A Thanksgiving Story

Here’s the thing I keep thinking about. It’s an image. But it wasn’t captured on film or digitally. I don't even know if anyone else saw it. Maybe I imagined the whole thing.

On Wednesday we shopped for a wedding dress for Elena. Elena, her sisters Jennifer and Amelia, and Elena's four-year-old niece and baby nephew. And me, the Mother-of-the-Bride. 

It was a whirlwind day; an exhausting but successful adventure. At least for me. The four-year-old niece and the baby nephew of the bride-to-be did very well.

Four-year-old niece patiently waits for the next dress reveal.

The day made me feel wizzy deird, as my mother once said during a spell of vertigo. Like I was on the carousel at Amelia's wedding.

Wedding-veil whirl on the carousel at Amelia's wedding.

Wedding dress shopping made me feel all the Mother-of-the-Bride feels. 

Me, when I saw Amelia at her wedding.

Made me feel like this

↓↓

After the shopping was finished, we all gathered at Amelia's for a pre-holiday meal of traditional Sesma sukiyaki. Then we were even more exhausted. Adults; exhausted. The four year-old and the one month-old; exhausted. We all needed sleep.

But wait. We haven’t all been together since Elena & Evan got engaged. This was the first time Jennifer and Elena met their new one-month-old baby nephew!. We needed to have a toast! 

And so, a quick toast with some Cava. Someone took a picture of Elena opening opening the bottle!

Avinyo Reserva Cava 2014

We celebrated these two major milestones in the family and these are the only photos. 

Not one photo (that I know of) on any of the SEVEN phones! Of the Cava in seven glasses or of the seven glasses raised in a toast. 

And yet my mental image of those seven glasses of pale golden Cava raised in celebration and filling my field of vision, is the image that is stored in my memory for Thanksgiving 2018.

THAT is the image I keep thinking about. A little golden moment in time. Like a flash of warm golden sunlight to call to mind when it's needed. Or, maybe I imagined it.

An October Memory. Susan's 50th Birthday.

   Twenty years ago in October 1998, my older sister Susan turned 50. Before 1998 was finished, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and our father died after a stroke. The proverbial shit hit the fan.

   But before that mess, for one epic weekend in October 1998, we celebrated Sue. Being celebrated was not easy for her. Celebrating her was easy for us, her siblings. We had been without her for 20-some years while she lived and worked overseas. It’s not that we never saw her of course. She came for family events when she could coordinate travel with work. We visited her in Paris. Most of us were together on a trip to Dad’s village in Greece in 1988. She returned to New York City with her true love in 1995 and they married. We were so happy to have her back in the states. This is my attempt to celebrate her again, as we near what would be her 70th birthday. 

   

   I’ve written so many words about Sue over the years. I write about her in February because she died in February 2001. I write about her in October in an effort to remember her on her birthday. I wrote about her here in 2013 when I contacted and received a copy of her 1971 masters degree paper from SUNY-Stonybrook. I know I am not alone in thinking about her often; not only in February and October.

   Because this is MY blog, I get to tell this story from my perspective. Luckily however, I also have a letter she wrote to us, her “Dear Sibs” to tell about that epic 1998 50th-birthday-weekend we gave her. I was the lucky local sibling representative. Everyone else was in California.

   I’m not sure how the plan began to form, but in the end, my husband Mike and I went up to New York for her birthday. Mike’s brother lived in NYC. I called him our “activities director” because he provided suggestions for restaurants. Thom joined us for a light pre-show meal at Barrymore’s Restaurant, before we went to see “RENT” at the Nederlander Theatre. Then we had a late dinner at Churrascaria Plataforma. We stayed at a hotel in the city — in a tiny room for 4. And then on Sunday we visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And finally returned to their apartment in Jersey City before returning home to Maryland.

   I made this “Your share of this once in her lifetime priceless event” collage for the siblings, using matchbook covers and the ticket stubs. I thought it was pretty clever.

