This Makedonias Street was created with wide and comfortable to walk on concrete sidewalks. This street was in demand and people needed more housing. So, for the next generation, apartment living was coming. My father was given two apartments on the third floor and one retail store on the ground level. My father was retired then.
Two of his sons had gone to Australia, the oldest son lived in Athens and two sons were in Thessaloniki with their own families and businesses. It was time for my poor over worked dad to rest now. So, he opened a hardware and paint store there and he was home for lunch every day. Neighbors came to him for painting advice, they would buy their supplies at his store and now they would go home and paint their own apartments. It gave him something to do, that he enjoyed.
When I went back to Greece for the very first time, it was almost an emergency. I had received a letter saying both of my parents were very sick. I was 26 years old. I had not seen my parents for 13 years.
When I arrived in Thessaloniki’s airport I was received by the whole family with bouquets of flowers, just like a celebrity.
Everybody was there, my father, my brothers, sisters and their families. My mother was at home at their apartment. She had not recovered well enough to meet me at the airport.
At the airport, I was hearing everyone, but the Greek language somehow was a little strange to me. They spoke a different dialect, it seemed to me. It took me days to get adjusted to the Greek language. We cried, we hugged and kissed again and again.
I left as a young school girl, an innocent girl of 13, and I came back after 13 years, a mother of three.
My mother saw me, and she got so happy and got well quickly. Jokingly, she asked to look at my beauty mark under my right foot.
My father had the same beauty mark in the very same place. Everyone there was happy to see me. My relatives would put me in a taxi cab and send me to the next relative’s home after paying the cab driver in advance. For two weeks I saw nothing but my relatives.
In the afternoon I would sit and talk with my dad downstairs at his store. My mother would drop a basket from the third-floor balcony with coffees, small drinks of ouzo and munchies. These were delightful little morsels of olives, feta, smoked fish, fragrant fresh lemon wedges and pieces of crunchy black bread, to accompany our drinks. It seemed a whole lifetime ago, I had left for America. I was never lost for words talking to my wonderful father.
When I was little I sat on his arm and played with his ear lobes. I was so fascinated with his ear lobes. That was truly my very first memory ever, remembering the safety of his hugging arms.
I never told my parents about my terrible sacrificing, the four years living with my aunt and uncle in America. There was no reason to upset these two wonderful parents, in their late sixties now.
Before I knew it, the two weeks were up. My life now was in America. I kissed them good bye and for my dad this was to be the very last time I would see him.
Both of my parents had diabetes after they were 65 years old. It was controlled by a pill and a diet. My dad had pains in his feet. It must have been nerve damage from the diabetes. Just a few years later he died in a hospital. If I were there, he would not have died at the hospital. He would have been living in my home.
I would have enjoyed hiscompany. He would have been well cared for, he would have been more comfortable in my hands.
When my youngest sister had gone to visit him one time at the hospital, my father told her this: I should not have sent Efrossini to America. I should have sent you, Anna. Efrossini would have taken care of me, I know, she has a good heart.
Years later this same sister got me to believe her, she was in danger. To get her away from a boyfriend that would not leave her alone or move out of her apartment she found the solution to come to America and stay with me for a while. She came here at my expense and told me what my father had said in the hospital. She came here for vengeance, at my expense. This is called mikroprepia in Greek. It translates to shabby, evil works. Who does that to their flesh and blood? Or to strangers for that matter!
Through the years I remembered my father every time I built a new home. I had owned seven homes and three were brand new custom homes. When I was preparing gardens, raising a few animals, I always thought of my wonderful father. I always imagined him being here guiding me through my building and creating.
I always wondered with more modern resources what his genius of a man would have discovered and created if he had lived here in America.
How proud he would have been to see that I had learned so much from him and followed in his footsteps with the botany and with his painting. I painted all my homes and I was a great edge trimmer. He had taught me to have the best quality brushes. I also have fig and citrus trees now in huge tubs in my home in the winter. I eat a fresh Meyer’s lemon with the pulp and the peel daily, remembering my dad.
Since I came to America in early May of 1962, I was bringing gifts from the Greek Easter we had just celebrated in Greece. From my father, hard boiled eggs painted with beautiful flowers and his double lemons off his trees. They were long like double yolk eggs. I still do not know how he was able to accomplish this.
Do you wonder who you look like?
CHAPTER 4
THE ROUSSOS STORY
This story deals with my mother’s side of the family. It was around 1850. A young Russian couple on a Sunday afternoon took their three children on an outing to the harbor, on the Black Sea.
The merchant ships would dock there to unload their wares. They would come from Greece loaded full of olive oil, olives, cheeses, citrus fruits, grapes, raisins and wines, mostly food provisions. They would unload there and pick up what the Greeks needed when they left.
On this sunny day the public was invited to board the ship and check it out. A lot of people took the opportunity to see something different. Amongst all those curiosity seekers was also the young Russian couple with their three children.
They boarded the ship. They enjoyed themselves on the ship, checking it out curiously. Many hours later, time came, to get off the ship.
The couple could not find one of their children, the oldest one, Niko. He was 5 years old. Everyone searched for the boy for many hours and he was not to be found. The saddened couple was heartbroken and finally was escorted off the ship with their two children. Over one hundred years ago they had no support services we have today.
The next day the ship got loaded up again and took to the sea. While at sea, little Niko became famished and followed his nose to the kitchen.
He had hidden between the merchandise crates and barrels, as if he was playing a game with some other children. All those hours he was waiting to be found.
The captain of the ship had no children so when they reached the shores of Greece he took Niko to his home and to his wife. Niko became their son.
His name was Niko Roussos because he came from Russia. Niko was my grandfather from my mother’s side. He grew up and went into the shipping business like his father, the captain. Niko Roussos married my mother’s mother, my grandmother Zafiro, I have never met. I had heard so much about this incredible woman’s strength but she died many years before I was even born.
Niko and Zafiro lived in Constantinople, between Greece and the Black Sea. They had a good, comfortable life and they were blessed with eight healthy children. People had many children back then. This couple could also afford them. Their names were: Manoli (Emmanuel), Paraskevi (Friday), Efrossini, Fotini, George, Malama (my mother), Demetrios and Agapoula.
Around the first part of the twentieth century there was an earthquake while everyone was