In the summer of 1942, the District
Convention of the Order of AHEPA (the American Hellenic Educational
Progressive Association) was held for three days at the Abraham
Lincoln Hotel in downtown Springfield. The executive officers of
the convention and their wives welcomed chapter members from around
the state of Illinois to meet, enjoy each other’s company,
and, in the words of convention chairman Alex Karon, “promote
and encourage loyalty to the United States of America, allegiance
to its flag, the support of its Constitution, obedience to its
laws, and reverence for its history and traditions.”
Every man in the picture that accompanies
today’s column was a Greek immigrant, according to
Karon’s daughter, Nancy Drake, of Springfield. Theirs were
the classic tales of European immigration in the late 19th and
early 20th centuries. They had emigrated as boys or young men;
taken menial jobs in restaurants, cleaners, and shoeshine parlors;
and, through thrift, hard work, and mutual aid, claimed ownership
of their businesses and a piece of the American dream. Some of
their names were anglicized (for instance, Karon was originally
Karahouziti). Her father’s welcoming words were not just
empty rhetoric, Drake says. It was a creed that Springfield’s
original Greek-American community lived by.
“They loved America, and they loved
Springfield. Dad, Gus Xamis, the Kerasoteses, they all sold a lot
of war bonds. Gus’ son, Anthony, gave his life in the service
of our country. Most of them owned restaurants, and they all closed
on a different day of the week to save electricity and conserve
supplies. With them, it was God, country, and family. That’s
the way we were raised. I went with my mother to get her
citizenship papers. We were so proud.”
Drake also says their fraternal organization
was a mutual-aid society in the strictest definition of the term:
“If one guy was short on something or sick or needed
anything, another guy was right there to pick him up. I learned a
lot about values from that group.”
Although the immigrant Greeks were loyal to
America, they were vastly proud of their heritage and kept alive
many of their cultural practices, such as the concept of koumbaro, Drake says. (Koumbaro is a
special spiritual relationship between individuals that transcends
ordinary friendship in its honor and trust.)
Tina (Bartsokas) Ekstrom, now a retired art
teacher living in New York City, echoes Drake in her memories of
their parents’ Old World ways. She, too, was part of the
first generation of American children of the group. Her father and
mother, Tom and Elsie Bartsokas, operated the Coney Island
Restaurant on Monroe Street. Tom Bartsokas sailed from Greece to
the United States in 1910, when he was only 19. He shined shoes at
a hotel in Chicago, joined the Army and learned how to be a barber,
and worked at a steel mill in Gary, Ind., until he saved enough money to buy into a restaurant with a friend in
Springfield.
Ekstrom says that the Springfield Greeks
“were a proud group who would celebrate name days [the feast
days of the saints after whom they were named] instead of
birthdays. Women would spend days preparing food. Children would
eat in one area, women in another, and men in theirs. The foods
were fantastic . . . meats, pastas, rice, and spanikopitas.” Ekstrom,
who worked at the Coney Island on weekends, says, “I
don’t know of any children who went into the restaurant
business. Parents didn’t encourage it as it was very hard
work.”
Drake can also attest to that. Her father
owned the gone-but-not-forgotten Sugar Bowl Restaurant at State
Street and South Grand Avenue, and she began working there at about
the time today’s picture was taken, in 1942. “We were
taught how to wash, sweep, how to waitress and carry things to the
curb,” she says. “Later on, I was the only carhop in
town with a college degree.”
Unlike Drake, whose parents were both Greek,
Ekstrom’s mother was German. Her family story underscores the
difficult and chaotic state of world affairs during the war years.
“Then, it was delicate,” she
says, “and troubling.”
Ekstrom’s aunt and uncle in Germany,
apparently fearing Russian occupation, committed suicide near the
end of the war. Her uncle, Arthur Heinrich, her mother’s
brother, opposed war in the 1930s but, like, many young German men, ended up in the army.
Here on the homefront, Ekstrom’s
parents were active in war-relief efforts, sending packages of
foodstuffs and clothing overseas.
“The Greeks were very generous. They are
noted for that. They prepared hundreds of packages for needy
families in Greece,” Ekstrom says. “My mother was head
of the Red Cross knitting club. She knitted clothing for servicemen
every night for years.” Her mother used thick needles and
heavy wool to knit sweaters, Ekstrom recalls, and could finish one
in three days.
Zack Ritsos, AHEPA’s district governor
in 1942, welcomed the conventioneers with these determined and
inspiring words in the official program of events:
“This convention will call for serious
thoughts, not only for the continued success of our fraternity but for the success of
our great democracy in its present conflict to subdue the barbarous
forces that have descended on humanity to crush freedom and
liberty. . . . Greece will fight on with the American nation, with
the British Commonwealth; she will fight on from Africa; from her
islands; from every corner of the earth, to the last man, woman and
child rather than permit Hitler to dominate the world and torture
mankind.”
This article appears in Apr 14-20, 2005.