   One of the remarkable things about Sue’s “Dear Sibs” letter is that it appears she typed it on a computer. Nothing is X’d out, as she would often do in her typewriter-typed letters. She was not a fan of computers, but was finally joining the computer age. She hated email but used it on occasion. I don’t know what happened to my original copy of her letter. The one I have is a copy she sent to our cousin Cathy. This is the other remarkable thing because our Mom made a habit of copying letters and sending them to other family members who might enjoy them. Was Sue upholding that tradition or was it simply her way of avoiding the dreaded “sibling email flurry” that she sometimes got sucked into. I don’t know.

[I have learned that 8.5X11 images don’t fit very well in this blog space so I’ve transcribed her letter and inserted bits of my “priceless” collage.] 

Jersey City

November 23, 1998

Dear Sibs,

(I started this letter three weeks ago, but then you know how it goes.)

   They say there’s a Yiddish proverb which goes: “Only a fool does not grow old”. In other words, you’d have to be stupid not to notice. So I made a sort of Faustian pact with myself early this year. I would agree to notice my 50th birthday, if it was an offer I couldn’t refuse, i.e., so special that I’d be nuts to pass it up. Thanks to you guys and Francois, it worked. 

   (Now I know that fifty isn’t that old. But, indeed, one day it just happened, I was counting the years left, instead of the years gone by, although god knows the women in our family are more long-lived than I even want to think about for myself, so “what’s left” isn’t that short I’m sure. And independently of my will, I found myself thinking things like, “Oh, it’s not worth paying for a German class, I’ll never have time to really use it.” Something had to be sorted out, I couldn’t go on like that.)

   So you guys arranged the perfect thing. I don’t know if you heard our itinerary. We met at the hotel in mid-town. A gorgeous end of October day, nearly crisp, bright sunshine. Joni looked terrific, she had on pink jeans and a black Tshirt, I loved it.

   Mike and Joni and I got dressed up (me and Joni wore black, of course) and, racing to make our reservation, got to Barrymore’s, Tom Sesma’s hangout, where they greeted Mike like he was a regular: “the ‘late’ Mr. Sesma I presume.” Francois met us there. We always have a nice time together, always stuff to talk about. 

Sadly, Barrymores closed in 2006 

   Then we walked over to the theater. Mind you, I do love the theater and I don’t believe I’ve ever actually been to a Broadway show (Tom, our Lenin-Joyce-in-Geneva was off-Broadway, right?) We had orchestra seats. This must be the first time I’ve been to a large theater where I wasn’t sitting “higher than Dad dropped bombs from”. Rent was fun. The music was catchy, the set was compelling, the story was “progressive”. Hard to believe they could make a play out of this, but it’s a series of interlocked love stories about homeless people on the lower East Side, half of whom have AIDS. When you know how Broadway was more than decimated by AIDS, it’s even more poignant. No wonder Gingrich and Pat Robertson hate New York City.

RENT. 5123 performances at the Nederlander Theatre. We saw one of them.

   Then we went to a Brazilian restaurant eight blocks away (we took a cab of course). Well, this was really something else. They had a huge salad bar with a million different things. Mike had ordered a Brazilian wine, which was fruity but not sweet and quite good. Then, they had dozens of waiters, each armed with three-foot meat skewers, who wandered around giving you tasty morsels of ten different meats and fish. You had top sirloin, and pork loin, and lamb and sausage and salmon and everything you could imagine. The next day, I was thinking, I just wish we’d gone there every night for a week after we got back from Moscow, I would have gotten over my deprivation longings immediately!

Churrascaria Plataforma. Still open! Since 1996.

   Tom Sesma came in, all dressed up in a tuxedo from a wedding, about midnight, so we got another bottle of wine and chatted and laughed til we were nearly the last ones leaving. It was good to see him, he’s in form, leaving for a tour in St. Louis, seems happy with his life. He’s looking for a new apartment, not an easy task in Manhattan.

