Prosperity and Depression

Utah Historical Quarterly

Vol. 38, 1970, No. 2

Prosperity and Depression

IN THE 1920's Greek schools were established in Salt Lake City, Bingham, Price, Helper, Tooele, and Midvale. (The first Ogden classes were begun in 1932.) Children attended classes after regular school, and sometimes on Saturday, in various buildings, private homes, and church basements. The quality of the teachers' educational backgrounds varied greatly. At times the children were taught by teachers who had only a year more schooling than their fathers. Often the Greek priest led the classes. There were a few exceptional teachers. Among the early teachers were: Gus Kambourakis, James Demas, John Klekas, Mrs. Harry Moscho, James Gray (Kyriakos), Mrs. John Praggastis, Mrs. John Demiris, Mrs. James Skedros, assisted by Dorothy Katris, Mrs. Harry Benakis, Miss Helen Haliori, Demetrios Zaharogiannis, Mrs. Gus Cutrubus, Panayioties Yanopoulos, Andonios Voyagis, and Mrs. Louis Frickson.

One of the obstacles to learning Greek in these schools was the teaching of the purist language, the katharevousa. When Greece won her independence from the Turks, educators with nationalistic zeal and in an attempt to return to the purity of ancient Greek, stripped the language of foreign words left by the various conquerors and of many folk words used by the common people. The result was an artificial language not spoken at home nor anywhere else.

Of all aspects of Greek immigrant life, the Greek school emphasized the foreignness of the children's background. With the immense prejudice of Americans and the isolationist policies of the United States government, it was unfashionable to be of another culture. To Americans the presence of Greek schools in their communities was the final evidence that the Greeks would never become Americanized.

Mothers had not learned to speak English. Children were constantly admonished to speak Greek in their houses and to keep Greek customs and ideas. Yet Americanization was quietly going on in small ways: the buying and decorating of Christmas trees, installing pews in churches, the increasing use of English.

In the 1920's the Panhellenic unions were disbanded. Many organizations took their place, the members representing a common origin in certain areas of Greece. The large Minos Club represented the Greeks from Crete. Athanasios Diakos was composed of men from the Roumeli province of Greece. The Arcadian Brotherhood consisted of men from the Peloponnese. In Salt Lake City an additional society was formed, the Panahaikos for men from the province of Ahaioelidos. Women's auxiliaries and young people's groups were also established.

Top—The Salt Lake City Greek school in the middle twenties. The adults are (left to right), Helen Haliori, teacher; Mike Varanakis, William Souvall, and George Fountas, school committee members; and Mrs. John Demiris, teacher. Photograph furnished by Mrs. Peter Demiris. Middle—The Price Greek school of the middle twenties. Photograph from the Fiftieth Anniversary Book of the "Assumption" Greek Orthodox Church of Price. Bottom—Mrs. Mary Benakis Alfieris, Greek school teacher in the Carbon County and Salt Lake City areas for many years. Photograph furnished by Mrs. John Leventis.

Top: Magna Greek school. Photograph furnished by Mrs. John Klekas. Middle: Greek school in Bingham. On the left is the teacher Andonios Voyagis; the priest is Father Stephanos Angelopoulos. Photograph furnished by Mayor Peter C. Dimas, Bingham. Bottom: The Ogden Greek school in 1932. The teachers are Panayiotis Yanopoulos and Mrs. Gus Cutrubus. Photograph furnished by Nina Cutrubus.

Whatever their origin in Greece, almost all men belonged to either the Ahepa, the American Hellenic Progressive Association, or the GAPA, the Greek American Progressive Association. The Ahepa was organized primarily to counteract hostility towards Greeks. It was oriented towards assimilation with emphasis on the use of English, the language spoken in meetings. Ahepans emulated American lodges. The men wore white flannel pants and carried canes. Their national conventions were elaborate affairs in expensive hotels with formal balls and reigning queens.

The GAPA was interested mainly in preserving the Greek language and traditions. Its members were conservative. They dressed in dark business suits and shunned flamboyance. Their favorite gathering was the mountain picnic with lambs roasting on spits.

The 1920's were the prime of Greek immigrant life. The Greeks were now American citizens. They were still young; their children were small, dutifully following Greek customs. In Greek Towns a few sheepmen's wives still carded wool, not through necessity, but habit. Bread was still baked in mud ovens and the yeasty scent was in the air; boys, their heads shaved to make their new hair strong, wore kneelength rubber boots and trampled on grapes in galvanized tubs; girls sat on front porches and embroidered pillowcases for trouseaus, the American dowry.

Picnics were held regularly on Sundays in nearby canyons. Often Greeks from the Salt Lake area and those from Carbon County met halfway to share the day. Men went to the picnic sites before daybreak to roast lambs. Mothers made cheese pastries and honey and nut delicacies with an extra supply for the bachelors to take to their hotel rooms. For hours men played lyras, clarinos } and laoutos while the young parents and their children danced. The old laments against Fate, the great feats of the guerrilla klefts against the Turks were sung until the sun went down.

Plays were produced on the theme of the Greek-Turkish war and given on March 25, the anniversary of the revolt. In Carbon County the girl students of the Greek schools took all parts. In Salt Lake City, the adults were the actors.

Greek immigrant life in the 1920's was also one of turmoil. Labor troubles and immigrant problems had welded the immigrants together, but a Greek political crisis produced a nationwide schism among the Greeks in the United States. With their nationalism as intense in the new country as in their native land, the Greeks followed the events in partisan Greek newspapers, debated, and fought over them in coffeehouses and wherever Greeks gathered.

