Dayton Stories Project
Story Circle Session #031896.2
Greek Church
Greek Community Building
Dayton, Ohio
March 18, 1996
The Greek Community
Facilitator: Marilyn Shannon Recorder: Margaret Peters Transcriber: Lindsey Kuziensky Transcriber Typist: Sue Broadstock
Participants: Tony Dallas, Bea Davis, Katherine T. Goerge, Mary Gelep Hutchison, Virginia Lussa, T. V. Karas Matthews, William Pangos, Bessie Polites, Nick Simopoulos, Steven Steffens, Evanthia Valassiades, Anastasia Vradelis, Constantine T. Zahars
This session lasts approximately 60 minutes.
Due to its length the interview has been split into two parts.
PART ONE
PART TWO
The following transcription of the session has been edited, with repeated phrases or interruptions deleted to make the text flow more smoothly. It is suggested that visitors who find the text interesting take the time to listen to the audio portion of this session. A more detailed text will eventually be added.
Katherine George
I was born in Dayton, 1915. I have been a lifelong member of our Greek Church which was located at 15 South Robert Boulevard right next to the Miami River. It was in the rear of our church. We had a Greek community, a neighborhood. It began with Second, Third, our little street Lafayette and then Third, Fourth, Fifth. All Greek homes. Some Greek businesses on Third. I made a brief floor plan to show where all our homes were located. We walked everywhere. We didn’t have cars in those days. No television, thank heaven. We lived with our radio. Music in our ears constantly. We walked to Central School. My father, I should say, bought at an auction on West Fourth Street, number 325 which is four blocks from Main Street, west. We lived, were born and grew up there. We walked to Central Grade School at Wilkinson right across from the Sacred Heart Church. We walked to our church on Robert Boulevard and to my father’s business, a grocery and delicatessen business on 449 West Third. So we have wonderful memories. We were a close knit Greek community. Neighbors, friends, families all together and united. My first year of high school, we walked to Colonel White which is many, many blocks away. We walked daily and came home daily walking. Then I went to Steele High School downtown for three years where I graduated. I was the oldest in my family so I was my mother’s helper, my father’s son at the grocery. So we had a peaceful life with safety and love and respect and regard for everyone. Wonderful memories.
Virginia Lussa
I was twelve years old when I come to this country from Macedonia, Greece, a small village in 1926.
T.V. Karas Matthews
My father’s name was name was Chris Karas and he was born in Greece but as a youngster he first went to help build the dam in the Panama Canal with his friend Tom Gianuglou, but he got malaria so then he came over to America and he worked hard and saved his money and went back to Palmas, Greece and married my mothe4r and brought her here from a large family. She’s the only one her, but the four of us were all born here. First they went to Pittsburg where they had friends and a job and my brother was born there. Then he went to Cincinnati and then we went to Xenia and then to Springfield and then to Dayton but he had a very thriving business in Springfield but those horrible Ku Klux Klanners were out to get all the people who were born in Europe or wherever and put him out of business so they moved away from there. Then they came here, but as Steve or somebody said, we were on Sycamore Street because the church was on Robert Boulevard and so many Greek people on that street with their door open and come in for coffee and come for in for a cookie. Our church was small and we all enjoyed going to church. They all didn’t have the good behavior that we have now because now when church is out we go row by row and we go up and greet the priest and he gives us our altar bread. At that time we used to all run up there together so we could out and we had one lovely grandmotherly type and she’d try to keep us quiet and everybody would be chatting and gossiping and she’d go “Shhh.” So we’d listen for a minute. My father had started out as a hat man, then he branched out to haberdashery. He called it the Karaas Hatworks and then he went Karas Hats and Ties and the Zonars place was right across the street. He had a candy place, I think, and that was on West Third and then he wen tot Jefferson, then he went to Ludlow. But nobody gave our parents one penny. They worked very hard and I barely remember the Depression because we always had food on the table and they always had the parties and nobody looked at your carpeting or your draperies. On their name days, like my father was born Christmas Day, so they named him Chris. So we had open-house. Anybody that was named Chris you’d visit without asking anybody or being invited or St. John’s Day or St. Nicholas’ Day or St. Basil’s Day. A very friendly Greek community. If it weren’t for our Greek Church we would have lost all our traditions, our cultures. But if you’ve been to our festival you know that our young people are carrying on the Greek dances, which, when we have a social here, we have so many non-Greek people who get up and do their thing and they enjoy every minute of it. But, we stayed in Dayton and I’m surprised, too, because my parents were born right near the Aegean, right there and we ended up in Dayton, Ohio. We have a little old trickle Miami River.
