Oral History Program Tessie Tsakalos and Jim Tsakalos Interviewed by Lorrie Rands and Brian Whitney 4 March 2015 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Tessie Tsakalos and Jim Tsakalos Interviewed by Lorrie Rands and Brian Whitney 4 March 2015 Copyright © 2015 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: Tsakalos, Tessie and Tsakalos, Jim, an oral history by Lorrie Rands and Brian Whitney, 4 March 2015, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Tessie Tsakalos and Jim Tsakalos 4 March 2015 1 Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Tessie Tsakalos and Jim Tsakalos, conducted by Lorrie Rands and Brian Whitney on March 4, 2015. Tessie Tsakalos was born in Petworth, Greece, and came to the United States in 1951. She and her son, Jim, describe their family businesses and their involvement in the local Greek community. BW: Okay today is March 4, 2015 we are in the home of Tessie Tsakalos in South Ogden interviewing Tessie and her son Jim Tsakalos about their Greek immigrant history. Interviewing today is Lorrie Rands and Brian Whitney. Thanks for inviting us into your home, appreciate it. Although I suppose you didn’t really invite us, T.J. just said they’re going to be coming over. So what I’d like to do is maybe spend twenty minutes talking about your memories of the old world and then if we can talk a little bit about your father, your husband and some of his history. Then I’d like to get a little bit of your memories growing up here in Ogden as well. So let’s start with a simple question. If you could just state your name and when you were born. TT: 1925. JT: February 17th. BW: And you Jim? JT: I was born May 7, 1956. TT: The baby, this is the baby. BW: He’s the youngest? TT: Out of the four, yes. 2 LR: Where were you born? JT: Ogden, the old St. Ben’s, I don’t know if you remember, if you were around or not. It’s up on the top of 30th. BW: Tessie, where were you born? TT: In Petworth, Greece, Petworth. BW: To a large family or small family? TT: A large family, seven. BW: And where do you sit in that family? Are you the middle— TT: In the middle. Two boys ahead of me and one girl. JT: Basically pretty much in the middle, yes. She had four brothers and three sisters—two sisters, so she comes from seven. BW: Tell me a little bit about your parents. TT: They were very poor. They didn’t have nothing to eat especially during the German Occupation. BW: The German Occupation? TT: Yes, they were so mean. JT: Was that the First World War? TT: No, Second. JT: Second World War. TT: That’s why I am here today because I didn’t have no clothes, no food, no school because of them, the Germans. We can’t go outside especially at night time, we can do nothing. When I mean nothing, nothing. We have to stay inside all the time. I don’t know what else to say. 3 BW: I’m sure it was frightening. TT: It was frightening. Almost got, I was in Tripoli, almost. A German came in my house, in our house and he shoot me right here but he missed. I remember he missed. BW: How did your family survive through this? You said you had hardly anything to eat. What did you do? TT: Whatever we can find. They had some property to cultivate… JT: Grew, they farmed so they had… TT: Wheat and vegetables stuff like that. BW: Subsistence farming. JT: Yes wheat and stuff like that. They made… TT: A little bit of meat. JT: They made a lot of their own bread and stuff like that. TT: Oh yeah every house had his own, foúrnos? JT: Oven. TT: Oven, built-in oven, not like we have nowadays. JT: Like a wood burner. TT: We had a little, not very big. During the winter time we have to sleep in one room because it was cold. JT: The home was pretty much like rock or cement back then. Yes they weren’t like this, we have insulation and all that. TT: Rocks. JT: They had windows but wasn’t like the light now. 4 TT: It was not cold like this. It snowed once in a while but not very cold. JT: I remember there were homes up in the mountains, Tripoli and them. A lot of them had outhouses; they didn’t have inside plumbing at the time, now they have. TT: Electricity and plumbing and water in the houses and everything. JT: Yeah they had a little stream there for water and stuff back then. Now they have water coming through their homes now. They have restrooms now. TT: We had to go up about twenty minutes to get the water to drink. It was coming out. JT: Out of the spring. TT: It was clear, no chemicals nothing. Nothing, nothing and cold. There were little kavoúria, this big. JT: They had little crabs in there, freshwater crabs. BW: So you’d eat the crabs? JT: Oh yeah. They get about like that and you can eat them. They would have like a dog, he would take barrels to get water. Take up to the homes and stuff so that’s what they had. TT: Now they have running water, electricity everything they need. BW: They used lanterns for lighting… JT: They did or just had the little, kerosene I guess, they were kind of leaf and we’d have to light them. I remember that. TT: When I went down in Greece he was 6 years old. They had kerosene… JT: Lamps. 5 TT: Yeah and he didn’t know that it was hot. JT: I guess I burned myself. I grabbed it. TT: My cousin’s little boy came over to play with him and said, “Touch it, Jim touch it.” He did and he burned his hand. He got mad the next day, boom, boom, boom. BW: Got him back, huh? When did the Occupation end? TT: Four years after I came. JT: About 1945 because the war was ending. BW: And how was Greece liberated? TT: Ruins everywhere, everywhere. JT: No he said how was it liberated? Who made it, who got rid of the Germans is what he wants to know? TT: England. JT: England, the English. TT: English, the Greeks themselves. I can’t remember, I was too young to remember and I didn’t want to remember. BW: I understand. So how old, how long did you stay in Greece after the war ended? JT: When did you come over here? TT: Truman was president then. JT: Okay, what year did you come here? TT: 1951. BW: So another five years later. So you must have applied right away to leave because I know there’s a time period before you can… JT: Get your visa to leave. 