My friend Debbie, who reads old Greek newspapers as part of her research strategy, recently sent me a gem. As she was looking at a New York City Greek-American newspaper from 1917, an article mentioning Papagiannakos from Hoboken caught her eye. Incredibly, she remembered this was my grandfather’s surname, and she sent me the following newspaper page with this message:  “didn’t know if you would need this, but maybe?”

September 22, 1917; Ethniko Kirika

Maybe? Good heavens, YES! This is about my maternal grandfather, Ilias Papagiannakos.

News clipping about Ilias Papagiannakos, September 19, 1917, Ethniko Kirika

The article states that because he did not trust banks, he hid his money in an old shoe which was kept in the back of his clothes closet. A thief stole the fruits of eight years’ hard work and sacrifice, and now the money was gone.

The translation reads:

(Breaking News)
Hoboken, NJ. 19 September [1917]. The victim was a man who does not trust banks and is the owner of a restaurant, Ilias Papagiannakos from Agios Ioannis of Sparta. Mr. Papagiannakos had gathered his savings and stuffed and saved them in an old shoe in the back of a closet in a box in his room.  Two days ago, his wife went out to buy some household things, but unknown people got inside in his room and took his valuable but useless shoe which held all his savings of eight years hard work. The money was $900 in cash and jewelry valued at $300. Mr. Papagiannakos called the police about this action. He supposed that the burglar was known because he knew without difficulty where to find the very well hidden shoe.

My first reaction was shock, then sadness. An inflation calculator estimates that in today’s dollars, the sum of my grandfather’s loss would be $25,502.48, a significant amount of money! Ilias immigrated at age 15-17 under an alias to avoid conscription into the Greek army. He had no money and worked hard to accumulate enough funds to purchase a small restaurant in Hoboken. To save $1200 after eight years’ labor was quite a feat.

At first I wondered why my mother (Catherine) and her sister (Bertha) never told me this story; then I realized that they may not have ever known this happened. My mother, the oldest living child, was 6 months old in September 1917. When my grandmother went shopping on the day of the robbery, she would have taken my infamt mother with her. Many years later when my mother was an adult, they may have forgotten or chosen not to mention this unfortunate event.

There are many questions that will forever remain unanswered. Who could possibly have known where my grandparents stashed their money? If it was someone close to them, how could he/she have perpetrated such a breach of trust? How did my grandparents cope with the loss of their savings? My grandmother had $300 worth of jewelry — that is significant for immigrants! Were they wedding gifts?

I am so grateful to Debbie for finding and sending this article, which gives me insight into a difficult event in the lives of my grandparents. It is said that we can gain strength from learning how our ancestors met and overcame challenges. Knowing that yiayia and papou weathered this setback and continued on to financial freedom is encouraging and inspiring to me.

(My appreciation to Giannis Michalakakos for translating the news article)