Preservation of American Hellenic History
Preservation of American Hellenic History
by Jason C. Mavrovitis
Jane Addams, daughter of a wealthy Illinois mill owner, used an old mansion called Hull House to provide social services to the poor immigrant population in Chicago. In an article published by the American Journal of Sociology, Grace Abbott, once a resident worker at Hull House and later Director of the League for the Protection of Immigrants wrote:(82)
The largest settlement of Chicago Greeks is in the nineteenth ward, north and west of Hull House. Here is a Greek Orthodox Church; a school in which children are taught little English, some Greek, much of the achievements of Hellas and the obligation that rests on every Greek to rescue Macedonia from the Turks and Bulgarians;(83) here, too, is the combination of Greek bank, steamship ticket office, notary public, and employment agency; and the coffee houses, where the men drink black coffee, play cards, speculate on the outcome of the next Greek lottery, and in the evening sing to the accompaniment of the Greek bag-pipes or ~ evidence of their Americanization ~ listen to the phonograph.
In the summer of 1915 Christos Stamatiou died during a record heat wave. Before the time of air conditioning the hot days of summer caused many deaths. Sickly young, old and infirmed people succumbed in great number. Heatstroke alone claimed 535 lives in Chicago in 1915. The temperature contributed to many more deaths as Chicago's hospital facilities strained to meet the needs of the sick. That world without air conditioning offered less than rudimentary medical care by today's standards.
Eleni found herself widowed for a second time. She was isolated in a strange city, larger and busier and more threatening than any she had imagined in her life in Sozopolis. Clinging to each other, Evangelia and her mother became inseparable. The relationship that developed between them was not only of mother and daughter but also of closest friends and intimates. With Christos gone, they again were alone and without any support.
Family never discussed Christos existence. Only one member even alluded to Eleni having had a husband when she came to America. That was Joyce (Toto) Capidaglis Tumola, who once blurted out that Eleni had divorced a man in Chicago. Whatever the truth about Christos Stamatiou, Eleni came to the United States to meet him, they moved from St. Paul to Chicago, and sometime in 1915 he went out of Eleni and Evangelia's life. Neither Eleni nor Evangelia ever publicly acknowledged Christos Stamatiou.
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