6 TT: Didn’t take too long anyway. When I applied, took my visa and came on the boat called New Greece. BW: New Greece, sailing out of Greece? TT: Yes. BW: So through the Mediterranean? TT: From Pareas to New York. JT: Yeah, well we’d go to New York and then you’d catch a plane or a train or whatever to come out here. TT: Train. JT: Train, a lot of people went by train back in them days. BW: Your whole family came with you or just… TT: No, just me. BW: Just you. TT: Then I brought my sister four years after and my brother. BW: So at this point you’re about 20 years old? TT: Around there, 26. I met my husband and got married after two months. BW: Did you have to be sponsored to come to the U.S.? TT: Yes, my mother’s brother. BW: Your mother’s brother and where… TT: In Salt Lake. BW: How did they get out here? What was their, when did they come? TT: Oh I can’t remember, years and years. I was not born then. BW: Oh I see, for a long time. 7 TT: For a long time yeah. BW: It would be interesting to find out what brought them here. TT: He sponsored me. BW: Do you know what brought them out here? JT: I have no—I don’t know either, I was… TT: Then I had four brothers, you can see here. JT: Oh yeah that’s all her brothers together. TT: This one is younger than me and this one. This older and older, they’re twins. JT: Those brothers that are twins and then she had twins. TT: Two girls, two boys. JT: It runs in our family because she had brothers and then she had twins. So it runs in the family. Her sister Golpho came about four years later. BW: So you said, I know I’m sorry I forgot the date already. 1951? TT: 1951. JT: Yeah that’s when she came over. TT: July ‘51. LR: Why just you? Why did you come alone? TT: Because nobody wanted to come with me. JT: Nobody wanted to come at the time. BW: Why did you decide the U.S.? TT: Why? Nothing to eat. BW: Well no, but rather than going to England or some other country. TT: Because I had my uncle here. 8 JT: Family. BW: That makes sense. TT: My uncle, my cousins. I have some cousins in Park City and Salt Lake City. BW: Do you remember the crossing of the Atlantic? TT: Yes. BW: Tell me about that. What are your memories? JT: Seasick. LR: Seasick, oh darn. TT: Not only me, everyone on the boat because the boat it was too old. JT: It rocked a lot I guess. Now you don’t feel the waves. TT: Not now. We went back to Greece on the boat. BW: Oh you took a boat? JT: We went to New York and we took a boat from there to Greece. I can’t remember—it took like, what, fifteen days? TT: Twelve. JT: Twelve days to get there and then flew back and took a train back. TT: Yeah my husband told me, “If you don’t come soon I’m going to—you’re going to find me in Provo.” So we took the airplane. BW: Do you remember first seeing New York? TT: A little bit, not much. They were all four too young and I couldn’t go anyplace. I remember staying in the train station and crying. BW: You were crying? 9 TT: Crying because I couldn’t speak English. Then a guy came asked me, “Why are you crying?” I said, “I don’t know what to do. I have four kids and I don’t know where to catch the train to go to Chicago.” He helped me and that was it, you know. Then in Chicago I had some friends, stay overnight. Before I go to Chicago… BW: So let me back up here. You had your children in Greece before moving here? JT: No we went back to Greece to visit. BW: Oh this is during the visit. JT: Then on the way back we took a plane. So we took a boat out and then on the way back we took a plane to New York and then from New York we got on the train and headed to like Chicago and back here. TT: Then when I arrived in New York the agency was supposed to pick me up and put me on train. They didn’t find me, I don’t know for reason. I start crying and crying and crying. There a couple in Chicago were waiting for their company and asked me, “Why are you crying?” I said, “I don’t know nobody here. I don’t know the language. I don’t know what to do.” They said, two nuns came over and ask me, “Why I cry?” I know what they’re both saying, you know. They told me, “Don’t worry about it. We’re going to take care of you.” Then I went to Chicago, from Chicago to Salt Lake with my family. JT: Back then a lot of the trains, Amtrak or whatever you call it was big back in the days. A lot of people took the train back then. It kind of died out here now; it’s come back a little bit, but not like it was. The Ogden Station used to actually stop there, but now you have to go to Salt Lake and no more over there. 10 TT: When I came from Greece to Chicago on a train we didn’t know how to say, “I’m hungry or something.” A guy came over and asked, “What do you want?” I end up with peas. BW: So are we still talking about the second trip? Now we’re talking about the first trip? TT: First trip. JT: First trip back when we were little. I was like 6 then, and we went back again after that one more time. She went with my sister a couple times. BW: So what I’m curious about is the first time when you were alone. TT: Yes. BW: With no family, no children. TT: No. BW: And you came over to the United States. TT: Yes. BW: You knew you were coming to Salt Lake City because you were being sponsored. TT: Chicago, I stayed in Chicago and then… JT: Because her family that sponsored her was out of Salt Lake. BW: Had a place to stay. Did they ask if you were going to have a job or work? TT: No. They asked me if I know how to write and read that’s it. When how you say, I can’t remember, the guy that… JT: Interviewed. 