Nick Simopoulos
My name is Nick Simopoulos and of course I was born on Sycamore Street not too far away from the church. I have a write-up here. I had to do something in the computer course at UD and, along with my wife, I had to concoct something and if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to read it to you. Interestingly it will also be the seventy-five anniversary of the Greek Hellenic community and interestingly it will also be my seventy-fifth birthday. My parents were married in the church before it was consecrated. The church once stood at the present location of Sinclair College and Robert Boulevard. The church stood on the East flood bank between Third and Robert Streets at the end of Sycamore Street and later it was renamed Proctor Street. I was born on Sycamore Street on June of ‘21. The acquisition of the church was quite an accomplishment for the members of the Greek community. The Greek community at that time consisted of about sixty families who were like brothers and sisters. The Hellenic community consisted of young men and women who were displaced people from their tiny city which was called Forty Churches, now a part of Turkey and called Kirklareli. Mary Hutchison has something to tell you about Forty Churches. She promised to give a run down. And this occurred circa 1914 at the aftermath of the Balkan War. My father came to America under the sponsorship of my Uncle George Eustath, God rest his soul. Continuous of how my father came to America, when my grandfather heard that my father was going to be pressed into the Turkish army, he hurriedly gave my father all the gold pieces he had, put them into my father’s pocket and told him to leave. Sadly it was the last time that they would see each other.
Skipping a little to my personal history, I will continue with life as I remembered at 565 West Fourth Street, now the location of Sinclair Community College. The Greek community essentially was bounded by Maple Street on the south, Wilkinson Street on the east, Robert Boulevard on the west and Lafayette on north. All children of the Greek community attended Central Elementary School through the eighth grade. Central School stood at the corner of Fourth and Wilkinson Streets across from the Sacred Heart Church, a beautiful landmark which still stands. I remember going to the first grade and asked to recite. I responded in Greek which evoked a lot of laughter from my classmates. The teacher, Mrs. Borchers, a very kind lady, asked me then to recite in English. I have a lot of wonderful memories of my days at Central School except for one day. I was paddled on the very last day of school. For quite a while I couldn’t determine what I had done wrong. Later I found that a fink had informed the janitor to whom the initials RF and NCS belonged on the new folding chairs in the assembly hall. Mur Junker, the school janitor, came to our home room headed by Miss Postner and asked if Robert Fuller and Nick Stimpoulos were present and if we were, Miss Braback, the principal, would like to see us immediately. Miss Braback was an enormous woman (I don’t know if any of you remember her or not) and how was better fitted as a prison matron than a principal. As I entered her office she instantly began screaming at me, for what reason I couldn’t imagine. I asked her what the problem was “Oh, you don’t know what the problem is, do you?” She screamed. Then we found that the great detectives had correctly deduced that the initials R and NCS meant Robert Fuller, the instigator, and Nick Simpolulos, the sentimental fool We were told that we may fail. We were sent to the third grade, Mrs. Dougal’s class, then returned to our eight grade classroom and were embarrassed as near criminals for what we had done before our classmates. However, returning to the time when Miss Braback was clearly out of her mind, telling the class about the great sin that we had committed, Chuckie Woodall was making the windows rattle by holding his desk and shifting his enormous weight back and forth. I knew what he was doing and evidently, I was the only one who did. I began to laugh. That was my downfall. “Oh, you think this is funny, do you?” She yelled. That did it. She whisked both of us into the adjoining library, shut the door and quickly paddled Roberts, the instigator, and then she turned to me. Whack, whack. I didn’t cry. She wouldn’t stop. “Oh, oh. I better cry.” So I did. That was my last day at Central Elementary School. Then one day they tore it down and I got revenge.
