Growing Up Greek in Helper, Utah BY H E L E N Z . P A P A N I K O L A S
W L v F A T H E R CAME TO AMERICA D U R -
ing the panic of 1907 when men born in America were riding the rails in search of work. For one full day he worked in a Pawtucket, Rhode Island, factory. Amazed, he saw giant machines driven by electricity. O n leaving work he ran a gauntlet of rock-throwing Poles and Americans and in the refuge of a Greek coffeehouse learned they were that anomaly of America, strikers, and he that equally strange being, a strikebreaker. H e washed dishes, slept on straw in an unheated stable, rode freights, dug a sewer in Oklahoma alongside a gang of blacks who laughed at this foreigner, unaware that in America no matter how lowly a white man, he did not work with Negroes. In snow-dusted sagebrush outside Leadville, Colorado, he built small fires to keep from freezing and went three clays without food. H e Mrs. Papanikolas is a Fellow of the U t a h State Historical Society and a member of the Board of State History.
The author in a pongee dress made and embroidered by her mother. Courtesy of the author.