11 TT: Interviewed, I said, “Yes I do. Not very well, but I do.” If we didn’t, we could not come up here which I don’t blame them you know. I had hard time until came to Salt Lake and my uncle didn’t come to the station to pick me up. My mother’s brother, he didn’t know me, I didn’t know him either. I was sitting there crying and he came, “Why are you crying?” In Greek, I said, “I’m lost.” “I’m your uncle,” he said, picked me up and went to his house. Everybody was happy to see me. I had a hard time when I was young girl and I feel like to cry now. BW: Well it’s okay, these are powerful stories. So you arrive here in ’51; how long after that did you meet… TT: My husband? About a month after. His uncle introduced us and he told my husband, “I know a girl for you.” He said, “No, I don’t want to get married.” “If you see her, you will.” First time we introduced to each other he said, “Yeah I do, you’re cute.” BW: Okay, I’ll do it. What was he doing for work at that time? TT: Oh he was working for his brother-in-law in a bar. BW: I’ve heard some of this story and we’ll talk a little bit more about his work history. TT: He was working for his brother-in-law and then we have our first child. He tried to find something better, work you know, so make more money for the family. He opened the M&M Tavern. BW: About what year did he open M&M Tavern? TT: Tavern on 25th Street. JT: No, what year? TT: What year? ‘51, ‘52 I think. 12 LR: So shortly after you were married then? TT: Yes we had our first child. BW: He was living up here in Ogden at the time? TT: No, before I get married I live in Salt Lake, but after yes. JT: No he asked, what about Pop? Where he lived? Was he living in Ogden? TT: In Ogden. BW: Met you, you move up here with him after you got married? TT: Yes after we were married I moved up here. He was a good guy, I can tell you that. The best guy in the world. For the family he did everything he could. BW: How was it for you up here in Ogden starting a new family, a new business? What are your memories of Ogden? TT: My memories were I didn’t speak English. I had hard time until little bit you know, and I want to bring my sister here, but I had to be American citizen. Nobody can be American citizen until five years after you come here. I want to bring my sister and I apply for my citizenship. There was a lady that did the examination. Boy she was mean and asked me, “Do you know the Constitution?” I said, “Ma’am if I didn’t know the Constitution of America I wouldn’t be here, I’d be in Greece.” She turned me down and the second time same thing, I didn’t answer all the questions. Then he turned me down and he said, “Why you don’t want to go to school?” I said, “I have three kids.” I didn’t have Jim. He said, “Well have your husband watch them.” “He works nights and does whatever he can to raise a family.” 13 “Leave them with a babysitter.” I said, “I don’t trust a babysitter.” So he turned me down again and the day for signing for the guy that said you pass it or you not, I don’t know how you say it. He ask that lady, the examiner, “Why you turn her down?” She said this and this and this and this. She has three little babies and she can’t, she have nobody to trust. I don’t want to leave them with babysitter and she said, then don’t trust the babysitter. What better excuse you want? He said, “I’m going to give her the papers.” And he did. What better excuse. Yeah I did have this one here. BW: Did you find friends out here early on? TT: My sister-in-law I had first and then in Salt Lake we start going to church in Salt Lake, we didn’t have Greek Church here. BW: Okay so you went down to Salt Lake for church? JT: Went down to the old Holy Trinity it’s on west down there. TT: That was it. BW: There was some Greek community up here in Ogden at that time. JT: There was. TT: Very few. BW: Very few, did you know them, did you start getting along? TT: A little, you know little by little. Not all of them. JT: Later, after the church when we started going here, we met most of the other Greeks. BW: So that really helped to create a community? JT: Yeah because we were all going there. 14 TT: The community’s growing and everybody got married and they have kids. The kids have kids. JT: They finally had enough of the Greek community to build the church. So then the building of the church, we all used to have to go to Salt Lake. BW: 1964 or somewhere around there. JT: It was in the ‘60s, I can’t remember for sure. TT: Yeah ‘64, what year did we go to Greece? JT: I don’t remember. TT: 1964. Yeah ‘64. BW: I know they just had their 50th anniversary. JT: Yeah that was like last year. Was it ‘64 then? Yeah it’d be ‘64. TT: We have a festival every year. JT: Theirs is bigger and we only have Friday and Saturday. BW: So it’s a festival specifically for your congregation? JT: Fundraiser for the church. TT: For the church and they donate to the Red Cross, to the Children’s Hospital and other I can’t remember. JT: I don’t know if you’ve ever been to the food festival. LR: My co-workers go every year. JT: Yeah they have all the food there you want. BW: Oh we need to go. JT: It’s always the last weekend in September. LR: All you have to do is say something to Melissa and Sarah and they’ll take you. 15 BW: I’m not from Utah so this is… TT: You’re not from Utah. JT: Yeah they have anything you can think of there. TT: Pastries. JT: Oh yeah if you want pastries. They got all the Greek pastries. They make them, oh yes. TT: Have you been? LR: I haven’t, my co-workers they always go and bring back this like, it just blows my mind how much food it is. I just look at it and go, “That looks really good, but I can’t eat it.” JT: Yeah they, there’s a guy comes every year. We open at 10, but he’s there like 8 o’clock with his list and he buys 600 dollars’ worth of food. I mean he just buys like ten of everything, ten or twenty and then he freezes them and eats it all year so he can have Greek food all year long. LR: Smart guy. JT: Every year at the festival he does that. I mean it’s amazing. TT: Everybody tells us, “You’re supposed to have it two or three times a year.” I said, “If you come and help we’ll do it.” JT: That’s a lot of work. BW: Let’s talk about your husband a little bit more. First of all, what’s his name? TT: John. BW: John Tsakalos. He has a unique story. Tell me, he was born… TT: In Pocatello, Idaho, from Greek parents in Pocatello, Idaho. 