   Next morning I got up … after Joni but before the guys … and went to the corner deli to get 8 cups of coffee in those Greek-motif paper cups. You do know that there are people in Manhattan who think that coffee originates in those cardboard cups. We got going around ten or so, cabbed it past Central Park up to the Guggenheim. It would have cost us another $50 to get in to the the exhibit, when in fact all we wanted to see was the spiraling architecture from the inside (if the picture turns out I’ll send you all a copy). So after eating our breakfast (eggs and bacon on a roll or bagel and cream cheese) at one of the entrances to Central Park, and wondering out loud why all the walkers (not joggers) doing their stretches and organizing themselves on a clipboard, why they all looked alike, went on back down to the Met.

A 1998 "selfie". We put the camera on the floor & set the timer. 

   Now the Met is genuinely wonderful, not least of the reasons being because you pay as you can to get in, but that’s only part of it. It manages to be the most spectacular displays of cultural achievements, without feeling as snooty as the Modern Art Museum or the Guggenheim. More just regular people checking things out. We went first to the the Mary Cassals. You know, it’s still considered fairly bold to present American painters (before the abomination of abstract expressionism) as something interesting. But she was in Paris and worked with the Impressionists and did some really lovely things about women, most of which were based on Japanese prints. We went next to the Netherlands special exhibit, interesting. For example the first painting where the craftsman, a goldsmith, was more prominent and individualized than his wealthy patrons. Learned something about the sixteenth century exchanges between merchant Italy and merchant Holland. But not enough Breughels, so ultimately disappointing.

   Then, Francois and I lured Mike and Joni back to Jersey City for soup and coffee before they embarked on their trip back to Washington.

   It was a great weekend, guys. Thanks a lot. To top it all off, Francois bought me some presents and one was a painting by a friend of ours. It’s a thrill to have a real work of art in the apartment (remember how we got such a kick out of having something by Bill Newmeyer in the house). Otherwise, to create the same feeling, I advertise for Jennifer and her talent, with a xerox of her self portrait (hey, Jenn, what do you think of Jersey city for your first big showing?).

   So, I think it’s weird to not be 25 anymore. But I’m beginning to get it. Next stop, Mark in two years. And before that, we’ll be celebrating Mar and her partnership.

   So, the good news is … the week I turned fifty they discovered that brain cells really do regenerate, split and multiply. At least that’s what the front page of the New York Times says. In case your memory isn’t fresh on this one, ever since the sixties when “sex, drugs and rock and roll” were center stage, they’ve been implying that you have a finite number of brain cells and if you’re smoking or drinking or in general doing other deviant things, you might as well just imagine those brain cells drying up and sloughing off, sort of like peeling after a sunburn. So there’s hope yet for that German class, and why not get my Russian really up to speed, right? Hey, Mar, you really must come in and teach me something about opera.

   Love you all, Susan 

Another selfie! Mike put the camera on the car, set the timer & ran to get in position.

*****************************************

   In December 1998 my younger brother called me from California with the news we had feared for years; that our father had a stroke. He asked me to call Sue because she and I were in the same East coast time zone. She told me she couldn’t come right away. I was shocked and wondered what was so important that she couldn’t get to California. I said OK and hung up so I could go pack. About an hour later, she called me back to say the reason she couldn’t come right away was because she was starting chemotherapy the next day. She had breast cancer. Then she asked me not to tell anyone when I got out to California. She didn’t want to upset Mom.

   Susan had her first chemo session and then she did fly to California. And then, telling Mom she had to be back in New York for work, flew back and forth for appointments, until Dad died on December 23. The death of our father and its aftermath is a long story for some other day. I mention it here because it changed everything for all of us. He had cardiac issues for years so a stroke wasn’t all that shocking by itself. But his death was shocking. He was 77. Sue having cancer was shocking. Later, we found out that our mother had breast cancer at the same time, but thought it best to keep that news to herself so as not to worry any of us. It was too late. The proverbial shit already hit the fan and we’ve spent all these years cleaning up the mess. The list of family secrets is very long. 

