I am thrilled with the Fulton History website — a gem of a resource where Tom Tryniski has single-handedly digitized thousands of pages of New York newspapers! My favorite, of course, is the Brooklyn Daily Eagle because I am finding fascinating tidbits of my Brooklyn-based family. I did a random search on “Kostakos” and was stunned when the following article popped up:

Isn’t this a gem? I have spent a couple of days trying to identify the women who attended this shower. The bride-to-be, Aphrodite, is my father’s first cousin. So, I was quite surprised to see the names of my mother, her sister and their mother as this wedding took place seven months before my Mom and Dad married (November 14, 1946): Katherine Pappas is my Mom, her sister is Bertha Pappas, and their mother is my yiayia, Mrs. Louis Pappas.

The rest of the guests are either relatives or friends of the Semetis family: my father’s sisters, (Georgia Kostakos who married Al Doukas and Alice Kostakos); my father’s cousins (Frieda or Aphrodite Semetis, Fofo or Mrs. George Semetis, Harriet Semetis, Aspasia Aridas Semetis). I also identified Mrs. Nicholas Aridas as Helen Londis; Mrs. Chris Aridas as Katherine Caputo. Irene and Helen Doukas are sisters and daughters of James & Bessie Doukas of Brookhaven, Long Island; Stella Zakas is also from Brookhaven (I don’t know if she is a relative or a friend); Mrs. Nicholas Kasivardas is the next-door neighbor of Constance Doukas. I could not identify the rest of the women, who may be friends or relatives of the Doukas family.

I used the 1940 Census as a starting point to find who these people might be, and the Fulton History website to look for newspaper articles for further information. One clue led to another, and it was great fun to track these folks down! I wish my mother was still alive so I could show her that she made the Society page of the newspaper, a fact that would have brought her much laughter and disbelief!

Learning about my collateral lines and extended family brings me a lot of joy. I also see quite clearly that I am part of a much bigger picture — a family that extends beyond what I knew growing up. Most of the people in this article are now in heaven together, associating as they did here on earth. I wonder if there is a Society page in the Heavenly Times?