16 BW: Yeah, when? JT: Oh September 6, 1918. If he was still alive he’d be 90-something now. Could you believe she just turned 90? TT: His mother… LR: I can’t. JT: She did, she just turned 90 in February. LR: Wow. BW: That’s great. TT: Oh thank you. JT: He had a sister too that was born. Had two sisters and I know Coola, I don’t know if you’ve talked to any of the Talatasas yet. JT: Oh you’re supposed to talk to Marino too, Talatasas? BW: Yeah. JT: Yeah that’s his dad that came. My dad’s sister married him. That’s how we became—that’s how we’re related. TT: His mother’s brother got drowned in the Pocatello River when he was… JT: He drowned not drunk. TT: They were drunk, drowned. Anyway, okay drunk. JT: Maybe he was drunk when he drowned. TT: He got drowned. JT: Maybe he was drunk when he drowned I don’t know, it’s possible. TT: His mother, my husband’s mother couldn’t stand living in Pocatello anymore after he died because he was the only brother she had. They went back to Greece. 17 BW: So that’s why they left was because of the drowning? JT: Yeah they went back to Greece. TT: Yes when he was 18 months old and his sister, 6 months old because of that reason. JT: She was born too, Marino’s mom born in Pocatello too. So and then my dad came back here, he was actually in WWII, the U.S. Army. TT: For five years. JT: I don’t know if T.J. told you that or not. BW: So what was he doing in Greece during this time? Because he grew up in Greece. TT: Yes. JT: Right, pretty much yeah. TT: Farming. His father was a butcher. BW: So he was learning to be a butcher? TT: Yes. JT: My dad actually did that for a while. He did that before he opened the bar with my uncle. He was working for a butcher place, I can’t remember, downtown Ogden. So he actually was a butcher. TT: He left when he was 20 years old before. He left Greece when he was 20 years old. BW: Stop for a second here, we need to…I’m sorry what was that? TT: Nick’s father married my sister. 18 BW: Okay so we were talking about John’s time in Greece. He was learning to be a butcher and then you said… TT: Yes he graduated from high school. BW: Okay so he went to high school in Greece? TT: Yes and then he left Greece when he was 20 years old because he didn’t want to join the Army because if he did he couldn’t come back here. BW: Okay join the Greek Army? TT: He didn’t. He left. BW: That’s the Army he would’ve had to… TT: Yes he went to France stay a month until they sent him his passport and came over. LR: And then he joined the American Army? TT: Yes, five years. BW: And he went to the Pacific right? TT: He went to India. I can’t remember where, but he was in the Army for five years. BW: Now I understand he was able to be a cook in the Army. TT: Yes, he liked to cook. BW: I’m sure everybody appreciated having a good cook. TT: I still have his uniform downstairs. LR: Really? TT: Yeah, want to take a picture of it? LR: Yeah. 19 BW: So one of the things that T.J. mentioned was that he was nervous that he might lose his American citizenship if he didn’t… TT: If he stayed, yes if he stayed in Greece and joined the Army, yes. BW: So that was a real possibility that he would lose his citizenship if he joined another Army? TT: Yes, he had no choice, but to join when he was 21 you know. BW: Now I understand he was discharged; he did five years in the Army and then discharged in San Francisco? TT: Yes. BW: So when did he come to Utah after that? Do you know? TT: I can’t remember. I think he stayed in California a couple of years and then he came here but I can’t remember exactly. BW: He worked for Hill Air Force Base. TT: He did a little bit. He knew… BW: Was that before you were married? TT: Before, before. After we got married he worked for his brother-in-law. BW: Do you know the name of this brother-in-law’s tavern? TT: Falstaff. And he opened his own called the M&M. LR: Because Falstaff was on 25th Street. TT: Then he moved to 16th and Wall Avenue. BW: So he, I’m trying to look at the notes that T.J. sent me here. Yes, so 1600 Wall Avenue is what I have. He had that business for a long time. TT: Until he got sick. 20 BW: How many years do you think he ran the business? TT: The place you mean? BW: M&M. TT: M&M, maybe twenty. BW: Twenty years or so. Did he end up having to sell it in the end? TT: No he got sick and he was in the St. Ben’s for ten days. Then I drive him to VA. JT: He had a stroke, a massive stroke actually. TT: I sold the place. BW: You sold the place? TT: Yes, just the business. JT: He was paralyzed on one side and stuff so there was no, speech was gone too. He had like a trache here, he could speak very little with it, but it damaged his vocal cords and everything. So he was pretty messed up so he wasn’t going to be able to go back. TT: He had so many tubes. They feed him by tube, couldn’t eat, couldn’t swallow nothing. JT: Yeah he had feeding tubes, he couldn’t swallow and stuff. We end up selling the place, we had it for quite a while. Used to be down on the corner where the Federal Building is in Ogden. You know when they bought that he moved out on 16th, 17th… TT: 16th. JT: 16th and Wall. Oh but Nick’s dad he worked out, they bought a bar before he opened the M&M. Him and Nick’s dad, Alex, out there on the old highway. They 21 called it the Old Chico and called it the Golden Spike after. Yeah it’s out there off Harrisville Road out there. That was back in the ‘40s I think, when they bought that one. I don’t know how long they had it before he bought the M&M. TT: Couldn’t get along with his brother-in-law. JT: Yeah that’s when my dad decided to open his own after that by himself. BW: T.J. was telling me that being a Greek in Ogden you really felt that your opportunities were either being limited to being in restaurant work, tavern work or mining. JT: That pretty much summed it up. TT: Not in Ogden. JT: Unless you went to school. I mean, T.J. became an attorney; my sisters, one became a teacher, but I guess she didn’t like it or something and ended up going for dispatch for South Ogden City then she went into probation officer. She ended up retiring about fifteen years after that. TT: She worked at Brigham City and then Layton, not Layton. JT: Well that’s when she became probation in Farmington. Then she retired, but my other sister was working for Ogden City and then she married an attorney herself. She ended up working for him doing his legal, you know secretary for him. He was a divorce attorney so he did mediations. Now they have mediators you got to go through this. So he just does that mediation and they set up. That’s what they do. Me, I went to work as a white collar, well blue-collar worker myself. TT: We went to Greece, my husband and I. What year? JT: That was in 1975. 