I didn’t tell you about how my dad got here as far as when he first got to this area. He and Father Nick’s dad were in business together in a shoe store in Middletown and late on, I don’t know the in-between, but they were very steadfast. I think Father Nick and Demosthese, who were brothers and I remember as a child, right across the street from the post office was what was called the Columbia Restaurant and I remember that one of the judges was sitting there at a table telling my dad any my Uncle Steve about how to get there, stay for their naturalization papers and I think that was a terrific thing. And then there was the small Columbia which was right across the street from the Studebaker Agency. But that was right across the street from the little Columbia they called it. Of course, my dad knew it all. He was actually a shoemaker by trade. He could make a custom pair of shoes and did a lot of work for Barney Hospital in those days, which is now Children’s. He would make special braces and build up heels and os on by what they gave him as a prescription from Barney Hospital. Later, my dad moved catty corner from Union Terminal. Quite a busy a spot. My dad did quite well there. Sears and Roebuck was right behind him and it was quite often you would see people from over there just talking to Dad in his office. He called his kitchen his office. So he’d say, “Come back in my office.” I also remember George Gounaris’ dad coming into the kitchen and then we’d hear a lot of laughter back there. They were very good friends. Of course, Mr. Gounaris was a very likable person and quite a nice personality.
Bill Pangos
My parents also were from the area of Greece which is now Turkey, Forth Churches. My father came here when he was sixteen. My parents are one of the few couples that got married here in the United States. In fact, my mother had come and was living with her aunt in Columbus, Ohio. And so my father met her and went up to Columbus and I guess the arrangements were made and they got married and then they came to Dayton and lived in Dayton. So, they were probably one of the first families that got married and lived in Dayton. So, they were probably one of the first families that got married here in the Columbus church. I think we’re fortunate. The type of community we have here, I think it’s a little different than a lot of your other churches from the standpoint, since we only have one church, we have people from all walks of life. From various income groups and yet you don’t see that showing when you meet and work with people and socialize with them. They are your friends whether they have money or they do not have. That’s something that very few communities can boast about. I remember we live don Lafayette Street and moved McDaniel Street after the first year, a year after I was born. Naturally we went to school. After school we would get together to go to Greek School. Well to go to Greek School, we would go u to the levee, walk down the levee, then go on to Greek School. Or we would walk along Robert Boulevard and during the winter months we would have snow ball fights all the way to Greek School and back, which created some friendship and camaraderie there that you don’t have today because you’ve got your carloads being driven from one place to another. My father’s landlord in the restaurant business on Ludlow Street, his landlord was one of the Pattersons. So, I remember we’d get our coal delivered and it was from the Patterson Coal Company and, of course, as many of you know, NCR with its power plants, it used coal to develop their electricity and again, all the coal at NCR was always brought in from the Patterson coal mines in Kentucky.
Mary Gelep Hutchison
My parents were born under the Ottoman Empire in the 1880s. They were born in that eastern part of the Balkans which is called Thrace by them and Thrace extends from the middle of that peninsula to the Black Sea and from the Aegean Sea to the Danube River. That was not a part of Greece. It was a part of the Ottoman Empire and when the Ottoman Empire was elbowing its way so that these groups of people could become their own people, my parents were affected as were the parents of many of the people and the grandparents of many of the people in this room. My father borrowed money from his father to leave the little city where they were born and reared. It was called in Greek Saranta Eccleslies which translated into English, Forth Churches. Today it is called Kirklareli. It is in the Ile Province of Turkey in the European part of Turkey. When my parents were born, it was under the Sea of Adrianopolus and today that little city is called Edirne. My father left surreptitiously because every male under the Ottoman Turks had to serve in the army. He left surreptitiously, went into Greece and came to this country and to New York City through Ellis Island. After fourteen years of living in New York and that area and having brought his two brothers over, he decided that it was time to get married and he wrote to his mother asking if my mother were still available. There was an exchange of pictures. She came to this country in 1920 and they were married sixteen days later.
