Papou Xanthoulis Xanthopoulos' Naturalization Papers -- and some more questions...

‎Preparing to go to Greece, I have been organizing my family tree info so that I can fill in the proverbial blanks -- and there a quite a few as regard my Papou Xanthoulis Xanthopulos' pre-Naousa life. Recently my search to confirm his birthplace had me looking towards E. Thrace on the Turkish side. Now I have confirmed that he was from Skopos (now known as Uskup), a town in Turkey a few miles from Sarranda Ekklisies (now known as Kirklareli). 

Hints came from my Aunt Soula in Athens -- whom I love dearly, and will see soon -- and the very last column on a ship's passenger list which had been a mere online squiggle at first.  A 1930 census form revealed that my Papou and his 2 kids Efstatheos and Theopiste were naturalized by then!

Naturalization Petitions and the ancillary documents -- which I got from the National Archives regional branch in San Bruno, CA* --  are some of the best sources of immigrant info, as they are filled out and sworn to by the subject. And signed. I was thrilled to see my grandfather's signature on documents.

Xanthoulis & Theopeste
(Stockton, 1937)

Xanthoulis Xanthopoulos died of cancer in 1941 before I was born. He was born in "Skopo, Turkey (Greek Parents)" he declared in 1925. Along with renouncing foreign governments, he also swore that he was not an anarchist or polygamist. And 3 years later -- it took 2 years for the issuance of a "Certificate of Arrival" from the Dept. of Labor -- he was made a citizen along with 2 minor children  who were not even here until1929.‎ (Unfortunately the official papers from their journey from Naousa to San Francisco along with any birth certificates have disappeared.)

Were both my father Steve and Aunt Faith actually born in Naousa, where they lived 1920-29? And Aunt Soula says she remembers Theopeste going to Thessaloniki or thereabouts to visit an aunt. Who are those people?

*There are various online sources for genealogy info online, some free like FamilySearch.org and others by subscription like Ancestry.com. On the latter I searched the naturalization records, finding the Index Card for Xanttoles Xanttopoulos (later signed "Xanthules") with Declaration and Petition numbers.The approval was given by the US District Court of SF in1928. I emailed the  San Bruno archive with that info/request and within a week they replied. Paid $10 fee by phone, and 2 hours later the 5 scanned pages were in my email box. Place of birth confirmed, no real surprises except 2 unknown to me witnesses from Stockton for a man ("hat cleaner") living in SF...

Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Verizon Wireless 4G LTE network.

A blessed letter from a friend in Australia, who happens to be an archbishop & poet, too...

At the Hellenic Genealogy Conference last weekend at NYC's Holy Trinity Cathedral, I was reminded by a lovely woman sitting behind me that there would be a memorial service for Archbishop Iakovos the next day. That set a raft of personal memories down memory lane. 

I told her that about 50 years ago, I had naively sent a letter to Iakovos complaining bitterly about parishes stealing priests from one another...And some may remember that Archbishop Iakovos' retirement was not all that smooth. Some turmoil went into choosing his successor Metropolitan Demetrios of Vresthenis (Athens), who had spent 11 years at Holy Cross seminary and was seen to have first-hand understanding of Greek-Americans. That did not turn out very well...

Archbishop Stylianos

Archbishop Stylianos of Australia (originally from Rethymnon, Crete), a personal friend from my Thessaloniki days, had been another possibility -- a brilliant, straight-forward cleric who was apparently seen as too tied to the Patriarchate. I was very disappointed that he didn't get the job, but I don't think he ever really wanted to leave his beloved Australia. 

Vouli & Paula (Circa 1969)

When I first met him through my dear friend Vouli (another Cretan) in 1969, he was the Abbot of Moni Vlatadon in Thessaloniki. We visited there occasionally, dining at least once on snails from Crete. He seemed to relish my greeting him with "Yia'sou," not exactly the usual way he was approached by lay people. But Stylianos was not your usual churchman, either...Preparing to visit Thessaloniki after many years, I was thinking of Vouli, who has passed away, and my friend Stylianos, with whom I had not communicated for many years. So I sent him an Easter greeting, and a few days ago I received a blessed letter back. 