22 TT: Yeah, 1975. JT: They went back, my mom and dad and my sister. TT: We went to Creed, Santorini, other islands I can’t remember the names. BW: Where did you live here in Ogden when you were… TT: On 25th Street. No, I mean 21st street. BW: On 21st street. TT: Above Harrison, Washington or Harrison? JT: Monroe. LR: Above Monroe, okay. JT: Then we bought this house brand new. They built it in 1961 or ‘60 around there. TT: And then we moved to Jefferson, rented a house on Jefferson. JT: Off of 12th and Jefferson. TT: Then moved here. JT: Then they started doing this. This was all sand hills and sagebrush and stuff. They started putting—this is a subdivision and the only thing that was here back then. BW: Is this the home you grew up in? JT: I did, I was like 5 years old when we moved in. TT: 4. JT: We’ve been here ever since. TT: We celebrate your 4 years in this house and the girls were 6. JT: Yeah we were like two years apart, all of us. BW: What was the neighborhood like? Did you get to know your neighbors? 23 TT: Yeah there were a few. JT: Yeah because there was just like across the street. This house, that house and the one like here to here that was it. Then they slowly started building. BW: Greek neighbors or… JT: No. TT: Yeah, there some Greeks here. JT: Well we have now, but when we first got here we were the only Greeks at the time. TT: What are the other ones? She had three boys. JT: Zachary and them. Yeah I can’t remember what their last name was. There is another Greek two houses this way and then there’s another one that lives over here. Then there was another behind him, but now they moved further up here. There’s a few, there was Cutrubus. I don’t know if you’ve heard of Cutrubus. They actually lived up here, couple houses over here. Then you had other Greeks live back there I can’t remember. TT: About seven Greek families live around here. BW: So did you grow up playing with the other… JT: I did, the other Greeks yeah. BW: Let’s switch to your childhood a little bit here. How did you feel growing up? Did you feel that you were just integrated into the community or did you feel like you had to kind of stick with the Greek crowd? JT: Pretty much, no I didn’t really stick with the Greek crowd a lot. A lot of my friends were right here that I grew up and went to school with. So I ended up hanging 24 with them most of my life. Then you end up getting older and going your separate ways, but I still have one friend that I went to school and stuff. He lives in the terrace a little ways from me and we still hunt and fish together. So we still hang, but the only one from school basically because everybody else either moved or done their own you know. BW: T.J. was telling me that he felt some discrimination. JT: There was if you were non-LDS. TT: There was, oh excuse me. JT: There was a lot of LDS people in schools and there was that discrimination there a little bit. TT: There he is right there. JT: There’s so many different cultures now in this day that it’s changed a lot then back to now. TT: He was an A student and he was supposed to get an award because he was not Mormon, excuse me if one of you are. BW: It’s okay, these are the stories. TT: They didn’t give it to him and everybody said, “You’re supposed to get it. Not him, you know like he did.” Do you know his name? I can’t remember. JT: I can’t remember that back then. TT: Just because he wasn’t Mormon. JT: Like in school, the football, basketball stuff you were discriminated against too. TT: This one too. 25 JT: Basketball you know and stuff. You were pretty limited in what they let you do back then as far as who they picked. I mean they didn’t come out and say, “You’re not Mormon. You’re not going to be on the team.” You could tell the LDS had a lot of influence back then. LR: So you felt like it wasn’t your Greek heritage that was the issue. It was because you weren’t LDS? JT: Because I wasn’t in a religion. If I had been LDS it would’ve been different even though I was Greek. BW: It was a religious… JT: Yeah you pretty kept away from each other back then. I mean really it was. TT: In that corner were Mormons across street corner and another one of his friends two or three houses down on this side. All the kids he said went down there and play. One of his brother, it was younger than him I think. Yeah and they didn’t want him to play. He went home and said, “They don’t want to play with me.” He had a big brother, older brother than Jim and he went there and punch him in his stomach. I was outside washing the driveway when he went there. I was sure he was going to beat Jim and crump. JT: He slapped him, but they don’t want to hear that. TT: It’s all right and his mother came over the next day and said, “Why did you hit my son?” I said, “If they were same age I didn’t care. He’s going to give some, he’s going to take some.” But he was how many years older than you? JT: Brad was Ty’s age. 26 TT: So anyway the next day a policeman came over. Said, “Did you do that?” I said, “Yes sir. I did.” “You know they’re going to take you to court.” I said, “Okay. Tell them to take me to court and I have some information about their son.” Another was living and they took a little girl and touched her. “They’re going to take you to court.” “Tell them to take me.” The policeman said, “Well I know how you feel because it happened to my