Preservation of American Hellenic History
Preservation of American Hellenic History
by Jason C. Mavrovitis
The given name of the earliest Mavrovitis in Mavrovo is unknown. He had two sons, Nikolaos and Christodoulos, and two daughters, whose given names are unknown. Christodoulos left Mavrovo and Kastoria to establish himself elsewhere in Greece. His descendants lived in Thessaloniki and in the United States. One of the two daughters died shortly after marrying a man in Kastoria. After her death, her husband assumed her surname, just as Stefanos Tsvetkov in Sozopolis adopted his wife's family name of Capidaglis. There are therefore Mavrovitis who have no blood ties to the family from Mavrovo. Nothing is known of the second sister.
Nikolaos (1820-1895) remained in Mavrovo as a farmer, married and had three sons, Athanasios (1848-1933), Theodore (1859-1930) and Michael (1869-1962). Theodore left Greece and immigrated to Egypt where he founded a successful merchant family. Athanasios and Michael remained in Mavrovo.
Athanasios, Dimitraki's father, was a farmer whose land was fertile and productive. His first marriage ended at his wife's death. With her, he had fathered one son, Nicolas, and three daughters, Polixeni, Theano and Anastasia. His second marriage in 1896 was to a widow, Kalliopi Papadiskos Papana. She brought George Papana, her son from her first marriage to the new family. The marriage of Athanasios and Kalliopi produced four sons: Constantinos, Demetrios (Dimitraki), Aristede and Thoma.
Athanasios was one of the few men in his village who was literate. He had a personal library and was well read. Villagers came to him as one of the three wise elders in their community for advice and counsel, and he frequently read documents for them and wrote their letters. Kalliopi was literate too. Her excellent, clear and logical letters show her to have had unusual skills for a woman in a village farming family.
Life on the shores of Lake Kastoria was simple. It was sustained with dried legumes, olives and olive oil, fresh and pickled vegetables, small game and lake fish, coarse bread baked of wheat from the family's fields, and yogurt and cheese made from the milk of their goats and sheep. Orchards provided abundant crops of apples and pears.
On high Holy Days, the feast might include a spitted young goat or lamb roasted on an open fire. In winter the family would butcher a pig. Its feet, hocks and head provided the ingredients for a hearty winter soup called pichti, also known as patsa. Garlic and vinegar flavored the soup which when cold became a jellied head cheese. Dimitraki's was not a life of luxury by any standard. In his world, it was enough to have shelter and food. He had those and the security of a large and loving family.
Dimitraki was an intelligent, adventuresome boy who was not very interested in formal schooling. He loved guns and hunting, and from an early age carried a muzzle-loaded pistol in his belt. Born with a good ear and voice his talent led him to be a student of Greek liturgical chant at the Monastery of Mavriotissa. He remembered being disciplined when his gun fired in church during a service at which he was singing as the psalti (cantor).
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