Most all of my articles relate to my experience in the Indian trading business in which I have spent most of my life and written four relative books. I am the third generation of traders in my family spanning over 100 years. This issue, however, is not related to my trading experience; rather, a noteworthy experience relative to the Gallup community and later, my life with excerpts from another of my books, What They Said.
“You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them”.
“Don’t forget where you came from”.
My wife, Sheila, and I have been blessed with a strong family foundation. We both had parents that were hardworking and pillars of family integrity. Her father, James (Jimmy) Theophilos was a Greek immigrant. Her mother, Margaret, came from a large, prominent Spanish family in Gallup. This posting is about the remarkable life of Jimmy and Sheila’s Greek roots and my fortunate connection with them.
James and Margaret Theophilos
Jimmy was born in Andromanus on the northern Greek island of Euboea in 1907. During the world-wide Depression of the 1930s, he decided that his best opportunity in life would be in America. He began his journey with a 62 km walk to Athens where he got a job as a shoe cobbler to begin saving money for America. After several years, he boarded a freighter for a 16-day voyage to Veracruz, Mexico. He refined his American destination to Madrid, New Mexico, near Santa Fe, where he had a brother working in the coal mine. It was 1,700 miles from Veracruz.
Passports weren’t always required to enter the US. Between 1921 and 1941, one could entry the United States without a passport. Jimmy had no passport and he only spoke Greek.
Mexico was still in the throes of Depression that outlasted that of the United States. In the 20s, the US deported many Mexican immigrants so there was a lingering immigration hostility between the two countries. During that time, there was little public transportation in Mexico outside of Mexico City. The primary choice for Jimmy was the Mexican Central Railroad that went north to El Paso. Once in El Paso he walked and hitchhiked to Madrid (300 miles) to join his brother, Tom. Tom was working as a coal miner. He was married to a Mexican woman. Jimmy lived with them for two years. During that time, he learned Spanish from Tom’s wife. As yet, he spoke little English.
After several years, Tom and his wife decided to return to Greece. Jimmy moved to Santa Fe and became a restaurant dishwasher. He began learning English and worked his way to becoming sous chef. Through the Greek network Jimmy met Pete Laleekas from Gallup. Pete wanted to buy a cafe in Gallup and asked Jimmy to partner with him. They named it Pete’s Cafe.
After he got to Gallup, Jimmy decided to apply for US citizenship and returned to Mexico and went through the process of reentering the US after formally applying for citizenship. WWII prompted the US to require passports. Before leaving the US, he obtained an Alien Border Crossing Card to assure his reentry to the US.
Pete and Jimmy developed a good restaurant in Gallup. During their second year a beautiful Spanish woman became their casher. In 1944, that woman, Margaret Terrazas, became Jimmy’s wife. The business prospered and Jimmy soon became the sole owner. Shortly after purchasing Pete’s Cafe, Jimmy and Margaret built a fine, new restaurant. Riding upon the success of Pete’s, they named it Pete’s Fine Food. It became the finest restaurant in Gallup. For years thereafter Jimmy was known to many as “Pete”.
Jimmy and Margaret worked hard. Jimmy managed the kitchen, cut his own meat, and prepared all meals from scratch. Margaret managed the dining room and wait staff.
Part of their success was a piano bar lounge. All the time that they owned the business they had the same piano player, Jack Teeter. He had short, stubby fingers but was a marvelous pianist. He was also a long-time employee of our business, Gallup Indian Trading Company.
They say that every Greek wants to own a restaurant. Jimmy did and he did. Sheila has always had a soft place in her heart for the restaurant business after she began working with her parents at the age of 14.
I had an auspicious entry into their lives while I was driving a Coca-Cola truck in 1957. I obtained a Commercial Drivers License at the age of 16 - unusual. I had been loading trucks when the manager fired a driver. I was standing nearby. Hamp Wilson, the manager asked if I wanted the job, but I was only 16, had no Chauffer’s License (21 years of age was required), and had never driven a large truck.
Unsure of my abilities, I remember a phrase that I never forgot. Hamp said, “Think of all the idiots you know that do it”.
Those days in New Mexico, commercial licenses were issued by local chiefs of police. Our chief, Manual Gonzales, was part of a hunting group that included Dad, me, and Hamp. Hamp called him and made arrangements for me to get a license with no driving test and despite my being underage. I walked across town, got my license and returned to immediately go to work. The route had one day in town and four days on the reservation and uranium fields – 30 to 75 miles from Gallup.
I got in the truck and figured out the gear pattern and electric axel. Pulling away from the dock, I dropped three cases in front of Hamp. Then I went across town and dropped 50 cases in front of Pete’s Fine Dining. Later in the day, I called on Pete’s. I got their order and proceeded to take each case down to the basement. Margaret intercepted me and admonished me for bringing dirty bottles into her restaurant. I cleaned each bottle and never went back without cases that were fresh from the bottling line.
The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Sheila, as like-minded as her mother, and I became business partners fifteen years later and ten years after that we were married.
Jimmy sold the restaurant in 1970. Margaret died a year later and two years after that, Jimmy died. Sheila lost both of her parents by the age of 22.
Sheila never knew much about her relatives in Greece and had never met any of them. Her dad died before she could learn more so she had no idea of her Greek relatives beyond the stories from her father.
In 2000 we were gleaning through a box of memorabilia and came across a letter written in Greek to Sheila’s dad. We took the letter to a Greek acquaintance for translation. It had been written in 1972, by a cousin of Jimmy’s. Without knowing anything about the person or even if he was still living, we had our friend respond to the letter even though 28 years had passed.
April 2000, Sheila was visiting my sister, Lynn, in Colorado. About 4am I answered a phone call and recognized that the person was speaking Greek. I gave the caller my sister’s phone number and hoped that she understood to call Sheila at that number. She did. That phone call linked Sheila to her Greek relatives for the first time in her life. One of her cousins spoke good English so we began to plan a trip to Greek with her help. We planned the trip for October 2001.
The events of 9/11 caused us to postpone our trip until 2005. When the time came, we began an adventure of a lifetime.
Sheila with her dad’s cousin, who sent the original letter, and his wife. He passed away two months later.
We spent ten days in Greece and Sheila’s cousin, Evie, acted as our guide in Athens. A few other relatives spoke some English, but not fluently. We hired a Greek driver for our time on the mainland and toured Sheila’s father’s village, his birth home, and met the cousin that had written the letter. The driver also served as our guide to the Acropolis and Temple of Zeus down the coast from Athens. In the evenings we went to the homes of several relatives for dinner and dancing as the rolled back rugs so we could dance. Several times we met for lunch and only had one meal for the day – it lasted for eight hours! We felt like we were living the life of Zorba the Greek.
We spent time at Mykonos and Santorini before returning to Gallup with incredible memories..
Next Week: Fishing on the rez
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