Katharine George
I will add to Mary’s history about my own father, who to avoid serving in the Turkish army, he left home which was the small town of Forty Churches. He emigrated from Constantinople, Turkey, to board a boat sailing from Pastras. Twenty-two days to arrive at the Ellis Island in New York of the United States of America and he came directly from New York to Dayton, Ohio on November the 28th of 1911. Why Dayton we have no knowledge or pictures. Was it because of the Zonars or the Paul Gelep family here or was it Evanthia’s grandfather James Thomas? We can only imagine. But he came to America on his own without support, language or money, with a deep dream, goal to seek freedom and his fortune, he had great faith and courage and fearless determination, strength and endurance. He endured hard physical labor for two and a half years at the brass foundry of NCR and then sent for his mother, his two brothers and his fiancee, my mother, who arrived here in October the 20th of 1913. And so they lived in this rented house until, as I mentioned earlier, my father bought a home on West Fourth Street at auction for just under five thousand dollars which in those days was a tremendous amount of money. We had a wonderful life. My father was a leader with many talents and skills and so we grew up with peace and love and harmony and respect. Our lives was intertwined with our church and our faith. And then of course our schooling at Central School and Colonel White. I’m a graduate of Steele High School in 1933. I took one year of refresher course at Miami-Jacobs College which was downtown fo my typing and shorthand and then I found work. I worked five years for a certified public accountant who was also a lawyer for his corporations and that gradually gave me work with a legal office for many, many years. But after my father’s death I had to manage the grocery. Take over in his place. He died in 1944 and so I with my sister Daphne managed my father’s business until my brother came home from World War II with no thought or word about his life as a soldier only that he was very lucky to be alive. And I could reminisce and talk all day and all night as I do, but I will stop now.
Virginia Lussa
Well, my story going to be short. I’ll tell my story about how I come to this country. My dad got
his citizenship papers in 1924. Some of the Ahepans helped him. The Leakas and Chris Pepi and I don’t know who else belonged to the Ahepans and finally he sent for us, my mother and my sister and I> I was twelve, my sister six and my mother was only thirty-years old. She wasn’t in good health when we left there. We got there in June of 1926 on the 26th of June. We arrived in New York with a name tag on around our necks. We had to go through Ellis Island. In fact, my name is up there on Ellis Island. My grandkids got me a plaque with my name and everybody seen it but me. Everybody somebody toes, “Ginny your names clear on the top.” “Well, I haven’t see it, I haven’t been there.” Well anyway, we arrived here in Dayton and my dad worked for Sucher Packing Company. Remember that? But my dad was just back and forth. The first time he come to this country before he married my mother, come to Canada and then from Canada, he snuck into the United States. I don’t know how but it worked out all right. So the first time he come [back to Greece] he married my mother. Before he left, I wasn’t born. So he left, he was here for six years, then he come back to old country again. Then before he left, my sister was born. She’s six years younger than I am. So anyway, get to the story of when we got here. We come home [to the U.S.] and we told the cab driver, of course we had our addresses [on a card tied] around our necks. So the cab driver drops u off at 315 North Madison. You know where that is? Right around the corner from Roosevelt High School. West Dayton. And Dad wasn’t home. So, we come and my mother said, “Gee, this house don’t look very big.” In the old country houses they make them out of stone. We sat on the swing, they had one of those swings on the porch, so we all sat down and we’re just swinging and here comes Dad with his high boots on, come up the steps. So we went in the house and she kind of changed her mind. So the house was his. He bought the house before we got here. “Oh, this don’t look to bad on the inside.” He had nice furniture and so then my mother was sick. Well, she got sicker. We had to take her to the hospital and she was very sick.. She lived nine months. We brought her home then from the hospital. Can you imagine dying from a leakage of the heart? That’s what she died from at that time, 1927. Here we were, my sister and I alone in this country. I never will forget two girls that I got acquainted with. Nicki Pappas and the other girl is Jean Thermay. This girl lives in Springfield now. Her and Nicki those were my two girlfriends. I didn’t know this language. They use to come over and visit with me. Of course, we brought my mother home from the hospital. They couldn’t do nothing for her at that time. So, we had a nurse come in every day and we arrived here in June of ‘26. My mother died 14th of March ‘27. And there we were. I thought it was just the end of the world. My mother can’t die, that’s all. She can’t leave us here alone. Because my dad was just a stranger to me at that time. He didn’t spend much time with me. So we made it I guess. I was tying to keep house and going to school at the same time. So, we got by. I never will forget, my sister and I, we used to take the bus. Two buses. We used to take the bus on Third Street, go down clear to Wayne. Take the Wayne Avenue bus so we could get off at Woodland Cemetery to light a candle at my mother’s grave and then on Easter we bought and put Easter eggs on top of her grave. So that’s my story of coming to the United States. Then of course I kept house for Dad and went to school at the same time, I was thirteen years old.