Followers of Premier Eleftherios Venizelos, the Cretan statesman, and those of King Constantine were as avidly loyal in America as in Greece. The formation of a Greek Orthodox archdiocese in America aligned the Liberal followers of Venizelos with Meletios Metaxakis, Metropolitan of Athens, and Bishop Alexander against the Royalist Bishop Germanos Troianos. For the ten years of the 1920's many churches were closed for long periods of time; some offered liturgies intermittently.

In Carbon County where Greeks were evenly divided between Cretans and Roumeliots, the feud was incendiary. Many Cretans had come to the coal mines directly from the Bingham Strike of 1912. The harsh memories of mainland Greeks having been used as strikebreakers against them burst out. At the height of the 1922 labor troubles, a Greek was killed over the Royalist-Venizelist issue.

During these years children attended church sporadically. In Ogden, that had too few people to sustain a Greek church, children sometimes attended the Episcopal church with which the Greek Orthodox church holds in common the Nicene Creed and the recognition of each others' sacraments. The YMCA of Helper gave a foundation in the Bible to many children, sons and daughters of Royalists and Venizelists.

Prosperity continued for all Greeks during the 1920's. Mines, mills, and smelters were working at full capacity. The exodus from Greek Towns began. The trickle of laborers who had left labor for business became a great force and continued to be until the stock market crash of 1929.

The Greek population remained considerably stable. In Carbon County the closing of the mines forced many Cretan families to move to California in hopes of finding work with countrymen in the grape region. Rows of boarded-up company houses stood deserted among tumbleweeds. Sheepmen saw the price of lambs fall from $18.00 a head to $3.00. The price of wool was so low it was not worth the money to graze sheep. Greek sheepmen suffered the bitter experience of riding the livestock freights with their sheep, unloading them, watering and feeding them, finding no buyers, loading them again at Grand Junction, Colorado, at Denver, at Omaha, at Kansas City, and abandoning them in the Chicago stockyards. In the jargon of the Depression, the banks "owned" the sheepmen. Many Greek sheepmen turned from the Republican to the Democratic party during the Depression.

Top: A Fourth of July parade in Helper, Utah, 1930. The GAPA led by Chris Jouflas, left, mayor of Helper for many years, and James Diamanti (right), owner of Carbon Fuel Company. Photograph furnished by Mrs. Basil Theodore. Middle: First prize in the Covered Wagon Days Parade 1935 won by the Salt Lake G r eek church. Photograph furnished by Paul G. Borovilos. Bottom: The committee for the Covered Wagon Days 1935 float. Left to right, first row James Latsis, John Kotsovos, Philip Drandos, Peter Athas, Nick Metis, William Cayias. Second row James Lambros, P. S. Marthakis, Nick Jerefos, Gus Captain. The boy is Raymond Cayias. Photograph furnished by Mrs. Nick Jerefos.

A remnant of the thousands of Greek miners who had worked in the Carbon County mines, a hundred or less (the companies had stopped listing miners by nationalities) were involved in the Coal Strike of 1933. A feud between the National Miners Union, rumored to be Communist controlled and guilty of syndicalism, and the United Mine Workers worsened the strike. The National Guard was called in. Use of tear gas, beatings, and the jailing of 260 miners left a pall of hate over the coal towns.

While American policies of German, Italian, and Slavic organizations in America were influenced by political leaders in their former countries, the opposite was true of Greek organizations. These often exerted pressure on the Greek government to change policies in Greece.

The bleakness of the depressed times did not prevent the Greek people from holding picnics in the summer, and performing plays in the winter. The plays cost little and brought the people together. All organizations were involved in helping their members who were without work and those who were ill. Because many families could not afford the $3.00 necessary for the Easter lamb, the two churches provided the Sunday Feast of Agape (Christian Love).

The climax of every year for the Orthodox is Holy Week. Forty days before Easter, the people begin to relive the events of Christ's life. The chandeliers of the churches are dimmed. All meat and meat products are forbidden. On Great Thursday a black cross is carried three times around the church while profound grief is intoned. On Great Friday His flowered tomb is carried three times around the inside of the church to the singing of dirges. In the first days in America, the immigrants followed the custom of Greece. In Price the tomb was taken through Main Street; in Salt Lake City, the procession followed around the church block.

On Great Saturday night the church is in black stillness. At midnight a small light appears in the sanctuary. The priest approaches and lights candles held before him. Those holding burning candles give light to their neighbors. The Resurrection song begins softly: "Christ is arisen, Truly arisen." As more candles are lighted the song grows louder, certain, joyous. The Resurrection has come to Christ and all mortals. Fasting is over. The Easter feast rewards the faithful with roast lamb, symbol of Christ, eggs dyed red for His blood, goat cheese pastries, and honey and nut sweets.

The first of the young people were of high-school age during the Depression. The Sons of Pericles and the Ahepa Band in Salt Lake City, both supported by the Ahepa, brought boys together from Bingham, Magna, Murray, Midvale, and Salt Lake City. The GAPA girls organizations, the Demetra Club in Salt Lake City, and the Athena Club in Carbon County provided companionship for girls in their growing years. Sons of Greek immigrants in Bingham and Magna were brought into baseball and other community activities by Catholic priests.

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