   In between chemo sessions and remission periods during 1999 and 2000, we continued with typical family events; graduations, holiday celebrations, birthdays. Sue and Francois traveled here to Maryland, to California, to France to visit his family. It looked like cancer would just be another chronic disease like diabetes — what we now think of as “pre-existing conditions.” And then, on February 6, 2001, 27 months after diagnosis, the cancer finished its job and Susan left on her final overseas trip.

   As I said before about Sue, here on this blog, she didn’t believe in an after-life, but every now and then something comes along and we get to feel our older sister with us again. We can remember the story of her epic, “priceless” 50th birthday weekend. We can remember how proud we were, as her siblings, about organizing ourselves to celebrate her. We can read her own words, typed by her own fingers, as she thanked us for celebrating her and her 50th birthday. 

HAPPY 70TH BIRTHDAY, SUSAN!

   In the end, your “Dear Sibs” letter was your gift back to us. I’ve complained that you didn’t leave us instructions for how to carry on, but truth is, you did. Your instructions are in all your letters and postcards, and in the books you thought we should read that you gave as gifts, and in the inscriptions you wrote in those books. You left us little bits of yourself so we could check in from time to time. This blog post is my shout-out to you — out there in the universe. We know you’re out there somewhere.

Time zones to infinity 

Words of Love that We Long to Hear

“I’m sorry that happened to you.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

Those are the words someone I know wished she had heard from her parents when she told her story about being sexually assaulted. Instead she heard, “Why now?”

It took my breath away because I realized that the words she longed to hear were the words I did hear from my parents. When I told them about what happened to me when I was between six and twelve years old, it was 20 years after it happened. I know what a difference their words made to me. They were upset and I’d say very distraught, but they believed me. I was grateful for that. But as victims often do, I told them I was OK — fine, just fine — it was a long time ago — they shouldn’t worry about me. I lied. Of course, I wasn’t really OK. Well, I was OK. Except for when I wasn’t. 

During those 20+ years, I became a teenager and then a young adult woman trying to find a way through the maze of high school and college relationships. Somehow I found ways to “forget” or “repress” my experience. Eventually, I became more comfortable with my body and sexuality.

I often make jokes about my strong “creep-dar” regarding men. I feel like I learned at a very early age, how to keep my distance from men. My “Me Too” experiences so early in my life taught me that “stranger-danger” was the least of my worries. None of my high school or college relationships were problematic. Then again, I didn’t have many relationships. I know there were plenty of wild parties with too much drinking, but I didn’t go to many parties. Well, truth be told, I wasn’t invited to many parties. I don’t know what category people placed me in, but I was certainly not considered a “party girl”. I would complain about curfews, but I was secretly grateful for the excuse to leave parties. 

I’m lucky that the few boys I dated were never sexually aggressive with me; never touched me inappropriately. There was only one occasion where I was so uncomfortable that I had to assert my boundaries and that person backed off respectfully. And stayed respectful. I know I am lucky. Really lucky.

For sure, just like millions of other women, I’ve had enough (too many) bad experiences to be able to teach young girls what they might experience so they can be prepared. There’s the overly friendly, overly touchy, overly feely, uncomfortable, inappropriate hugs. There’s the cat-calls and whistles while walking down the street. People who don’t understand how a seemingly innocuous song or melody can be a triggering event have never had the other Head Start volunteer sit behind them on the field-trip bus, creepily singing “Lay Lady Lay” while leaning forward over the back of their seat when they were 16. 

These are probably the same people who whine “Why now?” It feels like they are the same people who make women like me feel like WE are the ones who should explain our positions about sexual assault and all the variations and gradations of that behavior. It’s as if we can’t just be anti-sexual assault, we have to have been sexually assaulted to have a valid opinion. We have to defend ourselves over and over again.