I want you to know more about this extraordinary human being. Stylianos Harkianakis -- who first studied at the Theological School of Halkis and subsequently established St. Andrew's Theological College in Sydney -- has been Archbishop of Australia for 40 years and a dedicated servant of the far-flung Greek Diaspora. Many people do not realize that he is a also an important Greek poet, who has published 40+ collections and was the recipient of the 1980 Award for Poetry from the Academy of Athens.  I have 5 volumes, thanks to Vouli -- including Australian Passport, published in Greek and English:

THE WORD (Sydney, Redfern, 18 April 1989)*
Sweet is the motherland
the home
the face
sweet is love --
sweeter than all these
the word is
which illuminates
and magnifies
which perpetuates them.

The Archbishop is approaching his 80th birthday, a fact he mentioned since I told him I was about to be 70. He doubts that he will be visiting Greece again -- except, of course, in spirit. And what an amazing spirit, who closed his letter with "Your friend always." Christos Anesti indeed. 

* S.S. Charkianakis, Australian Passport, English Translation by Vrasidas Karalis (Sydney: Brandl & Schlesinger Pty Ltd, 2002), 121.

Live from New York, it's Greek Genealogy!

Taking our lunch break at the First National Hellenic American Genealogical Conference. The speakers are awesome, including Georgia Stryker Keilman, the founder of HellenicGenealogyGeek.com (in the picture below with me). We have heard from the author of "Greek Americans: Struggle and Success" and the Greek-American Chief Archivist of Ellis Island as well as Georgia and Professor Louis Katsos, chief organizer.

(And his Greek name is Ilias, if any of my Sarris relatives are listening. He confirmed that all Greeks named Ilias who came to the States took the name Louis, NOT a Greek name. ‎My Papou George Sarris bought a candy store in Crockett, CA, from his brother Louis Sarris. That was his brother Ilias, not another person we never knew of.)

Hooking up here with others who share my passion/obsession and looking forward to more speakers to come -- including "Records Available from the General State Archives of Greece" located in Psychiko, Athens. You can check it out at www.gak.gr.  It's in both Greek and English -- everything from voting and ecclesiastical records to who received medals in the war (s) for independence. If your great-great-great grandfather got one of those medals, please let us know about it.

Meanwhile, today we observe the 100th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide AND the bigger picture of pogroms against the Greek Christians and Assyrians of those times -- something that we can NEVER forget. Zoi se mas.

Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Verizon Wireless 4G LTE network.

Travels w/Aunt Libby Sarris to Greece in 1962 (and a Bouzouki for Harry Spanos)

Planning my June trip to Greece now...And with today being my aunt Liberty Sarris' 88th birthday, I was thinking of a truly remarkable trip to Greece that we took in 1962 during the summer before my senior year at Stagg High.* That rather amazing (in retrospect) 2-month escapade is documented in my little red "Trip Abroad" diary -- as my first ever trip by plane and topped off by an overnight Paris stopover on the return.  In 1962!

It all began with an invitation to visit the Harry Theocharides Family, good friends who had recently gone back to the American Farm School in Thessaloniki where his father had once taught. Harry typically pulled out all the stops to show us a good time, to see everybody and everything possible...But first Athens, where we were greeted at the airport by my grandmother's wonderful sister Anna, who lived in Piraeus and bore such a resemblance to Yiayia Sarris that I did a double-take. "How did Yiayia get here?"

In Athens, we stayed with my father's cousin Soula Chrysopoulou and her husband Mario -- who had visited with us the States  -- in their new suburban home. That was my first experience with a "telephone shower," and I was secretly horrified when I drenched more than just me.  (Now I laugh out-loud when reading reviews of Greek hotels on Trip Advisor that include rants about showers with no shower curtains.)

We then spent about 3 weeks exploring Thessaloniki and therabouts, including my Dad's historic Naousa -- where I met Yiayia Xanttopulos' elderly aunt Sultana Lalas and other relatives that I would see many times over the years, especially during Carnival Season.

Naousa 1962 (w/Sultana in black, Thea Libby, & Mary T.)

