Nick had called his aunt Helen in St. Louis to try to get more information on the Pappas family.
This is the extract of the telephone conversation between Nick: J. Adams & his Aunt Helen:
March 1996
NICK The reason I called is that I have a lot of questions about the family. Like about your Grandfather, Pappou Gianni. Do you remember things like what dates he died?
HELEN Yeah, I don’t remember.
NICK Do you remember who came over first? Like did he (Pappou Gianni) come over and then bring your Father1 over?
HELEN He came over first then he sent for his wife. Because Yia Yia2 was his second wife .
NICK Well your real Grandmother, the first wife3 , did she come over?
HELEN She died. She died over in Greece. And Pappou when married again he had, I mean with the first wife he had Uncle Vangeli4 and my Father.
NICK Just the two brothers, right?
HELEN Yeah.
NICK Who was the first born your Father or…..
HELEN I think my Father was.
NICK He was the older boy.
HELEN I think he was and then Uncle Vangeli.
NICK Yeah, yeah.
HELEN And Pappou he was studying to be a priest over there.
NICK Pappou Gianni?
HELEN And then something happened, I don’t know what, but he killed a man over there.
NICK Oh he did!
HELEN I don’t know what the reason was, I never found out.about it. They never talked about it. Then he came to America. And then he married, I mean he married Yia Yia which was Nota’s5 sister.
NICK Wasn’t it Gus’ sister?.., wasn’t it……
HELEN No, no it was Nota’s
NICK It was Nota’s
HELEN Yeah, Nota’s sister.
NICK Now wait a minute..
HELEN Gus was my Mother’s brother.
NICK Wait back up again.
HELEN My Mother and Uncle Gus, brother and sister. And Nota and Yia Yia Anna and Uncle George their brother6 is sisters(sic). And then she had Uncle George and Aunt Helen, Yia Yia Anna. Then, let’s see, Pappou came over and then he sent for Aunt Anna(sic), and then he opened up a tailor shop. I forget now where it was, he was doing tailoring. Then my Father came, now I don’t know when Uncle Vangeli, if they came over together or what, my Father came over first, then he brought my Mother over.
NICK He married her over there?
HELEN He married her over in Greece and then he brought her over. And he was working as a carpenter, he had done odd jobs, my Father. And then he had, they had, Angeline, Jimmy and then Connie and George and the rest of us. We were all born here.
NICK Jimmy was the first born son?
HELEN No Angie, your Mother was.
NICK Son though, I thought Johnny was the first born.
HELEN No Jimmy was the first born.
NICK Oh, Jimmy was older, oh, o.k.
HELEN Then came
NICK There was my Mother, my Mother was first, Jimmy was second.
HELEN Then Connie was third, and then Johnny was fourth and then George was after Connie, George.
NICK George .
HELEN and then Johnny
NICK Johnny and then you, yeah, o.k.
HELEN I can’t remember all of it. I don’t know when Pappou came over or when he died.
NICK I have a vague recollection of Pappou Gianni and I can’t determine, it was probably when I was very young and used to come up to summers in Willow Grove, and I think I remember him from being there one summer probably before we moved to Willow Grove or it could have been after we moved there, I can’t remember, but I remember this guy in black, that now that I saw Uncle Jimmy when he was older, that’s what Pappou Gianni reminded me of. Did he look like Uncle Jimmy?
HELEN Umm, no not really. Pappou… my Father looked like his Father, and I think my brother Johnny looks more like Pappou.
NICK You don’t think Pappou Gianni and Jimmy didn’t have any resemblance to Pappou?
HELEN No, I don’t think so.
NICK See, that’s something that probably got mixed up in my mind, being a kid.
HELEN See Pappou always, if you remember him, because I always remember him old.
NICK And black always…
HELEN …wearing a black cape
NICK and a moustache, he had a moustache, and white hair, like.
HELEN Yeah and sort of round face, and he looked like my Father. What else do I want to tell you, what else do I know? About what year they came over, my Mother came over with Uncle Gus, then Gus brought his wife over, Nota.
NICK Oh he was married over in Greece too.
HELEN Yeah, they were all married over there.
NICK Who, who, who.
HELEN It was a matchmaking.
NICK Yeah, who fixed the match? It was his family that fixed the match then, I guess, huh?
HELEN Yeah, now the only one, like I said, the only one that could tell you would be either..
NICK Jeannie or ..