I will add to Ginny’s story. She’s been our champion coffee maker in the fine tradition of coffee hour after the Divine Liturgy every Sunday and one of our priests began the fellowship coffee hour to keep our community united and Ginny was our coffee maker from her experience in the restaurant for many years. And she’s still at it.
Evanthia Valassiades
I want to tell you about my two grandfathers. One had a dry cleaning store [James Thomas] and one of them had a candy store on West Fifth [Harry Zonars]. One was a candy maker and the other one had a dry cleaning store. The candy maker was from a large family, the Zonars family that you’ve been hearing a lot about. But a funny story about Papou Zonars. Papou is the Greek work for grandfather. As he was delivering candy to the different candy stores, he also delivered Coca-Cola syru and he didn’t believe in the stock market, he just bought diamonds, was his little hobby. That served him well during the Depression. So, Coca-Cola came to him and said, “We’re going to premix the Coca-Cola syrup and have individual bottles.” And he said, “I don’t want to have anything to do with that. Who’s going to carry those bottle?” So that was the end of his second little fortune that he could have had. To both grandfathers education was really the key. Like the people were saying, the name day parties and coming to church were their social outlets, but there was a feeling of stability there. They didn’t do clubs. They didn’t get involved in a lot of other things. The family was the unit and they saved their money to educate their family. My dad [Paul Zonars] was an aeronautical engineer and my mother [Daphne Thomas Zonars] taught at the Art Institute and then my uncle is a dentist and so education was really key to them. They would walk from Oakwood, where grandfathers decided they wanted to live, they would walk to UD and they would walk to the At Institute and the wonderful feelings of well-being. How they would give up for themselves in a simple life to give to that education for their families.
Bea Davis
I was not born here any my parents were not born here in this area and they weren’t from Forty Churches either. But my father was also someone who left Greece because he wanted to avoid service in the army and came to Boston. An arranged marriage with my mother who had come to Boston also by way of, and I didn’t mention my father was born in Athens, my mother was from a small village outside of Sparta called Vrestina, and her father had a pushcart in the city of Boston selling fruits and vegetables from a push car and then from there had a grocery store. So this is where her sisters and her brother worked. They were really knew each other for just a short time before they married. Of course, at that time, weddings and marriages were arranged by parents and she would go out on dates with my father with all three sisters in tow. Wherever they went, they’d always come along. Knew him for a very short time, but it really lasted because they celebrated their fiftieth. But, at any rate, I came her by way of California. Before I left Massachusetts, we live din a community where there were no Greeks and os here I came to Dayton, Ohio and there were all these Greeks. And we were very far away from the Boston church where I lived in Arlington, Massachusetts, so I didn’t have this Greek community and I thought it was rather strange for al these people, most of their friends were Greek and whatever. I think my husband was the first Greek I ever dated and I didn’t know at the time that he was Greek because his name was Davis, but his name actually was Daliacopoulos and his father had changed the name to Davis when they came here to this country.
Katharine George
I could add to that that our fathers used their father’s first name as they’re last name when they came to America for convenience and also because of their lack of English. My father was George.
And they changed their name because they couldn’t get a job when they had these long names.