Yiayia Sarris' Father

Later we visited Yiayia Sarris' breath-taking Koroni in the Peloponnesos, flying first to Kalamata on a tiny Olympic commuter plane and going the rest of the way by taxi eating "free grapes on the road." There I obediently slurped a raw sea urchin that Cousin Thanassi pulled off rocks in the Ionian Sea not far from the family ktima. My aunt and I were both startled and honored to find a brand-new pink toilet in our uncle's out-house that had no plumbing attached to it. And we slept in a  room with somewhat unnerving portraits of mustachioed ancestors lining the walls, an experience I would repeat with my brother Bill in 1977.  

The trip was not without challenges common for the times -- especially during a 10-day stay on Spetses, an island not far from Athens that did not allow cars and where the Theocharides had a summer gig. And where our odyssey turned into a little bit of a nightmare.  I got sick for the second time, with a 105.2 temperature that took 6 days to normalize. It was quite a scene: "I was scared by the way everyone was acting."  My aunt must have wondered what she'd gotten herself into.  On August 15th (Tis Panayias),  I celebrated w/a motorcycle ride...and weighed in at 113 lbs. after what was later diagnosed as para-typhoid.

Still we had a wonderful time on our first trip to Greece and even managed to accomplish a very important mission: purchase and carry back to Stockton a bouzouki and a baklama for Harry Spanos!  I loved that trip and never forgot not just the sights, but also the sounds and smells of Greece that kept pulling me back. And I did go back in 1968 for 10 years...and keep going back, to help perpetuate the power of "Romiosini." (Google it!)

And I love my aunt for taking me on that trip and to many others places over the years.  On this coming trip, my niece Rachel will be with me on the Kyparissi leg, continuing our own family tradition...Happy Birthday, Thea!

*In her heyday, my aunt was the ubiquitous Registrar at Stagg Senior High School, having started out at Stockton High. She retired in 1989 with many kudos for 42 years of "Outstanding and Exemplary Service" (followed by about 10 more years of pinch-hitting when the Stockton Unified School District called on her).

Cemeteries, Barba Yiorghi, and now Jerry Lucas

Had been thinking about cemeteries for historical purposes when I got the news of Jerry Lucas' passing. That was a big blow to my Stockton memory bank. I cannot remember not knowing Jerry, the really nice guy who married my Uncle Jim Hlebakos' sister Harriett. He was a fixture in our lives -- especially as a shoe repair guy par excellence (following in his father Dimitri's footsteps), who had a shop at 936 N.Yosemite near the S&G Market. And he was one of the last Stockton Naousa links of his generation.  It's up to Jim,* Helen, Dean and Leah to keep that fire burning.

I miss too many Stockton funerals, but try to make up for it with extended visits to Stockton Rural Cemetery when I can -- making the rounds to my parents, many relatives, and others like my mom's best buddies Anthe Faipeas and Oly Spanos. They will not be forgotten, just as we should not forget the many Greek pioneers buried there since the 1920's. Anyone wanting to know more about the history of Greeks in the Stockton area need only take a long walk around the place to get a sense of that, bolstered by concrete names/dates (including many infants). Jerry has gone to Cherokee Memorial Park in Lodi, where he was born. I have not been to that cemetery, yet.

"Cemetery mapping"  (charts/photos) by outside groups is a growing trend for both keeping historical records and posting that info online so that family members and genealogists can find people in the future. In that vein, I recently posted the grave of George Chronopoulos on Findagrave.com.

He was known  to us simply as Yiorghi, someone I visited with my Yiayia Sarris at his dilapidated, creepy/mysterious, and now non-existent homestead on Oregon Avenue when that area was still "rural" so to speak. Yiorghi was from Koroni according to my Aunt Libby, and Yiayia drove him to the grocery store almost weekly. And if I happened to go along, I would lurk along the grocery aisles until he me called me over to give me a quarter (a pretty big deal in those days). He also had a little farm in the back of his property and would reward my grandmother with bunches of pigeons that she baked individually in tin foil with plenty of garlic. I do not, alas, have any photos of Yiorghi -- but can still conjure up a stocky figure in denim overalls, grey shirt, work boots and jaunty hat sitting in the back of Yiayia's two-toned Plymouth. 

George Chronopoulos was a nice man. And maybe some day, someone from his family will be looking for him, see my submission, and send me an email. That would really be something...but today I'm thinking about Jerry Lucas. Zoi se mas.

*As noted several times before on this blog, Jim Lucas is the amazing leader of the San Francisco Greek Historical Society.