I don’t think you have to have a Me Too Story to understand or believe the people who do. I know plenty of people who do believe and understand the answer to “why now?” I guess I’ll never know if I’d be in the “Why Now Camp.” I do know that every time I hear someone whine about women who tell their stories, I feel like I’m being violated all over again. And so, while telling my story might “set me free” I can never escape the people who will respond, “Why Now?” The person who did this to me died long ago. All his siblings are dead. I have a reputation as a truth teller so why am I still a chicken about this truth when it comes to the handful of people who may have had the same experience I had? I don’t know that answer. Maybe they’d be relieved to know they were not alone. I guess I just don’t want to risk hearing them say “Why now?”

Really, all I know is that my experiences as a young girl inform my life even today. My experiences are why I believe the stories about “Why I didn’t tell” and “Why I didn’t report.” I understand their “Why” because I live it. I appreciate the people who believe our stories even though they don’t have a Me Too story. I know all of us are formed by early experiences. And I guess that explains why some people don’t believe Me Too stories. Somehow they made it through their lives untouched. 

Lucky them.

The Grandfathers. World War 1. PART FOUR -- SAM ADAMS.

Sam Adams. July 1918 — December 1918. Post-War to Death in 1974.

A bit of a recap.

  As I said in my previous posts about “The Grandfathers” I’ve come to realize that I could study the events of the Summer and Fall of 1918 and never be able to fully understand them, much less describe them. Still, the study of our three grandfathers’ WW1 service has helped me understand WW1 and them, better. I also fully expect that as soon as I think I am finished, I will find some new records about the grandfathers.

   Officially, the United States military had been in Europe for a year and in combat since October 1917. For our grandfathers, their families, and all the millions like them, The Great War, the War to End All Wars — was life altering. The Great War killed millions of people. And killed the hopes and dreams of the millions who loved them. The altered lives of the survivors and their future generations can barely be measured. In these blog posts, I am trying to do some measuring.

   This post is about my paternal grandfather, Sam Adams, who was born in Greece as Sotirios Adamopoulos. What follows is what I know about his story right now as we approach the 100th anniversary of 11-11-18.

SAM ADAMS

   The military record for my paternal grandfather was sketchy, in that it was literally like a sketch. I found some documents in my mother’s genealogy files when she died. So in addition to family stories about his service, I had a bit of documentary evidence. 

   * A copy of Sam’s naturalization certificate that said he was naturalized on September 23, 1918 in Pensacola, Escambia County, Florida. 

   * A photocopy of a 3 X 5 card with some typed information — with a note that information came from the Hines V.A. Hospital. VA C# 21 264 885; SN# 3 238 920; INTO SVC ON 7-11-18 AT FT THOMAS KY; OUT SVC ON 12-7-18 AT FT. Moultine SC; RANK COOK 8th Trench Motor BN. HDQTRS SUPPLY CO 

   * A photocopy of an Illinois death record that said he was a "WW" (World War 1) veteran 

   * A photocopy of his Disabled American Veteran membership card 

  * A photocopy of an undated certificate signed by President Gerald R Ford in “recognition of devoted and selfless consecration to the service of our country in the Armed Forces of the United State.”

   Oh! And of course, the family stories that I knew by heart about how he was naturalized while in the Army. There may be a tiny kernel of truth to the story that the sergeant handed him a piece of paper to sign  . . .  and boom he was a citizen! More on this later.

   But I wanted to know more. I wanted to know the story of his time in the Army.

   Years later in my research, thanks to Ancestry, newspaper archival resources, and the National Personnel Records Center (National Archives) I have documents that help confirm family stories and the sketchy outline provided in my mother’s file. I already shared Sam’s 1917 Selective Service registration card that I found on Ancestry. Now I’ll try to fill in some of the information I’ve learned.