neighbors. I can’t do what you did.” I have him a, like this. Well if they were both same age I don’t care because they’re going to get give and take. JT: But he was about four years older than me at least because he was T.J.’s age. They were all two years, like T.J. and then my sisters were like two years. TT: They didn’t. They didn’t take me to court. BW: Tessie how did you feel in the community? Did you always feel like you were an outsider to the community or still integrated? TT: Not really, there were some good people. Talk, come visit with me and exchanged gifts or something, cookies or stuff like that. JT: That was down on 12th street. We lived and there was a neighbor lady, that Guatti, remember? TT: Not 12th street, Jefferson. JT: Well off of Jefferson yeah. She was Mormon, but she watched us when my mom had to go someplace. She would watch us and she just loved us kids. She was great. She was a pretty great, her brother and sister, her daughter, they were all just really great. There were a lot of them that were pretty nice, but I would say the majority, and you’re growing up in Utah, they had their group. 27 BW: T.J. was telling me also that he felt some discrimination because of the line of work that your father was in? JT: Yeah because a lot of people and bar back then. BW: Did you spend any time on 25th Street as a kid? JT: No, I mean I went down with my mom every once in a while, she took my dad lunch or something. As far as when he moved from there we were still pretty young. LR: Did you ever work in the tavern? JT: I did, when I turned 21. I did for two, three years until he got sick. After he got sick and then I worked for another Greek that had a vending company. Then I went out, worked utility trailer after that. I put thirty years in there so I stayed out there. BW: T.J. told me that your husband had to work eighteen hours a day. JT: He worked a lot of hours. He’d get up in the morning to go open the place, you know get the till out. When the gal come in then he’d come home, eat lunch, take a… TT: A nap. JT: Take a nap and then he’d go right back down there until closing every night, clean up. BW: Which would be really late? JT: Well back then it was 1 o’clock, then we’d turn the clock ahead you could stay open until 2. Then on Sundays he vacuum and clean everything up for the next 28 day. So he’d get home like 3, 3:30. Then he’d get up again, open the bar and let the gal in and open the safe up for the till. He did that for a lot of years. TT: He was laid down right here while he was still work. He said, “Fix me something to eat.” “What do you want?” He said, “Whatever, but I want it homemade food.” I said, “Can you make a sandwich?” He said, “No, homemade.” JT: Yeah we… TT: During the phone rang, the girl didn’t show up. Make me a sandwich I got to go. JT: Yeah he, we never ate out a lot. My mom’s a great Greek cook. So we ate home-cooked food, fortunate for that because a lot of people nowadays just eat out. TT: I did feed him baby food. I always cooked them and mashed them. BW: So that leads me to my next question. A lot of times I think living in America some people feel like they lose a sense of their cultural identity. TT: They do. BW: How did you maintain that with your children? TT: Oh well I never forget my family, my friends, my childhood and my honor. JT: See they spoke Greek to us. Both my dad, he spoke real good English and Greek, but when we were little we went to school we didn’t know much English. We knew more Greek because that’s all they spoke to us. So it kept the Greek culture in the house. BW: Language is key. JT: Yeah it helps, it’s the Greek culture. So we all speak Greek, all four of us. BW: And food. JT: And the food, yeah it was Greek food. All the, they have different spices… 29 BW: Would you take food to school with you, Greek food to school? JT: Well I would take a lunchbox until I went to high school then we went through school lunch. Back then they were like a quarter or dime or something. They weren’t very much back then. BW: The reason I ask that is because I’ve also heard some stories where kids taking food to school that’s different than what the other kids are eating around them. JT: Right, we would take our lunch boxes when I was growing, through elementary school and stuff like that. I got into junior high and high school then we would eat the school lunches. TT: When we have a, during Easter season before for forty days you have to… BW: Lent. TT: Yes and when it was time to take Holy Communion I didn’t want them eating school lunch, I took them lunch. I remember that. Do you remember Jim? JT: No. TT: Yeah took them lunch. BW: So religious observance was important? JT: She took us to church so that kept the— TT: To God, Sunday School. JT: That kept the Greek culture in the house too because we went to the Greek Church for stuff you know. TT: What religion you are? BW: Oh I’m LDS. TT: That’s all right, it’s okay. 30 BW: I’m not a very good one though. JT: That’s funny, like I say my buddy he’s LDS and we still hang out so that’s, you know it’s been a long time. BW: I always say, “I’m LDS, but I’m from Seattle.” JT: Seattle. TT: How you become LDS in Seattle? BW: My mother converted. JT: You become LDS in Seattle. Apparently there’s LDS there too. TT: Let me tell you something so you can laugh. BW: What was that? TT: Let me tell you something so you can laugh, but don’t take it personally. When we first move here we had the couch here and my husband was laying down during summertime. He had a can of beer in his hand and somebody came at the door and it was lady missionaries. He was in his shorts, he opened the door and he said—whoosh. He ran away. JT: Yeah he opened the door with his beer and his boxers. BW: Next house, huh? TT: They ran away. JT: Yeah we first moved here, a lot of them came all the time here, missionaries, trying to convert you because you’re non-LDS family. Then back then they—and here lately every about a year or two they come again and quit again. There’s a lot of