Object ID
2011.6.132
Object Name
Photograph
Material
Photo Paper
Object Entities
Karalis, Elena (is related to)
Object Description
A black and white photo of four men standing in front of a building in the snow. They are all wearing their military uniforms, pants, boots, jackets, gloves and hats. The one guy on the right also has a belt with pockets.
Origin
The donors grandfather, Gus Gianakopulos, came to America with 200 youths from the Sparta area around the time of 1881. Mr.Chaconas was in charge of the trip and when they arrived in Chicago all 200 of them were put in one room together and bought each one of them a push wagon. The group of people would sell one product a day using their push wagons. In 1893 the Gus became a US citizen and was working in the fruit and vegetable wholesale business. He later went back to Greece to visit but called the US his country. In 1900 a few men went back to Greece to get married and on their way back they brought the donors grandmother, Georgia, to Chicago, where her father and brother were. Gus and Georgia got married in December 1901 at the Holy Trinity Church and they invited all Greeks and the story is that there were 98 carriages that attended the reception. They had several children, first a boy then a girl named dasiy, then the donor's mother Pauline, next were two sisters, Virgina and Eleanor, and last was John. The Spartans in the area started a church in a building on South Water Street, but the priest had decided to go back to Greece. In 1908-1909 they built what is now the Annunciation Cathedral on LaSalle Street and in 1910 the church was completed. This church is where the whole family was baptized, married, and burried. The family lived on the north side of Chicago so any Greek schools were too far away for them to attend so a greek teacher came in Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for 25 years. The donors mother, Pauline went to Forest Academy to studied dress design and not much after that she met her husband and moved to Minneapolis in 1929. The two worked and helped out the church they were members of quite a bit. They traveled a lot and often went to Greece but in 1970 he passed away. They had two children, George and Elena and after her husband passed away Pauline and Elena went on many different trips around the world.
Rights and Reproduction
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Citation
Photograph, National Hellenic Museum, https://collections.nationalhellenicmuseum.org/Detail/objects/9039. Accessed 03/28/24.