One of the greatest thrills in genealogy research is finding a new branch of the family tree. Not so with me. I did not find a branch, I found a forest – 7 great aunts and uncles I never knew existed.
It was all so innocent. I was named after Dad’s father, Nicholas, born in a little village in Central Greece in 1896. He arrived in the United States in the 1920’s, went back to Greece,
married my grandmother, had my dad, and came to the US permanently in 1934.
That was pretty much it - so I thought.
My grandmother took my sister and I to Greece as a high school graduation present (yes, I have bragged about that quite a lot over the years.) We met her family. Not a word was said about my grandfather. I never asked, which is something I quite regret now.
Decades later, Dad and Mom buy a campground in Connecticut. One of the campers noticed their last name – Hasapes. She said she knew a Tom Hasapes. Turns out that “Tom” was myfather’s first cousin! He never told us. Tom had an older brother Harry – my great uncle. Thanks to the researchers at the Family History Center (thanks, Latter Day Saints,) and Ancestry.com I learned my grandfather had four older sisters who stayed in Greece, while he and his three brothers landed in the US.
By “landed” they initially settled in Pittsburgh, where I grew up. We, the grandchildren of Nick and Tom and Sophia and Olga, among others, probably walked right past each other and did not know we were related at all.
My grandfather was the first among all the siblings to die. He left a young widow and teenage son. You would think the family would rally around them. It appears not.
So what was the fight about? You know there had to be a fight.
As near as we could tell, there was a class differencebetween my undereducated grandfather from a poor village and my grandmother, daughter of scholars, from what was the biggest town in the area. My grandmother, the oldest of her four siblings, told us she had my dad at age 16. She lied – I have the paperwork. She had him at 21. Back in the 1930’s, 21 was considered
old. It also explains a lot about why she married a man 15 years her senior.
My guess is when my grandfather died, some of his family did try to reach out. My grandmother was, shall we say “quirky.” I am sure she told them they were fine and to leave them along.
Dad – all he ever talked about was my grandmother’s sister and her family. They settled in Idaho, where dad would take the train from PIttsburgh PA to Pocatello, Idaho, every summer to visit.
A few things here – Olga, as a Greek name? Turns out the Queen of Greece at the time was Olga. Also, my grandfather listed his mom’s name as Aphroditi Kokinis – her name, and again I shave the paperwork, was Savopoulos. Kokinis is Greek for “red.” I am guessing red hair – she must have been stunning – Mediterranean skin with red hair. Sadly. none of this came down
through her youngest son.