   Recently, I found this via newspapers.com as I went back to see if any local Ohio newspapers ever mentioned him or Ohio soldiers who enlisted and were with the Coast Artillery. Most local papers around the country published lists of names, but usually it was from the War Dept casualty lists. The "Dayton Daily News" did a full page on Sunday September 8, 1918 about Ohio soldiers. "Sam Adamopoulos" is #14 on left according to photo caption. They also published a short bio on each man on the same page. Apparently he was "well known in Greek circles." The headline: “Putting the Yank in Yankee with Dayton Fighters on Land and Sea.”

Dayton Daily News. September 8, 1918. Sam Adamopoulos on left.

“Well known in Greek Circles, Sam Adamopoulos, who home before he entered the army was at 131 South Jefferson street is now in training at Fort Barancas, Florida, where he is with the Seventh Company of the Coast Artillery Corps. The young man was born in Tripolis, Greece.”

Dayton Daily News. September 8, 1918. 

  Early on in my research I found Sam in “Ohio Soldiers in WW1” via ancestry.com. (This source can also be found elsewhere online.) It’s a challenge to decipher all the abbreviations, however, the source record had a list of them. There's actually a lot of information in these four lines. This is cropped from a page of names, including several Sam Adams. But it’s clear that on July 11, 1918, he reported for duty at Fort Thomas, Kentucky. The confusing part is the order of the list of his stations. In any case it says Sam was with the 12th Co, Pensacola Coast Artillery, Fort Barrancas, Florida. And with Headquarters and Supply Company 8th Trench Mortar Battery. And was discharged December 7, 1918. Some of this is clarified and confirmed in other documents I’ve found, however note that the bio in the Dayton paper says Seventh Company of the Coast Artillery Corps. I haven’t found much information about the Coast Artillery, 7th or 12. Neither is there much information about the 8th Trench Mortar Battalion. In a way, in Sam’s case, it doesn’t matter that much. Even if he had gone overseas, as a cook, he would have been “relatively safe” if he was a cook at HQ.

From "Ohio Soldiers in WW1"

Abbreviations: 

RA=Regular Army; CA=Coast Artillery; TMBtry=Trench Mortar Battery 

[Source Information. Ohio Soldiers in WWI, 1917-1918 [database on-line].  Original data: The Official Roster of Ohio Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines in the World War, 1917-18. Columbus, OH, USA: The F.J. Heer Printing Co., 1926.]

Interestingly, his registration card gives his age as 23 (and 1894) and this record, gives his age as 21 (which would be 1897.)

My attempt to decipher:

Name: Sam Adams.  Age: 21 Years.  Birth Location:  Tegeas - Greece

Enlistment Date:  1918 - 11 Jul.     Enlistment County:  Fort Thomas.    Enlistment State:  Kentucky

Enlistment Division:  Regular Army

Comments:  Regular Army Ft Thomas, Ky. July 11/18. Br Tegeas, Greece. 21 yrs. 12th Co Pensacola Coast Artillery Fort Barrancas Fla to 21 Oct 1918; Headquarters and Supply Company 8th Trench Mortar Battery to Discharge Cook 13 Aug 1918. Honorable discharge 7 Dec 1918.

Naturalization Certificate

   Multiple copies of this Certificate of Naturalization were in my mother’s files. None of them are good copies, but you can see it’s dated December 13, 1926. Sam had just returned on September 21, 1926 from six-plus years in Greece, arriving in New York with his 5 and a half-year old son, my father Angelo. The ship manifest lists him as a Veteran. I can only speculate about why he needed a copy. Perhaps that story is another blog post.

   This Certificate confirms that he was naturalized during the war and that he was at Fort Barrancas FL, Pensacola, County of Escambia, State of Florida

Certificate of Naturalization for Sam Adams. From my family genealogy files.

