by Acrivi Artemis Koutavas Anninos Georgelos

How would we live? We were now a family of nine. Seven children, five girls, and two boys. My sister Maria had been born in 1914 and my baby brother just a few months before. My father did not lose hope. We had lost everything but he firmly believed that God would provide and help him to prosper again.

We did not return to Cephallonia. Father sold all of our jewels, including Mother’s and her furs. He pawned our almost worthless rubles. He took all that he had and opened a grocery store in Piraeus.

Many others found themselves in the same predicament. Some lost hope and killed themselves. Others lost their minds. Still, others returned to Russia to see if any of the things they left behind were still there. All they found were ruins, and so many of those people turned around and came back to Greece, discouraged. Others remained in Russia a little longer with the hope that things might improve. But they were between Scylla and Charybdis, caught between two sea monsters. Two or three years later, when all hope was gone, they returned to Greece again. They were unrecognizable, ragged, sickly, and penniless. They told us of the Hell that Odessa had become, where evil reigned.

Now I must say something. There are some things that always anger me. I can never understand when I hear or read about educated men with high positions in society, here in America or other places, who embrace or defend communism. Why? Do they really think and believe it is a worthwhile ideology? It is a curse and will bring God’s wrath. Then there are those who betray their own country, give up its national secrets, become traitors. Those who do that should not be forgiven, especially those who come here to America ragged and hungry, acquired high position, and then they plot against the very country that extended to them hospitality, offered them the kindness that no other nation would offer and could ever give them. Those people are like a snake, freezing in the cold. A man found it, took it in, warmed it, and then in return the snake bit him, the very man who saved its life.

My father’s grocery store was on Haphaistou Street. It was the best in town and doing good business. Father looked after his family well.

My father was a good man, always smiling. He was a good Christian, a good husband, and a good family man. He was a good Christian who believed that God always has a plan. My mother gave birth to three girls in a row, then one boy, and then two more girls, and finally another boy. Mother always worried about having so many daughters. Father, who loved having girls, unlike most men, who tended to only want sons, would say to her: “Don’t worry Andronike, God will look after them. Each child is born with its own fate.” He wasn’t wrong. Father believed in God’s will and God’s might, but he also believed one was responsible to help one’s self as well.

Father was strict. He was a faithful observer of traditional Greek customs but he also enjoyed a happy life. Our house was always open to friends, especially on New Year’s Eve. Groups of friends would come to our house to play New Year’s card games in order to bring good luck to the coming New Year. During Carnival time, all of the Cephallonians would gather at Theodosios's house which was open to all friends for the three Sundays of Carnival. We would have costume parties, some would dress like doctors, some nurses, and other characters. They would perform skits, dance the polka and the waltz. They were simple people when it came to expressing themselves, but noble in thought, and more dynamic than today’s generation. Duty and tradition-bound these men together. They built their lives on belief in God and the church. They placed their faith above human weakness and differences. These things were their Creed, and they imparted this into us their children. They did this by teaching us parables and Holy scripture. I am very grateful for that.

My mother was well educated for her day. She was the daughter of a sea captain who drowned when his ship went down in the Black Sea off the coast of Romania. Her family had a shop in Cephallonia, and when her older brother became ill, my mother had to manage the shop until she married. When we lost all we had in Odessa, my mother did not hesitate to stand right by my father’s side and she helped him open his grocery store in Piraeus, even though it was rare for a woman to work in a shop, even by her husband’s side in those days.

My parents were quite progressive. My father educated all his children and as I said, my mother was well educated for a woman of her day, but they were of the opinion, at the time, that girls did not need much education, only what they needed to help thru daily life. I was the oldest child, the oldest girl in the family, but because I was one day to become a wife and mother, junior high school education was, in their minds, all that I should have. The day came when I was taken out of school, and for a long time afterward, I dreamed of going back, but I was never allowed to. Still, I had a thirst for learning, a great thirst. I would wake up in the morning with my pillow wet and my eyes still full of tears from the sadness of not being in school. So I read books. I read very much, as many books as time and my chores would allow me

After I stopped going to school, my mother decided I still needed to learn things to help me in life, so she sent me to sewing school. I think I was sixteen at the time, and I already had a good idea of how to sew and embroider, and make lace. This was because my mother never let me waste time. She taught me how to do these things from the time I could first hold a needle. We were also taught crafts in school.

A few months after entering sewing school, something happened which kept me home, out of school, again.

It was a Sunday morning. We all went to church as we did every Sunday. After the service and we returned home, my mother and father called me into their room “for a talk”. Their tone was mysterious and a bit frightening. “Have I done something wrong? Am I about to get punished?” I asked myself. I went into their room scared stiff.

“Sit down my child.” said my mother.

My father started to clear his throat as if he were about to be seized by a coughing spell. They did not know how to begin this talk they wanted to have. They kept glancing at each other. At last, my mother seemed to gather courage from somewhere.

“Do you know Mr. John?” she asked.

I was trembling with fear. I remembered that I had met this Mr. John at one of my aunt’s home, but I was not sure which one. I did remember that this man looked at me rather strangely, but I had no idea, why.

“He is thirty-five years old,” my father said. “He has enough money, and seems to be of good character.”

I did not say a word.

“If you like him, he wants to get married soon,” said my mother.

That was it, my fear and my nerves took over.

I broke down and cried, which was easy for me to do.