HELEN Chris, and the thing about Chris, I haven’t seen Chris for a long time. He used to come here to visit his sister-in-law, she don’t live too far from here, and then they would come and visit us, now for the last couple or three years they haven’t come.
NICK Oh, uh huh, maybe he’s not doing too well
HELEN I don’t know and then with my problems I didn’t bother calling them to find out what’s what
NICK Your Mother’s name was Kalegeorge or Christodoulo?
HELEN Christodoulo, yes.
NICK Christodoulo, not Kalegeorge?
HELEN Yes, because that’s what my Uncle um, you know Nota’s husband
NICK was his name Constantinos?
HELEN Yes, and my Father was Nicholas.
NICK Do you remember how Katherine, Gus’ daughter, the one that passed away, got a glass eye?
HELEN She was playing, they lived in West Philadelphia, and she was playing outside with a kid, and some kid threw a stick and it went in her eye and that’s how she got the glass eye. And that’s when she was young. How old she was I don’t know.
NICK Now, your Grandfather, Pappou Gianni again, you don’t remember exactly when he died?
HELEN It must have been ….
NICK Probably in the 40’s…
HELEN In the 40’s, something like that, I think it was before the war ended. I don’t remember just what date.
NICK Do you remember how Grand pop, your Dad, how old was he when he died? He was like 90?
HELEN My Father? Uh, I don’t know Nicky.
NICK Your Father?
HELEN My Father? Jeez, I don’t even know my Mother’s year old. Cause see they used to hide the age. Like I said the only one that would really know would be Jeannie, cause Chris when he went to Greece and lived in Greece7 , he went and looked up the old records..
NICK Oh, did he, yeah?
HELEN ….to find out how old his Father was, and um, I don’t know whether he looked into my Father’s records or not.
NICK How bout Uncle Vangeli? Do you remember when he died? I mean when was that? In the 50’s?
HELEN Let’s see, he died …, I’d say in the 50’s, yeah.
NICK He had a heart attack or something?
HELEN Well yeah, he had, well he drank a lot and finally his heart gave out.
NICK What did he do, what was his…
HELEN He was a contractor too.
NICK He was in building too like a carpenter?
HELEN He was in building too, and um…, they lived in Flushing.8
NICK Flushing, I remember that.
HELEN They lived someplace else before that, but I can’t remember all this now.
NICK Yeah, well in the next couple weeks, if your not really busy, would you do something for me, just write things down that you can remember and just send me a little letter with any dates, anything of interest in the family, your family.
HELEN Well I remember Pearl Harbor day. We were having a party at the house in Willow Grove, you know. Jimmy was a great one for having parties. And it was around …, and we had the house decorated with corn and like Thanksgiving, you know.
NICK It was right after Thanksgiving, it was right before Christmas.
HELEN And then the news came over that Pearl Harbor… broke out, and then everybody….they started to leave, everybody was worried and they left. So they started to leave.
NICK Yeah things like that, any little tidbits that you can remember, or when people died, or your Grandfather, if you can remember any little stories about him, like that he was kicked out because he murdered someone, or…
HELEN Well he had a fight, that’s what I heard, now how true it is I don’t know. We never found out whether it’s true or not, but he left and he came here, um…, then he called for her, but he was a tailor until he died, you knew that. And they had a rooming house on ah…, they had a rooming house and he…. , downstairs in the front room was the tailor shop….
NICK Down in Philadelphia? On Spruce Street someplace?
HELEN No it wasn’t on Spruce Street. You know you should ask Uncle George.
NICK Yeah, I was thinking of that. I haven’t talked to him in so long…
HELEN Why don’t you call him, because he would know more than anybody.
NICK Yeah, maybe I will give him a call, or stop over and see him. I understand he’s getting, well, pretty old.
HELEN Uncle George must be in his 90’s, 80’s? He was older than your Mother. I know you can’t ask Aunt Helen, cause she’s gone.
NICK Well, just write these things down as they come to you, over the next two three month (etc etc)
HELEN …..Cause when we moved to Willow Grove there was nothing but dirt roads and there was our house there it was a little shack like, and then later on Amos9 moved up, and later on Baconi. You remember Mrs. Baconi?
NICK Yeah, I remember Baconi, in fact I have a painting here, that my Mother had hanging up, that’s of the Acropolis that Baconi’s husband did.
HELEN He did that on the side and a…. it was a long time….
NICK He wasn’t any relation to the family at all, was he?
