Preservation of American Hellenic History
Preservation of American Hellenic History
by Jason C. Mavrovitis
From the time I was two until my twelfth birthday, Mom, Nitsa, and I spent eight to ten weeks each summer at Carelas' farm, just a few miles outside of Saugerties, New York. (photos). Situated lower in altitude and certainly less stylish, it was the Greek answer to the Borscht Circuit whose hotels were located on the higher slopes of the Catskills. A working dairy farm, it was also a boarding house in the summer. Its rooms and cabins housed thirty to forty mothers and children who escaped the heat of New York City in July and August. The young families were formed mostly by immigrants from Kastoria and Sozopolis. There were a few senior residents. On Friday evenings, husbands came from their work in New York City to spend Saturday and most of Sunday with their families.
Everyone referred to the proprietor as Carelas. His first name was Jimmy (formally, James, and in Greek, Dimitrios). In the mid-1920s, Carelas married Margaret, an Irish woman, who gave birth to five children: James (Jimmy), Georgianne, Betty, Basil (Billy), and Joan. Margaret never gave Carelas a moment's peace, and I never heard him say anything nice about her. In fact, he made denigrating her an art form and she yelled at him all the time. Yet, they remained married for more than sixty-five years. He died first, shortly after he ran into the Greenville, New York Post Office at age ninety-six and the police confiscated his car.
Carelas once operated a small restaurant in Coney Island that failed at the start of the Great Depression. Somehow, my father knew Carelas and of his desperate need to support his family. My Dad, my godfather, Bill Rusuli, and Louis Dimitroff lent Carelas the down payment to purchase the farm in Saugerties. In return, Carelas provided them with a big bedroom at the farm in Saugerties, and then in later years, at the farm in Greenville when Carelas moved his operation there. Mom, Nitsa, and I used the room at the farm in Saugerties all summer.
While I was a guest at the summer boarding house, my Dad made it clear to Carelas that he encouraged my participation in farm work. So, I took part in the hay harvest, milking, chicken feeding, chicken coop cleaning, and other activities whenever Angelo, Carelas' long term sidekick and retainer, wanted help. I also helped slaughter pigs, sheep, cows, bulls, chickens, and geese, becoming accustomed to the blood, guts, and smells. None of my friends in Brooklyn could boast of the same.
The task I performed only once and never wanted to get near again was cleaning the barn's silo. There is no more horrible smell than that of the sour, rotting debris in a silo's well.
Three or four times I was enlisted to use my Dad's 22 Hornet rifle to down a bull or cow that had gone mad. The rifle's scope enabled me to shoot the animal in the head at fifty to one hundred yards. Once down, we would rush to cut its throat and bleed it so the meat would not spoil.
Carelas worked ceaselessly. He was the head cook for the summer boarders, purchased all the groceries and supplies, traveled to livestock auctions and ran his dairy farm. As the years went by, he expanded his operations in Saugerties, opening a tavern and dance hall in conjunction with his dining room for summer boarders. Eventually, he sold his Saugerties property and purchased a larger farm in Greenville, New York. Through the years, he added thousands of acres to his holdings, built a man-made lake, an outdoor theater, a roadhouse restaurant and bar, and traded in livestock. A multimillionaire, he never appeared to be anything more than a poor, rumpled, badly-dressed, unshaven immigrant farmer with an accent.
A small river at the Saugerties farm offered swimming and fishing. Greek immigrants knew nothing about golf or tennis. The pleasures of walking and talking were enough. On weekends, except for my father, the men, mostly from the fur market, would often play poker through the night. The only hunter was my Dad. He and I would go off to kill as many crows and woodchucks as we could find.
Kastorians were noted gamblers and the games at the farm were for high stakes, but not as high as the games played over the Christmas holidays in hotel rooms in New York City or on the ocean liners that took the gamblers and their families on holidays to Greece. Life savings, homes, and businesses were lost on those trips. My cousin, Elias Demitriades, won his fortune on an ocean trip to Greece and never returned to the United States or the fur market.
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