Bessie Polities
My parents came over to the United States on their honeymoon and they brought my aunt along with them. They ended up finding a real nice gentleman and they were married. They came in 1913 and I was born in 1915 so we were in that gorgeous Greek neighbor. I was anxious to go to school and so we had a few nice Catholic families on that street so they said, “You can come to our school.” So, I was real happy to go to their school which was Sacred Heart. They didn’t have kindergarten so I was in the first grade. When the weather was bad we kneeled on the floor in the school there. In those years, I was all dressed up in white, long stockings and I would kneel and then when I would go home my mother would say, “what happened? Did you fall?” I said, “I didn’t fall but I had to kneel because that was part of the service.” So, the next day she gave me my father’s handkerchief and she said, “now, when you have to kneel, you lay that handkerchief down.” So, I did and the beautiful nun that wore habits then, which were gorgeous, she came and tapped me on the shoulder and just shook her head. That was not the right thing to do. So, back to the black knees then. So, after that, then I went to Central School. My father was in the restaurant business. His one restaurant was on Fifth Street so it was called the Heart of Dayton. From there he made another move and he moved on Jefferson Street and that was called Delmont Restaurant. I was attending Central School then. We had roller skates and my dad would say, “I don’t want you to go school with roller skates.” So, I said, “All right.” So, I’m the oldest of the four of us. There were two girls and two boys. So smart me, I didn’t leave my skates at school and I took them to my dad’s restaurant and left them under some car that was parked there. Victor Furniture was on the other street so there was a lot of activity. So I go back to school and after school I went and my skates were gone. So naive and everything, I thought, “I’ll betcha my dad went and got my skates.” My dad was the chef. He did all the cooking. So, I said, “Pop. Did you get my skates?” And he says, “Your skates?” And I said, “Yes.” He said, “No. I did not see your skates. No more skates anymore.” So I says, “All right.” I went to Roosevelt High School. Walked. I was just freshman there and then went to Steele High School but then I got so smart and I was out sick for a month and lost a lot of studies, so I just thought, “Well, I’m going to stay home and help my mother.” So that’s what I did. I was just always watching everything she was doing. So, I did not graduate. I was married in 1935 and had a real nice life with my husband which we celebrated our fifty anniversary. (End of Side A) So, anyway it worked really nice and I think to this day I have that notebook somewhere. But anyway, it can the day when they were going to get their papers. There was a long line like we are here, only straight, and there was this gentleman that was Italian and he was trying for the third time to pass that test. I asked the gentleman, I forget what they call his position, if I can sit next my father. And he said, “Yes, you can sit next to your father but your not supposed to say anything.” So I said, “All right. Fine.” So my dad was on one side and this Italian man with his felt hat had written some of the questions that he though were going to be asked. And so when it came to his time, it was already answered. But he was just so nervous with that hat. So he didn’t get his citizenship papers. But the teacher, Miss Shamen, why she told my dad, “I want you to bring that notebook that day.” “No,” he says, “that’s ashamed. I’m ashamed of it.” Because my dad see, being in the kitchen always working, he had that notebook which was full of grease and everything. She said, “No Mr. Afendoulos. I want you to bring that book.” So he did. But he passed anyway and we were real happy about that. That was his story. We just had a real nice family and grew up in that neighborhood.