non-LDS people in this community now too. So these homes are old 31 homes; they’re cheaper, people can’t afford the new ones. So you get a lot of the Hispanics and stuff move in here and stuff. TT: I’m better LDS. I don’t drink nothing, honest. JT: Yeah she’s never drank or smoked. BW: Really? You’re better than me. TT: I don’t drink nothing, nothing. JT: My dad he was a drinker and a smoker too. So that probably caused problems when he had his stroke I’m sure. Oh yeah he quit about five years but they said the damage was done. TT: I have problem with my thyroid, overactive thyroid. He took me to doctor down here and they said, “What do you eat?” I said, “Dandelions, fish, not too much meat.” JT: A lot of greens you know. TT: I don’t drink nothing but water. He said, “That’s why you’re 90 years old.” I make my own bread. JT: Bakes a lot of old food here. BW: T.J. was telling me also that you got a television so you could learn English. TT: Yeah, I have two. JT: No back then. BW: Back then to help you learn English you… TT: A little bit. Usually he talked English, my husband. He spoke very good English. Then I associate with the neighbors. Little by little I learn. When I was living 32 Jefferson between 29th, 28th Jefferson my next door neighbor they were Mormons but they were very nice people. JT: I already told them. TT: My husband said, “How you two can communicate? She can’t speak English you can’t speak Greek.” She said, my neighbor, “Don’t worry when it comes to gossip, we’re doing okay.” BW: When it comes to gossip we can talk. LR: Yeah women know how to communicate. JT: So that’s no problem. TT: She said, “Don’t worry when it comes to gossip we’re doing okay.” LR: Makes perfect sense to me. TT: She was a nice lady, very nice lady. He got sick, we took him to the hospital in the middle of the night. She came over with her daughter and stayed with my other kids. Then came over when we moved here and she was 4? 4, yeah and they always played with the other kids. One of the kids threw a rock and hurt him right here. She was here, you know my neighbor and she came in, “You know a little boy took a rock and flick here.” He said because he couldn’t speak English and put it here. LR: Do you have more questions? BW: Well I guess some questions I have is raising your children. You’re a, I know T.J. excelled in school. He was in AP classes and ended up getting a scholarship, but how important was education? TT: The best. The best was for them to be educated. 33 BW: Did you feel that their… TT: It was important. BW: Some opportunities really came out of being good at school… TT: Yes. BW: Maybe, I’m having a hard time formulating the question off of this. One thing that I’ve noticed with a lot of immigrant families is that they feel that part of the reason they came here was for better opportunity for their children. TT: That’s for sure. JT: That’s true. BW: Tell me a little more on your feelings for that. TT: I’m happy. I met my husband here and raised a family. There is four kids, all four of them are good kids. I have no complaints. Sometimes I had this, put this to work and I’m happy with all four of them. JT: Well here in the U.S. you get spoiled, you go back over in Greece and stuff you know, now and back even when things were going good here. In fact there’s still, cost of living’s just high over in those countries. Over here you’re spoiled because… TT: You’ve got everything, anything you need. JT: Yeah you’ve got everything so the United States is probably a better opportunity for a lot of people when they come over. They figure a lot of them open restaurants where there you couldn’t do it. TT: Now they have everything. Washing machines, stoves and everything. That time when I was a kid they had to take the clothes to wash the river. 34 JT: The sun. TT: No— JT: Fire. TT: Fire to… JT: Fire to heat up the water. TT: And wash the clothes, put them on the trees to get dry. It was hard life there. Now they have everything even stoves, washing machines, everything. They have electricity. They didn’t have then. JT: See when I went back there I was 35. TT: Not in Greece, just a small village. JT: Beautiful country, but I wouldn’t live there, because I’m spoiled here. Everything there like when we take showers they have to heat up the water. They have like an electric heater and they turn it on. They heat up the water and then they don’t have like where you just leave it on while you’re showering, they like wash themselves down, put the soap on and then they turn it on again. Again they turn the heater off. That’s how it is still over there. Everything’s so high that they conserve for everything. They don’t, here we leave everything going like water heater. You don’t turn your water off when you’re taking a shower. You do when you’re done, you know what I mean. There everything’s just like that. Gas, I mean they drive all small cars. You don’t see big trucks like you do, SUVs you don’t see very many of them in Greece because of the gas. You only get the sixty, forty miles to the gallon cars that, they’re all small cars. That’s how the economy is, most of it. Yeah U.S. you have better opportunity. 