An American Dream Cut Short

The 19th-century view from Patras castle

For centuries, westward voyages from Greece have often started from Patras, the country's main western seaport.  Still today, Patras's ancient castle -- erected by the Byzantines in the mid-6th century and re-built by Franks, Venetians, and Ottomans in turn -- oversees the busy harbor's comings and goings.  So it was completely unremarkable for an oceangoing ship, the S.S. Laura of the Austro-American Line, to sail from Patras on August 17, 1907.

That day, Laura was en route to New York.  She was engaged in the lucrative immigrant trade and had two classes of accommodation:  first class for 130 passengers and third class for 1,350.  There was no second class.

S.S. Laura

Her voyage had started two days earlier in Trieste.  On arrival in Patras Laura was already loaded with 770 Russians, Hungarians, Croatians, Dalmatians, Austrians, Slovenians, Bulgarians, Poles, Magyars, Servians, Montenegrins, Jews, Germans, Roumanians, Bosnians, Herzegovinians, Ruthenians, Turks, Slovaks, Italians, and one Albanian.

After embarking 979 more passengers at Patras, mostly Greeks, Laura would proceed to Palermo and take on 89 Sicilians (including three stowaways) for a total of 1,838 passengers, 358 more than she had accommodations for.  Then this overloaded assembly of nations would chug and sway uncomfortably across the Atlantic at a laborious sixteen knots.

Laura reached New York on September 3.  For the ship's owners and a handful of non-immigrant passengers, Laura had merely completed another westbound Atlantic crossing.  But for the vast majority of souls on board -- the anxious third classers not among the 147 turned back for one reason or another by U.S. immigration officials at Ellis Island -- Laura had fulfilled dreams of starting new lives in a new world.

*  *  *

Jerry Marketos
(date unknown)

Among the Greek immigrants who boarded seventeen days earlier in Patras was a stout moustachioed man in his late thirties, brown-eyed and five feet eight inches tall.  He could read and write and had $12 in hand (or maybe $10 -- read on).  He was an unmarried laborer from Angona, a tiny village on Cephalonia, one of Greece's Ionian Islands.  His name was Gerasimos Marketos, and he was my paternal grandfather, the very first of my direct ancestors to immigrate to the United States.

He would never see his native country again.  In his new homeland he would come to be known as "Jerry."

* * * 

George Horton (1859-1942)

A clutch of first-class passengers also came aboard Laura in Patras that day.  One of them was George Horton, the U.S.'s 46-year-old consul-general in Athens.  An ardent Hellenophile, Horton was returning to the U.S. to give a series of public lectures on the current state of affairs in Greece.  Nineteen years later, his book The Blight of Asia (1926) would condemn the Turkish atrocities that in 1922 ignited the 20th century's first holocaust and ethnically cleansed 1.3 million Greek and Armenian Christians from their centuries-old homelands in Asia Minor and Eastern Thrace, a genocidal tragedy that affected some of my mother's relations (see  "An Icon").

It's intriguing to wonder whether Horton and my grandfather met during the voyage or had occasion even to notice one another.  Horton was fluent in Greek and was probably inclined to engage with the Greek immigrants aboard and help them navigate the perplexities of their new world.  But shipboard classes rarely mingled in those days, so it's more likely they did not meet.

The Horton and Marketos trajectories did not intersect again for 101 years (2008) when I represented Horton's daughter, Nancy, in the sale of her Washington apartment.  A remarkable woman in her own right, Nancy wasn't yet born in 1907.  But she lives today, more than 100 years old.  [Update:  Nancy Horton died in Athens on February 18, 2016, aged 103.  I was present at the interment of her ashes next to her father and mother in Oak Hill Cemetery on April 18, 2016.]

Her father is buried in Georgetown's Oak Hill Cemetery at the foot of the slope that descends into Rock Creek Park.  A glimpse of George Horton's creek-side grave -- easily seen while driving through the park, especially in winter when the trees are bare -- is a comforting reminder of my family's first footsteps in America.

*  *  *

There is confusion about the year of my grandfather's birth.  An official Greek register says he was born in 1868 in Angona, the child of Panteleontos.  But his daughter Nicoletta's birth certificate says he was forty-three at her birth, meaning he was born in 1871.  And Laura's passenger manifest says he was twenty-six, i.e., born in 1881.