   I have done a little research into the naturalization of immigrants in the military during the war. Here's a little bit from the National Park Service, Ellis Island site. (https://www.nps.gov/articles/immigrants-in-the-military-during-wwi.htm )  

“In total, about 500,000 immigrants from 46 nations served in America’s armed forces during World War I, making up 18% of the troops. One reason for this is that military service has offered a “fast track” to citizenship since the time of the Civil War. In 1918–19, the United States waived for servicemen the normal five-year US residency requirement, eliminated the need to file an advance declaration of intent, waived the application fee, and streamlined procedures so that soldiers and sailors could complete the naturalization process quickly in the field. More than 192,000 World War I servicemen became citizens under these provisions.”

   Encouraged by my recent find in the Dayton newspaper, I tried searching in Florida newspapers and found this Pensacola News Journal item. “Sam Adams” is listed as a soldier admitted to full U.S. citizenship. It’s from the Pensacola News Journal, Tuesday September 24, 1918; just one day after the date on Sam’s Naturalization Certificate. Just another little item to confirm information in the Naturalization Certificate.

Pensacola News Journal September 24, 1918.

MILITARY RECORDS FROM THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES

  In 2013, I requested military records from the National Archives - National Personnel Records Center. They found 2 items and reported that given that is all they could find, that it is likely any other records burned in the fire at the St. Louis repository in 1973. 

Item 1.  Veterans Administration Request for Information for disability pension, dated 1959-60. This provided confirmation of military service. Transcript of info follows.

Sam Adams. Veterans Administration Request for Information. For disability pension.

Transcript of VA request for information:

Type of Claim: Original-Disability-Pension. Separation Forms not on file. Requesting Office: VA Regional Office, 2030 West Taylor Street, Chicago 12, Illinois. 

Originating Unit: Adjudication. Claim Number 21 264 885. 

ADAMS Sam. Service Number 3 238 920. DOB 8-6-94, Greece. 

Entered Duty 7-11-18; Separated 12-7-18; Hon; 

Last grade, rate,or rank, and org: Cook Hdqs & Supply Co 8th Truck Wartor Bn [typo here]

Dated 12-23-59

Unable to read stamp: “Veteran had 90 days or more active service, evalu……furlough…..time lost on ……..(without pay), …………………….acquital), in ………..undergoing sentence of ………..”

[I think this is just a stamp saying yes he did have 90 days of service.]

Item 2.  Honorable Discharge from the United States Army. 

   This is very difficult to read or transcribe, but I tried with the help of generic version I found online. While the date is not readable, we do have other documents saying he was discharged December 7, 1918. The notation that he was not eligible for travel pay indicated that he did not serve overseas. Transcript follows.

Sam Adams. Honorable Discharge from The United States Army.

Transcription of Honorable Discharge:

TO ALL WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

This is to certify that Sam Adams 

3238920 Cook Hqs & Supply Co 8th Trench Mortar [??]

THE UNTED STATES ARMY, as a TESTIMONIAL OF HONEST AND FAITHFUL 

SERVICE is hereby HONORABLY DISCHARGED from the military service of the 

[paper is creased but probably “United States of America” and a line citing “authority” for discharge, such as demobilization]

Said     Sam Adams        [again hard to read but looks like his name] was born 

in      Tegeas     in the country of          Greece.          

When enlisted he was     21     years of age and by occupation a         Cook.          

He had      Brown       eyes and     Dark Brown     hair,      Fair      complexion, and 

was     5          feet      5     inches height.

Given by my hand at           Ft Moultire     S.C.          this 

                       day of                                                   

Paid in full $8.87

Not entitled to travel pay.

   And so, the way I figure it, Sam went from Dayton OH in June 1918, to Fort Thomas KY, to Pensacola FL, to Fort Moultrie SC in December 1918. And he was a cook. Specifically with “Headquarters and Supply Company” of the 8th Trench Mortar Battery and probably with the Coast Artillery as well. [Editorial aside: Based on what I know of Sam Adams, I wonder if cooking for headquarters staff “fed” Sam’s illusions of grandeur. Some people referred to him in later years as an “operator.” But once again, perhaps that’s another blog post.]

