Eight years without Steve X, now what?

Steve Xanttopoulos

Today I am thinking about my dad Steve Xanttopoulos, who passed away exactly 8 years ago.  He was a devoted family man and Greek Community leader -- very handsome in his youth and quite a character in his later years. Some people might remember that he measured his life by how many St. Basil's Greek Orthodox Food Festivals he was involved in (47) and how many priests he had worked with (17). Unfortunately, current Father Pete Sotiras didn't make the cut...

The Xanttopoulos family story is referenced in other blogposts -- beginning with how Efstathios (Steve) came to the USA in 1929 with his mother Paraskevoula (Pauline) and sister Theopisti (Faith) to be reunited with their own father Xanthoulis, who had gone ahead to San Francisco in 1920. They came from Naousa, which had been liberated from the Ottoman Empire just 4 years before my grandparents married in 1916. (We celebrate March 25th based on the 1821-1832 liberation of the bottom half of Greece, but things were very different in Macedonia.)

Steve Xanttopoulos was very proud of his Greek heritage and his hometown of "Niaousa," as he pronounced it.  His memories of The Old Country were predicated on heartfelt patriotism scarred by the grave economic hardships of the times. It is the quintessential Greek immigrant story of the early 20th Century -- hardship, displacement, sacrifice and hard work... though as the years pass and new generations are born, the details start to either fade or take on a life of their own. That is why genealogy and family trees are so important!

Xanthoulis Xanthopoulos

My dad's brother Kostantinos (Gus) and sister Mary were born in San Francisco and Stockton, respectively. Much of the story then becomes a bit murky -- though records show that Xanthoulis Xanthopoulos had a candy/hat cleaning store at 1590 Ellis in San Francisco and died of cancer there on April 26, 1941, at Laguna Honda Hospital. He was buried at Greek Orthodox Memorial Park (Colma). The rest of the family was still living in Stockton...

Even less is known to us about Papou X. pre-Naousa.  The too few official documents that we have were squirreled away my dad for many years. Other clues are scarce...but lead Skopos, a town in Eastern Thrace that was then part of the Ottoman Empire and is now part of modern Turkey.

My father might be surprised to know that today I am also thinking about his father...because of all my grandparents (ALL Greek), he is the one who still begs the question: "Who was that man?"


I am determined to find out, and I think Steve would be OK with that.