*  *  *

Apart from the unlikeliness of his being twenty-six, there are some other very strange entries associated with Jerry on Laura's manifest.  First of all, he is recorded twice:  once on line 4 of page 67 and again on line 16 of page 68.  The page-67 information has a line drawn through it, which everywhere else on the manifest signifies denial of admission.  The page-68 information is not stricken through.  Did Jerry perhaps board Laura twice in Patras, having to be re-recorded after retrieving some forgotten item on the dock?  Were there possibly two Gerasimos Marketoses aboard Laura, one of whom was turned back at Ellis Island?  There's no way to know.  But the perplexities don't stop with his being recorded twice.

On page 67, he named his nearest relative in Greece as his father, "Panagiotis Anastasiou" (given name followed by patronymic), of Lixouri, Cephalonia.  But his father was Panteleontos Konstantinou of Angona.  In response to the same question on page 68, he named his father as "Dionyssios Marketos" (given name followed by surname), also of Lixouri.  Same problem of erroneous location, and why did he switch forms of naming and give two different names, neither of which was his real father?

On page 67, he said he would be joining his brother "Alsarsis Marketos" (the given name is hard to read) at 59 James Street in New York City.  On page 68, the brother's name is given as "Olivetos Marketos" (again, the name is hard to read) at the same New York address.  But none of Jerry's brothers ever came to the United States, and his only known brothers were Konstantinos and Christos.

On both pages, Jerry is said to have been born in Lixouri, Cephalonia.  But by every other account I know of, he was born in Angona.  And there's one final discrepancy:  on page 67 he declares he has $10 in hand; on page 68, $12.

Could this be the wrong Gerasimos Marketos?  I don't think so.  According to my aunt Nicoletta, her father Jerry came to the U.S. aboard Laura.  That much seems certain.  Using variant name spellings, I've searched every New York arrival (not just Laura) for every Marketos and Kalavitis (his other surname -- read on) prior to 1911, when there's positive proof of Jerry's being married in Syracuse, New York.  The result is that I don't find any arriving Marketos or Kalavitis named Gerasimos other than the one who arrived September 3, 1907, aboard Laura.  So unless he used a completely different name for purposes of emigrating, I'm as certain as I can be that the Gerasimos Marketos who arrived in New York aboard Laura that day was my grandfather.  I simply can't explain the aberrations on the manifest.

*  *  *

There's also something of a mystery about his surname, but it doesn't seem so mysterious now that I've seen various contemporaneous records.  In Angona he was known as Kalavitis or Marketos-Kalavitis.  On Laura's manifest he appears as Marketos (both times).

I've heard different explanations for why the Kalavitis surname disappeared when Jerry came to the U.S.  One is that Marketos was a clan name while Kalavitis was a family name, and that on emigrating from Greece he adopted the more prestigious clan name and dropped the family name.  Another story is that there was some kind of altercation in Angona (in one version he drew a knife or a gun against his future father-in-law), which required him to change his name when leaving Greece.

Half a century later, during my childhood visits to Angona in the 1960s, Jerry's name change made me a mystery to the village's old-timers.  When they asked my name, the answer "Marketos" drew blank stares.  But the coda that I was the grandson of "Kalavitis" brought understanding nods.  The additional detail allowed them to place me properly in the village's network of families.

*  *  *

S.E. Tzannatos's bill for three gold rings (July 18, 1911)

Jerry married twenty-six-year-old Eleni Panagiotatou Livada (also from Angona) in Syracuse, New York, on October 5, 1911, less than two weeks after she arrived in the U.S. (Sept. 23, 1911).  Presumably she brought along the three gold rings purchased for her in July by Jerry's brother Konstantinos from S.E. Tzannatos, a goldsmith, diamond-seller, and watchmaker in Argostoli, Cephalonia's capital.  Tzannatos's bill -- for a betrothal ring, a lady's ring engraved "E.M.", and a lady's diamond solitaire -- names the purchaser (Jerry's brother) as "Konstantinos Marketos Kalavitis."

Eleni's "E.M." ring

The Marketos family (c. 1917)

In Syracuse, Jerry and Eleni lived at 338 East Genesee Street and later at 511 South State Street.  They had two children.  Leon (my father, baptized as Panteleontos) was born in 1912.  My aunt Nicoletta came along two years later.

In 1915 the young family moved to Utica, New York.  I think their first home was at 208 Blandina Street. 

27 Genesee Street (1970)

In Utica, Jerry opened a retail tobacco, candy, ice cream, and fruit business, which he operated from a small store leased in March 1915 from James Trask for $50 a month.  The store was downtown at 27 Genesee Street in the now-vanished neighborhood of Baggs Square.

