The Haralambides Family
My grandmother, Angeliki Rizou, was born to a wealthy family that owned inns located in Brusa, Asia Minor— still considered today to be prime location. In the early 1920s, during the Asia Minor Catastrophe her father was killed, leaving her and her sisters to fend for themselves. After living a life of privilege, Angeliki was fortunate enough to find a job ironing clothes for the Turkish ambassador to Rumania.
She later joined her sisters in Athens and was told of a man in America who was interested in marrying. He was originally from a small village outside of Brusa, I was told that my grandmother arrived to America like the young brides portrayed in the popular Greek film “Brides.” They had never met face-to-face, so she carried a bouquet of flowers in her hands so her soon-to-be husband could identify her.
Her husband, my grandfather, Anastassios Haralambides, fled Eligmous and it is believed that he spent some time in Bulgaria before coming to America. He arrived and was processed at Ellis Island in 1913—he was 25.
Angeliki and Anastassios were married on August 24th, 1924 in Syracuse, New York and by the next year, they had their first child – Alexander. The second son, John (my father) came along eleven years later in 1936.
Throughout the roaring 1920s, Angeliki and Anastassios ran a neighborhood grocery store called the High Grade Market which seems to have been a popular gathering place for many of the Greeks in the area. By the time John (my father) was 12 years old, he was running the High Grade Market alone. But in 1955 my grandparents and my father moved to Miami.
About 85 years after my grandparents were forced out of Asia Minor, I returned to visit with my wife. We were sitting outside a busy restaurant in the “Pera” area of Constantinople. An old man heard we were speaking Greek and walked up to our table and said “kalos irthate”. We were shocked. This was probably the only Greek owned restaurant in all of Istanbul. We chatted for a while and he said, “for hundreds of years we lived with the Turks and we never lost our language or our religion.”
This made me look at things with a completely different perspective: my grandparents could have stayed in Turkey and kept all of their land and possessions if they had simply agreed to convert to Islam and/or if they had just assimilated. They gave everything up they had to remain “Greek” and all that being Greek stood for – something I hope that our children and generations to come will never forget.
Today, when I hold my grandmother’s baptismal certificate in my hands, I am afraid it will turn to dust. But unlike the paper that may dissipate, her memory, and my grandfather’s, will live on for generations to come.
Aleco Haralambides and the Haralambides Family