   I’ve done some research on the Coast Artillery and on the 8th Trench Mortar Battalion. One of my favorite things I read was someone who said most people who enlisted with the Coast Artillery thought they'd be defending the U.S. coast -- until they were sent to France. For my grandfather, it seems his service was spent cooking for headquarters staff. In any case, his discharge papers say he was discharged from the 8th Trench Mortar Battalion in Fort Moultrie, S.C. My research indicates that this battalion was indeed organized at Fort Moultrie in 1918 and then "disbanded" there in December 1918.

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SAM ADAMS. AFTER THE WAR

   A little bit about the post-war story of Sam Adams. The family story is that after his discharge, Sam returned to Ohio to continue working at the job he held when he enlisted in 1917, or when he departed for Fort Thomas 1918. Sometime in 1919, he received word from Greece that his brother Angelo had died in the flu epidemic. We have a November 1919 passport application to go to Greece to attend to family matters regarding his brother’s death. On his application, Sam says he lives in Lima, Ohio and works as a manager at the Rialto Theatre. 

   We know he arrived in Greece in January 1920, thanks to a March 24, 1921 Emergency Passport Application I found on Ancestry. Why did Sam need to get an emergency passport in Athens in March 1921? Well, he overstayed his visa. Was this because he got conscripted into the Greek Army? Probably.

   The family story I grew up with is that Sam served in both the American and the Greek armies I don’t have access to Greek records, but the family story is supported by his need for an Emergency Passport; by research that shows the Greek army did in fact conscript Greeks who were American citizens who happened to be in Greece during these years. And we have this incredibly touching photo with inscription in Greek on the back, that family stories say was sent by Stella to Sam while he was away in the Greek army when my father was born.

Stella Adams with my father Angelo

   We don’t know if Sam went to Athens specifically to go to the embassy or maybe he was in Athens due to his Greek Army conscription. In any case we have Sam's Emergency Passport Application dated March 24, 1921, just days after the birth of his son.

   Sam married my grandmother Stella (Stavroula) Andrianopolis in May 1920 and then my father Evangeles (Angelo) was born in March 1921. Sam and Stella’s second child was born in September 1924; and third child in December 1925. In September 1926, Sam and my father arrived in New York; followed by Stella, Jen, and John in January 1927.

   We know very little about Sam and his family’s life in Greece, or why they went to Chicago instead of to Dayton or Lima, Ohio when they returned to the States in 1926 and 1927. I’m guessing it’s because Stella’s sister, Nicoletta was in Chicago. According to Nicoletta’s naturalization documents found on Ancestry, she arrived in the United States in September 1921. According to a ship manifest, she came by herself with the intention of going to her Uncle John Roussakis in Chicago, IL. John Roussakis (or Rusakis) was married to Stella's aunt, and was my father's godfather. [The comings and goings to and from Greece and the United States in the early 1920s is another blog post one of these days.]

   Sam and Stella stayed in Chicago, living as so many immigrants lived, with and among the many relatives who also immigrated. Stella “helped” in the family grocery business. Their children received good educations and prospered. The two sons both served in World War 2 and went on to become successful business people. All three married and then produced 12 grandchildren and a couple dozen great-grandchildren.

 My father, Angelo, moved us to California in 1955 and so we didn’t grow up knowing our grandparents as well as our Chicago cousins knew them. Stella was diagnosed with leukemia and died in 1963. Sam lived on until 1974 — long enough to see grandchildren marry. 

Sam and Angelo Adams, at my brother's 1973 wedding

  Sam spent his last few years in and out of hospitals, including the Hines V.A. Hospital in Illinois, thanks to his veterans status. He died on June 14, 1974 from complications of arteriosclerosis, specifically heart failure. He is buried next to my grandmother at Elmwood Cemetery in River Grove, Illinois.

My cousin and I trying to hold back the bush so see the inscription