to learn their recipes, but others were quite friendly. Then I had my own recipes and had a restaurant so I kind of absorbed the Greek culture and became more Greek than 14 Mormon because it was more pleasant. I like their ways and I like their customs. I like their weddings and I like the dancing. I like the music too. It was just a funny deal because his people were against me after Nick and I got together, for thirty years, then finally his father told him, “Well she’s not like them, she’s like us.” There’s a lot of American values that aren’t very good, but I didn’t embrace any of those American values that weren’t good. Like I wasn’t immoral, I was a good cook, I took good care of my children, and this is all that they thought, if you could cook and you took good care of your children and your husband then you were okay. It took thirty years to do that, but that’s how they felt. Now if I go down to the Greek Church or anything everyone’s friendly to me and they know my name and they like me. They don’t want me to be any different than I am. BW: Great, I really appreciate that. So you brought up weddings and celebrations and ceremonies. Let’s talk about some of that here in the Greek community. What’s a typical wedding like? What are some of the celebrations that maintain that Greek ethnic identity? NV: Oh of course it’s religious, a religious service that goes along with it and it’s all pretty much the same. In the Greek Church, in their service it’s all spoken in Greek pretty much where if you go to a Mormon wedding or Mormon funeral you know it’s a lot less complicated, a lot less formal. The bishop will get up and say a few words and da da da. Half the time they don’t know the guy, but they say a few good words and all that. Then some of his friends or relatives will get up and say what they have to say about him. Then they’ll say some prayers and bury the person. In the Greek Church you don’t see that. It’s formal, scripted service. 15 DV: And nobody speaks but the priest right? NV: Right and that’s the same with a baptism. DV: They baptize babies that are about eight or nine months old in the water with olive oil and they have very definite traditions like they cut a little bit of hair and they touch the baby’s head. It’s quite moving in a way. Little baby gets a cross from his godparents. Godparents are very important. Right now in Greece if you’re a politician you have 200 godchildren because they’re tight, “nu na,” “nu no.” You’re going to be very much concerned with your godchildren and their parents. They mean it; if you die and your child needs someone to raise them, the godparent will take over. In the old days of course a lot of parents died, and you had a godparent that was important for the raising of the child especially in war-torn Europe or something like that. So that was a necessity, but… BW: That carried over here too? DV: Yep and they got a little bit of prejudice. There was a few crosses burned in Southern Utah on lawns and stuff. It wasn’t like they were embraced by the culture that was here first. That was the way everybody had it with the immigrants. Even my father’s people, the Norwegians, watched what they did. So they wouldn’t offend the Germans or the Poles or whoever was there first. They tended to learn the language real fast, but you did go with your own religions. Like my grandmother who was a Lutheran, she said she would rather die than go to a German Catholic hospital. She wouldn’t go to a German hospital. They were just, a lot of prejudices in the old country which is what I think the idea of America is very important because it kind of combines all these ideas and ethnic ideas 16 and groups and foods. Now people are getting to the point where they really do accept people better. It’s really nice to see. BW: Took a couple hundred years. DV: Yeah, you can still have your traditions, but you don’t have to be against anyone else’s traditions. NV: I guess that’s why in Fiddler on the Roof it took years and years and generations and generations because they didn’t have the transportation or the communication. So they could go through a whole two or three generations without any real changes at all. DV: That’s a good example too because the daddy, Tevye, he resents that his oldest daughter wants to marry someone she loves rather than this old guy that’s rich and he can take care of her, yada yada. She wants to be in love with who she gets married to, which didn’t always happen. So he says, “Who am I? I’m Papa, it’s tradition. Why are they doing this to me?” Even the other two daughters also have different issues to go along with it, but he has to change with the times, but I bet they were that way for thousands of years. He had the total say on everything and there’s a part where he goes to his wife, “Do you love me?” She says, “Well I wash your clothes and make you meals. Yeah, I must love you.” It’s a completely different definition of marriage—the old country way of looking at things. Sometimes it’s better. Sometimes it’s not. A lot of the younger Greek people now are marrying out of their faith or actually forcing the guy they marry to become Greek Orthodox. It’s interesting because it just shows how people are forced to change by their circumstance whether they like it or not. Gus Chournos 17 introduced “souvlaki” to Ogden in his bar, but they didn’t like it at that time (the patrons), thirty, forty years ago, but now everybody’s crazy about “souvlaki.” So it’s another food thing, but if it tastes good people will eat it. NV: Well I think if a person could do a real thorough study of just the Greek ways, the traditions that were brought over from the old country and then could compare them so that everything wasn’t lost, that would be good. I know that when Brian, our son, married a Catholic girl, he had to go to some classes and I don’t know if that prepared him to be baptized or just prepared him to marry into the Catholic church. What they do is they tell you that things are this way, and this is why they are this way, and this is what you need to learn to accept. I think, “Well I don’t think the Greek Church is into this that much and they ought to be.” DV: Some traditions are thousands of years old, like when my daughter was born her godmother cast with the evil eye because her mother was blue-eyed and so they put oil on water and they watch it. I don’t know exactly what they do but she didn’t have the evil eye, but it was a funny thing to me because they cast the evil eye and I said, “Oh okay.” BW: Some cultures put a cowl over your face, and that symbolizes something that is usually spiritual in significance or your ability to tap into spiritual things. DV: Yeah and it’s just from centuries and centuries of superstitions, and I don’t think they’ll go away entirely, but as people get better off seems like religious things kind of get less serious. BW: You mean economically? DV: Yeah when you’re better off you don’t pray and beg to God for as many things. 18 BW: You look for different signs that are spiritual. DV: Yes, would you like to see the 50th anniversary book I got that in the— BW: Sure, you bet. DV: If there’s anything you can take from that then you can borrow that and just bring it back. BW: Sure okay. While she’s getting that, values, ethics, politics, do you see a pretty consistent— NV: Things changed, but the Greeks, not my generation but the generation ahead of me, they consider Franklin Roosevelt almost a God for what he did in Eastern Europe after the war with the Truman plan and keeping the communists out of a lot of places. That was a big hassle because they wanted to preserve the old form of government and it made a lot of difference, but with the help of the United States and stuff they kept the communists pretty much out of a lot of the governments in Eastern Europe. In the old country now it’s getting less and less important, it’s an international situation now more so than it used to be. BW: Thank you for sharing this with us.