“Don’t cry, my child” said, my mother. “It is nothing wrong, and we are not pressing you to do something you don’t want to do. Think it over and tell us later.”

And with this, the conference in the bedroom ended.

It was the next day that my mother told me that all my school days were over for good. It was not fit and proper for a bridal “candidate” to attend school. I could not argue and say no to this so I quietly never went to any school again. The more I thought about this marriage, the murkier my mind got. I thought my parents did not love me. They wanted to get rid of me. I had no idea what decision to make. I did not see Mr. John this so-called bridegroom, because he was waiting for a reply. I tried not to think about him, because if I did, my thoughts left me dazed and confused. It felt like I was between Scylla and Charybdis.

“How dare this man ask for my hand!” I thought to myself. “He is short, fat, and ugly.”

Why did he want me to be his wife? I was so much younger, I looked like a schoolgirl, still in braids.

The more I thought about this man, and marrying him, the more an angry storm grew in my mind.

One morning about a week after “the conference” my father asked me

“What have you decided, my child, on the matter that your mother and I spoke to you?”

I stood there for a moment, my mind in turmoil, which sea monster do I choose? A fat, ugly man, I know nothing about or my parent’s anger?. I chose neither.

“Whatever you think is best” I replied my voice trembling. I had to force myself to not burst into tears.

He turned and leaned closer to me,

“Do you think he is too old for you?” he asked.

What?! Is there escape after all? I thought.

“Yes, he seems too old for me,” I answered very quickly.

“Alright then,” Father answered. “I think he is too old for you too.”

I started to breathe again as if a mountain had been lifted off my chest. Immediately I started to feel like my old self, the person I was before “the conference”.

I learned more about this Mr. John and how close I had come to be his wife. The man came from Romania and ruined my peace. He was a Romanian and we lived in Greece. What a match it would have been! He was a widower with three children. He was also twenty years older than me with lots of money. My parents may have thought I would have had a good life, and I had no right to come out and say no, so I keep quiet. I was saved by my uncle Euribiades, my mother’s brother. He told my parents that a man twenty years older, age-wise anyway, was not a suitable husband for me. So the match crashed upon the rocks. Not having a dowry may have also contributed to this as well. My parents, constantly worried about that. It preoccupied them. My father had one for me, saved for years, but the revolution in Russia, took it all away.

After the match that didn’t happen, I laughed and sang again, This incident, as I call it, did kill my school attendance for good. Mother decided that I would just stay home and learn to be a very good housekeeper. I did not mind being one for my family, it was better than being one for the fat, and ugly man that wanted to marry me.

Being the oldest I also had to set a good example. My parents purchased a Singer sewing machine for me. They had a teacher come to the house to show me how to use it and to teach me the finer points of embroidery. They bought all the necessary materials and so with my new machine, I began to sew and make the things that would make me a dowry. Everything I did had to be perfect or Mother would make me do them all over again. I was not quite eighteen years old at the time but it was still my responsibility to see that the house was clean and tidy. I often had to do the cooking and the laundry. Helping my younger brothers and sisters get ready for school was also one of my duties. My free time was devoted to sewing and embroidery.

“A woman must know everything about a household,” my mother told me, many times. But I wanted to read books, lots of books, novels, poetry, anything, everything. But I had to sew and embroider instead. If Mother caught me reading a novel, she would take it away while scolding me that good girls do not read love stories. So what did I do? If the book was small I would hide it in the drawer of my sewing machine. If it was a large book I would hide it under my mattress, and at night when everyone was asleep, I would take it out and read it.

I read not only novels but religious books too. Books such as “Sinners” and “Salvation” and prayer books. I read the “Revelation of the Virgin” and it would make me cry. So many books would do that to me. I think I was very sensitive.

Father’s grocery store prospered in Piraeus. There was no real thought of going back to Cephallonia. We returned to have a good life for the most part. My sister Ellie, despite the fact she had a growth in her leg, which caused her much suffering, her whole life, was graduated from a vocational school. Her illness was always a secret pain to us. She saw all the doctors there was to see. She saw medical professors at the University of Athens, but there was no cure for her. Even our prayers and our vows to the Blessed Virgin and to the Saints did not seem to help. She suffered, always suffered. I have wept many a tear thinking of what I thought was her wasted youth. I thought of the girlish dreams which faded away one by one over the years and of the hopes she had that never came to be. She had the heart of an angel, but God who is wise must have known what he was doing. While the rest of us were married off and moved away, it was Ellie who stayed with our parents and took care of them. It was Ellie who gave them water, ice for their lips and closed their eyes for the last time with her own hands.

One of my sisters, the one born after me, died suddenly from peritonitis. Spiridoula was only fifteen years old. Because this was the first death in our family and my parents were so deeply shaken by it, those closest to the family decided it was not wise for them to attend their own daughter’s funeral. Instead, they dressed me in black and decided that I was to see my sister off to her last home. I was only eighteen and deeply hurt by her death. I was shaking all over and tears streamed down my face as the priest asked the congregation to pay their last respects to my dead sister. I too bent down to kiss the forehead of my dead sister, who was as pretty as an angel. I can still feel her cold as marble forehead against my lips. The most trying moment of this whole awful experience was at the graveside when I was told to toss earth on the body of my dear sister. I could take no more. My knees bent and I collapsed to the ground. Spiridoula’s funeral had a profound effect on me for many years, but as all things in life come and go so this too passed.

End of Part 2

The Four Green Walls Part 3 The Offer