In 1916 the family moved to 416 Mary Street.  That year Jerry paid a premium of $10.85 to the American Eagle Fire Insurance Company of New York for $700 of insurance on his business.  The insured property included a cash register, refrigerator, show cases, mirrors, office and store fixtures used in the business, and a stock of candies, cigars, and fruit.  At some point he learned to make his own candies, including chocolate Easter rabbits and a chocolate-covered confection he called the "Coconut Bullet."  By 1918, the family was living at 125 Washington Street.

With Leon and Nicoletta (1919),
possibly at 412 Elizabeth Street

On June 26, 1919, Jerry purchased 412 Elizabeth Street from Paul and Lucy DeBernardis for $7,500.  As part of the deal he had to consent to the continued use of the property's double garage by William Owen, the next-door neighbor, who a year earlier had sold the property to the DeBernardises.  Alerted to the impending sale, Owen urged Jerry's real estate agents, Jackson & Spitzli, to "keep in mind the importance of our having respectable neighbors."  Owen apparently considered Italian neighbors respectable, but the prospect of Greek ones gave him doubts.  Two years later (May 26, 1921), Jerry sold the property for $8,000.  That's probably when the family moved to 33 Auburn Avenue.

On May 25, 1922, Jerry bought Martin Curley's confectionery and grocery business at 1039 Albany Street for $1,400.  Less than a month later (June 8), Jerry sold a half interest in the business to Peter Livadas, a fellow Angonan living in Utica.  Curley had promised "not to engage in the wholesale or retail business of confectioneries, ice cream or groceries in the immediate vicinity of 1039 Albany Street at any time hereafter."  But  Jerry and Peter soon discovered Curley was competing with them at 1006 South Street.  They sued and got a judgment (Nov. 27, 1922) holding Curley to his promise not to compete.

On August 10, 1922, Jerry and Peter Augustinos leased 163 Genesee Street (at the corner of Bleecker) from the United Cigar Stores Company of America.  Apparently they did so in order to flip the lease to Louis Weiner, which they accomplished five months later (Jan. 15, 1923), securing the landlord's agreement to allow the new tenant to operate a retail jewelry business on premises that had been leased as a retail fruit and confectionery store.

"3 for 10¢" at 27 Genesee Street (1923)

Judging by Jerry's rolled-up sleeves, the outdoor fruit and vegetable display, and the straw boater worn by the man reflected in the plate glass window, the photo of Jerry standing outside his Baggs Square store was taken in summertime.  Next to an item of produce is a "3 for 10¢" price tag.  Tags like that must have been the source of his wife Eleni's sing-song response to questions she didn't know how to answer.  According to my father, she'd say "I don't know kai three for ten" (kai meaning "and" in Greek).

My father and my aunt remembered their father as warm-hearted and jovial.  He was also a practical joker.  My aunt recalled Jerry and some friends timing each other on dashes inside the house, probably at 33 Auburn Avenue.  They started in the kitchen, ran up the back stairs and down the front stairs, and finished back in the kitchen.  When it came Jerry's turn, he took off fast like the others.  But when he got upstairs he laid down and took a nap, leaving the others to wonder what had become of him.

*  *  *

Leon and Nicoletta
at 33 Auburn Avenue (1924)

Jerry died prematurely in 1924.  On a fall day he came home early from work not feeling well and went upstairs to lie down.  On fetching him for dinner, my father (who had turned twelve just three weeks before) found Jerry unresponsive and "all blue."  The Utica Observer-Dispatch for Saturday, September 6, 1924, carried the following notice:

Returning from his place of business, 27 Genesee Street, yesterday noon, complaining of illness, Jerry Marketos, aged 59 [i.e., born 1865?], proprietor of a fruit and candy store, passed away at his home, 33 Auburn Avenue, last evening.  Heart disease was pronounced the cause of death by Dr. H.W. Thomssen, coroner.  Mr. Marketos was born in Greece, a son of the late [P]anteleon and Catherine Marketos.  He came to America in 1904 [sic], taking up his residence here in 1915.  He was a member of the Greek Orthodox Church.  He [is survived by his wife] Helen Livada, a daughter, Nicoletta, and son, Leo; three sisters and two brothers.

The funeral was held at his home the next day.  He is buried in Utica's Forest Hill Cemetery.

Some of the contents of this post were circulated privately on September 3, 2010.