Stephen Steffens
You’ve heard the stories all around here and most of the people around her, their parents came from Forty Churches. My mother came from there, but my father came from a town about fifty miles southwest of — called —. I was very fortunate to be able to go — about eight or ten years ago and it’s quite a city right now. It’s got about thirty0two thousand population. Most of the Greek homes are still up. They were of the French style with the balconies on the second floor and there are Turks that are living in there now. The high school and the grade school is still up and are being used and a couple of the large homes, the Vradelis home and the Gelep home. One is a school and the other is a commercial building. And they go way back. This goes back in the early 1900s and earlier. As typical of most of the Greek people that emigrated from that area, they left there to avoid serving in the Turkish army and dad came over, I don’t know exactly, but in the very early 1900s and came to Chicago. From what he had told me in the past, he had a grocery store he had a tailor shop. Then he married my mother and from then they move to, just before World War I, they moved to Culver, Indiana just outside of the city and had a farm there and farmed there for a few years. I was born in Chicago and then moved directly to Indiana. He worked the farm for a couple of years and then he worked for the Culver Military Academy for a few years as the head tailor there. Then we came to Dayton in 1920 and moved directly to Sycamore Street. It was called Greektown there. We lived there from 1920 to 1933 when we left for Columbus, Ohio. Contrary to all the rest of the Greek men, my dad was a tailor. So he worked for the Metropolitan for Old Man Margolis. I knew them well and J.H. and of course Bob and Robert Margolis and then he left there and worked for the Walker Brothers, Hart, Schaffner and Marx in Dayton and then was transferred to Columbus, Ohio. Fortunately in 1933 they allowed me to go to Ohio State and graduate from there in the College of Business. I had two brothers, john and Jim. John was six years younger than I and Jim twelve years younger. Unfortunately John was killed in World War II and Jim passed away about ten, twelve years ago. Cancer. I have fond memories here of Dayton, Ohio and the time that I spent on Sycamore Street in the community. One thing several people mentioned was the Celebration of Names Day. I’d like to bring to the attention of everybody the largest Name Day Celebration that Dayton ever had. That was done by all the Georges got together and they rented the Greystone Ballroom and they also hired Michael Hauer’s band. He knew some Greek dances. Of course the bar was open for everybody and all the ladies made the baklava and the trigonon and all the other stuff and tat was the biggest St. George’s celebration ever held in Dayton.
What year was that?
Katharine George
It had to be in the late twenties, early thirties since we graduate in ‘33.
Anastasia Vradelis
I was a Moschos for sixteen years and from then on I’ve been a Vradelis. My parents came to this country in 1913 right after the Dayton Flood. They brought three children with them and I was the first one that was born here and a brother after me. They’re all gone except this younger brother and myself. Then, I grew up in the Arcade. I’m sure you all remember the Arcade. I took my first walking steps in the Arcade and everybody was so delighted that I had walked. You probably remember Andrew’s Bakery in there. They made me a great big cake because I took my first steps there. Like I say, I didn’t go to school very long. I went to Central and then I went off of North Main Street. I forget the name of it. Then I went one year at the Steele High School and after that I got married and I’ve lived happily ever since. I’ve been widowed now for thirty-nine years. More than that actually since 1968. Colonel White was the name of the school.
Would you tell about your father’s education and how he taught Greek School in Central School.
No. He taught it at the Y. He was an elementary school teacher in Greece and then when he came here we hard times. He went into the candy business. Most of you remember the candy that we made and then he taught at the Y. He taught Greek classes to elderly people and that’s about it.
Peg Zahars
I’m so glad to see this land. At that time I wasn’t here.
Evanthia Valassiades
Tell about the Colonial Soda Fountain. How the there was and what the store was like and the people that worked there.
Peg Zahars
When I came here my husband was working there. 1965. And then he retired. It was an ice cream candy shop.
Evanthia Valassiades
Describe the Tiffany glass and the wood. What the store looked like.
Peg Zahars
You have pictures of that. It was a little store and next door was the Colonial Theatre.
It was the last ice cream store where we could go after the movies to get an ice cream cone and to get a sundae. It was important.
My son was five years old and we would take him there because he loved the malted milks and the banana splits and Mr. Zahars, he’d ask his name, he would say, “What’s your name Vre?” Vre is a slang term. Anyway, my husband said, “Now you speak to the boy in Greek,” because he knew Greek. So, from then on he knew that John knew Greek. So, we would make it every week, at least weekend we’d take him and he’d have his banana splits. But John now is fifty-four years old and he still remembers Mr. Zahars.
Evanthia Valassiades
See Gus Zahars was one of the first people here in the community and his group of friends, they would get together. They were deciding whether to build the church or not and they would get together and talk. “We’re going to bring this. We’re going to bring that.” All these people worked tougher to bring the church. Their poker group. How they would talk about building the church. How they picked the design. They went to Florida and found the design. Mr. Gelep and all that.
Peg Zahars
John Zonars and Mr. Gelep. They went there and saw the church which was all ready built up. In Tarpon Springs and they came back and after meetings they decide to find the best one and build this one.
Evanthia Valassiades
It was because of those men that we have what we have.