35 TT: Well don’t forget that Greece was the most beautiful country. They had educated people before Christ and after. After they got under the occupation of Turks couldn’t do nothing. Just work, work, work for them. They had hard time and now they live their way. JT: If we lived there I don’t think T.J. would’ve been an attorney. You know my mom probably would’ve never met my dad TT: There’re other men in Greece too. JT: You know he probably wouldn’t have made his living on his own over here. Like over there he did here opening his own business and stuff you know. I mean he didn’t make a lot of money, but he made… TT: Enough to send us to Greece. JT: Buy a home, take care of the family, go to school. We’d go on vacation every once in a while. We would go you know and I don’t think if we’d stayed there that would’ve never happened. I don’t think T.J. would’ve been an attorney. I don’t think my sisters would’ve gotten their education and stuff. TT: Depends on the, your, if you want to or not sometimes you know. BW: So what I’m hearing is there were challenges in coming here and restarting everything over, learning the language the culture here, but at the same time you felt it was worth it. TT: Sometimes. Yeah but sometimes I get sick, homesick because I had brothers and sisters there. I had cousins, I have… JT: You got no more sisters there. TT: Not now. Yeah the culture is different, the language. So I miss it. 36 LR: It sounds like you made the best of what you could here and your children are a prime example of that. JT: I think we’re better off here than we would’ve been there. I really believe that we wouldn’t have got the education to have what we have. TT: There’re a lot of educated people here. JT: I just don’t think, I’m not saying they’re not educated I’m just saying we wouldn’t have got the education like we got here. That’s what I’m saying. I’m saying Ty might have gone to school, but I don’t think he would’ve been an attorney. Joanne, Elaine would’ve got their school as far as teachers and stuff over there. They might have got education but I don’t believe they would’ve became teachers or Elaine would’ve gone into the probation thing like she did. I don’t think they would’ve had that education over there. TT: Okay, bravo. Bravo. LR: So you’re grateful for the choices your mother made? JT: Yeah. TT: He is but I’m not. JT: I’ve never lived there. I mean I was there for a couple weeks, but I wouldn’t live there. I’m too spoiled here. You know and the life over there is tough and that’s why I don’t think we would’ve had what we have as far as our education. Buying our own vehicles, I don’t think we would’ve had all that over there. BW: Do you think we take it for granted a little bit? JT: I think the U.S. does and I think that’s a lot of the problems with these countries over there. They don’t like that we’re so free and we’re, you know, pretty much 37 got everything. Really I mean the U.S. does, I mean you’re not denied hardly anything here. Anything you need as far as you go to different countries you’re strict. A lot of them you can’t even do nothing without the government. I mean at least here you can if you want to go to the bowling alley, get in your car and go to the bowling alley. I don’t have to worry about anything. You know we’re pretty much spoiled here no doubt. BW: So what do you think in this area, what’s the legacy of the Greek community here in Ogden? You have this festival, what can we learn from the Greek community here? That’s a tough question for you. TT: Really tough. JT: It is tough. TT: Well first of all the religion is different. The culture is different. JT: The culture. TT: We used to celebrate Name Days, not birthdays. We exchange visits with other neighbors, friends. Now nothing, everything is dead. BW: So we’ve lost some of the Greek culture? TT: Oh no, not me. I have a neighbor, not the next house but the next one, they’re both from Greece. They had a boy and a girl, they’re both lawyers now. So I visit with her. They come here, another Greek down there, there’s too many Greeks around here. BW: Do you feel that the next generation, your children and grandchildren are they losing some of the… TT: They do. 38 JT: They’ve lost a lot of it because… TT: Well not all of them, some of them do. There’s in Layton, there’s so many Greeks. JT: Around here, we’re not talking about Layton. TT: No I mean the Greeks. JT: He’s talking about your grandkids. TT: Oh grandkids, oh yeah they do. Depends on the parents too. JT: Like I say like my sister, you know, she kind of quit going to church so she never really took her kids when they were growing up so they never got into the Greek culture. TT: Yeah depends on the parents. JT: I mean they know like the Greek Festival. They might go over there and help out, but as far as getting involved in any of the Greek stuff they do not. LR: So is the religion tied into the culture? JT: The Greek religion is really… LR: Very intricate and part of the culture. JT: Yes. TT: To see the difference, T.J.’s daughter. She’s Orthodox, she got married in the church; she’s a nice little girl. My daughter Elaine that’s the one here in the middle at first she took the kids too, but as the kids and everything. I don’t know what happened to her, not change a little bit. JT: Yeah they went to church, got baptized and then quit going. Now their kids don’t really go. 39 BW: So not only did they lose their religious connection but they lost some of their ties to the Greek culture? TT: No. not yet, but they’re going to. BW: But they’re going to. TT: I think so. BW: You fear for that. So in your opinion one way to maintain the Greek culture and tradition is to maintain the Orthodox faith? TT: Faith. BW: And practice? TT: And practice. JT: The Greek community here, they’re really tight. I mean you know all the Greek stick together basically. So you know it’s tight and the religion has a lot to do with that. BW: So not just the practice but also the social aspects of being with the rest of the Greek community? JT: Well, they have their little—you know—like LDS has Relief Society, Greeks have like the HEPA and stuff like that, they have all that. Where they get together… BW: Groups? TT: Yeah groups. JT: They get together and stuff and so they have those, call them a little different, but they’re basically the same thing just a different name for them. BW: Absolutely. TT: We have some outsides that they’ve come to the church and become Orthodox. 40 JT: Well that happens in every religion though. BW: A few converts here and there. JT: Yeah you get that. TT: Nobody asked them to do, they do it on their own. BW: I would love to come visit sometime. I’ve been saying that for a while, I would love to. TT: You’re welcome. JT: Come to the church. Yeah anybody’s welcome you can go in. You can go to the Salt Lake one, you can go there. BW: Thank you for sharing this with us.