Kostas and Elefteria Drougas: A Transatlantic Love Story
He was in love from the moment he saw her. Elefteria Bassias stood in the sun on the deck of the Queen Frederica ship, traveling alone to Canada to work as a maid for a wealthy Jewish family. It was late in the summer of 1958.
Kostas Drougas, a Greek immigrant who had been living in America since 1951, was returning to his restaurant job in Chicago after an unsuccessful six months searching for a wife in Greece. He’d just about given up when he spotted her smile.
They exchanged stories for the first time at a port in Italy. Elefteria came from a family of six in Xania, Crete. They weren’t poor, but her father wanted a better life for his beautiful daughter. Kostas, born in 1931, came from a Rendina in northern Greece. His father, a soldier, had died years earlier from health problems resulting when he served in the Greco-Turkish War. As a young boy, Kostas had seen many villagers killed by German soldiers during World War II. The village was evacuated in 1947 during the Greek Civil War, and Kostas seized the opportunity to leave. He got a job as a delivery boy in Athens and bypassed the long line at the U.S. Embassy by pretending to make a delivery, allowing him to obtain his U.S. work visa within one month – the typical wait time was several months to a year long.
Elefteria and Kostas spent twelve days together crossing the Atlantic. He told her about the land of opportunity and how different it was from Greece. When he’d first arrived in 1951, he passed through Ellis Island in New York before heading to Wilkes-Barre, Penn., where the AHEPA had arranged employment for him. After a year he moved to Chicago to work as a waiter at the famous Hilton Hotel on Michigan Ave.
In those twelve days with his newfound love, Kostas’ life changed. He did not hide his sadness when Elefteria had to get off the ship at Halifax, Canada. He told her he loved her. They each promised to write. They spilled their love onto the pages of hundreds of letters over the next five months. In November 1958, Kostas wrote to Elefteria’s father in Xania to ask for permission to marry his daughter.
A few days before Christmas, Kostas took a train from Chicago to Ottawa to meet his lovely fiancée. On Dec. 26, 1958, Kostas bought Elefteria a light blue dress and purse. Hours later they found themselves standing before the altar at Kimisis Tis Theotokou Greek Orthodox Church in Ottawa, Canada. Only the priest and Elefteria’s uncle were present to witness the ceremony.
The wedding was the most romantic day of their lives. But it was marked by yet another separation: it would be another five months before Elefteria could get her U.S. work visa. On May 21, 1959, Kostas took another train from Chicago to Ottawa to bring his new wife home with him. Finally, they were able to begin their life together in America.
Kostas and Elefteria had three children (James, Faye and Crisa). In 2008, they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. In all those years, not one thing has changed – they are still just as much in love today as they were when they met on the passage to America.