HELEN No, he wasn’t, he was just a, just a neighbor like.
NICK He was a painter, did he do anything else besides painting?
HELEN He had……um…., he had pigs and cows, he sold eggs .
NICK Yeah, a little farm like he ran…
HELEN Yeah, corn, tomatoes….
NICK I don’t remember him at all, so he must have before I was born probably.
HELEN Yeah, he died, I don’t remember when but long time. And then his wife lived there alone for the longest time….
NICK …..and then she sold to Economou…
HELEN …She went to Greece and I heard that she had died over there. But now that you got me thinking I’m going to start thinking, because I never gave it a thought.
NICK Think about those little things and write them down, because what we did, I got this program for keeping the family tree and when I get a copy it’ll print out, in fact I have a copy, a rough copy, I’ll send you a copy of the family tree that I know of so far.
(continues with recommendations to talk to Jean (Chris) etc.)
HELEN … but Yia Yia and Nota were sisters. Now I think Yia Yia was the oldest, I think, but as I say Jean would know…. Do you remember when you were kids you used to go down at the corner and sell puppies for $5
NICK No, no ….
HELEN Don’t you remember that?….
NICK No I don’t remember that. Down at the corner where?…..down at Samson Avenue?
HELEN Yeah, right at the corner at Sansom Avenue and York Road…..and a dog named Beauty, and every time she would have puppies we would take them and …….
NICK I remember Beauty, but I can’t remember selling the puppies. I remember going down…, I remember taking rides to ah…..I guess George in the car and he had a car with a rumble seat …… and we went out to like Somerton Springs10 there and there was swimming there and it seemed like driving forever out in the middle of nowhere and there was a swimming hole out there.
HELEN Well, we’d go down in the corner there and we’d just hold the doggies up, and we had a sign $5. And we used to sell them a lot, they weren’t even inoculated or anything, we used to sell them like that.
NICK I remember, like, it probably was when we were spending….when we were living in West Philly11 and we would come up for the summertime, and I remember like staying in, we used to stay in the middle bedroom. which I think was your bedroom, wasn’t it, that little middle bedroom that was along the hallway between the kitchen and the living room. And Tina and I would sleep in there, and I remember like the first couple times, I remember being scared because it was so quiet there. Couldn’t hear nothing but crickets outside and I remember laying in bed and listening, I think Tina and me used to listen to all those shows that used to be on Sunday night ….”The Shadow”, “Mr. District Attorney” and things like that. I get flashes of that coming back.
HELEN Yeah, now you got me thinking ……what I can think to tell you.
NICK Well anything you can think of I’d appreciate because were going to put it down for whoever wants to look at it.
HELEN O.K., I’ll do that.
NICK Say hello to John. John’s ok? Vivian she’s right here.
HELEN And I hope we’ll get to see each other soon.
NICK Well if the money comes in we’re going to try to get out there.
HELEN If you hear from George…
NICK George called about a month ago (etc.). He’s spending most of his time taking care of Isle, you know she’s not doing very well at all. But George still sounds pretty good, but he’s getting tired a little bit, you know.
HELEN He’s getting tired because she’s not helping herself anymore. He’s got his house up for sale again
NICK He didn’t say that.
HELEN Because he wants to move closer to town. In fact I talked to him a couple of weeks ago and he said he didn’t get any buyers yet but he still has it up for sale, and doing good, he’s got this job (unintelligible).
NICK When we were at my Mother’s funeral Aunt Penny12 invited me and Tina up, so we’re going to try to get together with them to and go up for dinner.
HELEN Do that. You know we have nobody here, nobody, John 13 has an Aunt, but she’s busy with her life.
NICK Well Penny has a big family, she cooked, this past thanksgiving, she cooked dinner for 40 people or something like that. You know, Merry and Johnny and Stephanie and all their kids.
HELEN I know because we had come down we went over her house and met the family, I still can’t remember them all. So you take care and whatever I think of …
NICK Yeah, write it down and just drop it in an envelope and we’ll go from there.
HELEN My memory is not so good anymore, and the best thing, like I say-talk to George.
NICK Good talking to you Aunt , bye bye.
END
Note:
Angeline’s father and Mother were born in Baousioi south west of Ioanninia , near the town and archaeological site of Dodoni.
(The shrine of Dodoni was the oldest Hellenic oracle, according to the fifth-century historian Herodotus and in fact dates to pre-Hellenic times)