Preservation of American Hellenic History
Preservation of American Hellenic History
by Jason C. Mavrovitis
Sometime before April of 1912 Eleni married a man named Christos Stamatiou. But family oral history and photographs indicate that Eleni and Evangelia were in Piraeus for one or two years before coming to America. Where was Christos during that time? Was Eleni's marriage an arrangement so that she might immigrate to America? These questions go unanswered.
We know that Christos and Eleni witnessed increased tensions in the Balkan. He had few skills and they were without land or financial resources. They saw the dispossessed, those without any hope of gainful employment to support their lives and families, board ships to emigrate, leaving the Balkans and Greece for Canada, Argentina, Australia and America. He and Eleni made the decision to emigrate, to find a future in the New World that America offered.
According to entries on the S.S. Macedonia's "List or Manifest of Alien Passengers for the United States," Christos Stamatiou arrived at Ellis Island on 20 April 1912. He was alone, married, and 38 years of age. His destination was South St. Paul, Minnesota, where he was to join a friend. His last place of residence in Greece was "Efxinoupolis." The document shows his place of birth as "Anhialos," Greece. The entry either is a misspelling of Anchialos in Bulgaria, the city that suffered total destruction in the Bulgarian pogrom of 1906, or a reference to Nea Anchialos in Greece. The name of his wife, who remained in Greece, is decipherable on the manifest as "Eleni". [photos]
Christos made his way to St. Paul, Minnesota to work for the railroad or in the stockyards and slaughterhouses that had become central to St. Paul's economy.
On 31 July 1912, Eleni and Evangelia embarked on the S.S. Macedonia for a seventeen-day voyage to America. It was a long trip in steerage for young Evangelia.(79) She never forgot the crowded, dirty conditions; slop buckets, foul air and barely edible food. Eleni and Evangelia arrived at Ellis Island on 17 August 1912. The ship manifest shows that Eleni's nearest relative in Athens, Greece was her sister, Sofia, and that Eleni and Evangelia were on route to join Eleni's husband in St. Paul where he lived at "211 East 7th Street", just a mile or so north of the stockyards. On the manifest their place of birth was identified as, "Sozoupolis, Boulgaria."
Among the many places of origin Eleni's fellow immigrants listed on the S.S. Macedonia's manifest were Skyros, Chios, Mitylene, Gallipoli, Pirgami, Arakova, Fokis, Dervitsami, Athens, the Aegean and Ionian Islands, and Turkey. Destinations in the United States were countrywide, including Chicago, Minneapolis, Oakland, Boston, Morgantown, Detroit, Duluth and Des Moines.
Ellis Island records show that after passing their physical examinations Eleni and Evangelia were detained for three days while waiting for Christos to send money to them for their train tickets to St. Paul.(80) When funds arrived Eleni purchased the tickets, and at 3:00 PM on 20 August 1912, released from Ellis Island, they began their lives in America.(81)
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