Anastasia Koutlemanis (née Nasouli) was born in 1941 in Mavrohori, Kastoria, where she grew up. She migrated to Canada in 1959 and initially worked in Hamilton. Koutlemanis met her husband in Hamilton, and after getting married, she worked from home in the fur business. She briefly moved to New York, where her children attended school, before returning to Toronto. Later, she moved to Florida, where she ran a motel. She describes working in the fur industry and compares life in the U.S. and Canada.
Translation: Lia Karokis
Alexandros: Well, Mrs. Anastasia, hello. I am Alexandros Balasis. Today is February 6, 2025, and we are in Toronto and I would like to start by telling me when you were born, and where you were born, and of course tell me your first and last name.
Anastasia: I was born in 1941, October 26. I grew up in Mavrochori.
AB: Mavrochori in Kastoria, right?
AK: Kastoria.
AB: And I just want you to tell me your last name.
AK: My name is Soula Nasouli. That is, my maiden name.
AB: Yes, yes, your maiden.
AK: My maiden name... Nasoulis. So, I grew up there. My father... We had farms, let me put it in English now...We had agriculture, that is, we had animals, lots of sheep, how should I put it. And that’s how we grew up. We were six siblings. So, my second sister, one came from here, from Canada, one from the village of Toichio, Kastoria, she got married and came here in 1958.
AB: So, during that time, before we get to telling me about Canada, did you work in the fields? Did you help your parents?
AK: Yes.
AB: What did you plant? What did you sow?
AK: We used to plant vegetables, we had barns and we had sheep. And I helped with the sheep and the barns. And then I went and learned a little sewing.
AB: Where did you go to learn sewing?
AK: In the village. I learned to be a seamstress at my cousin’s and that’s how I grew up, I turned 17, my sister left at 18, and over time she took me. So that she wouldn’t be alone, and she took me. I came here...
AB: Just a minute… Tell me a little so I can understand. So, in the village, do you remember at all that period with the Civil War with the Germans? Do you have any memories of them or did your parents tell you anything about them?
AK: Let me tell you. I remember the guerrillas.
AB: The guerrillas. What do you remember about the guerrillas?
AK: I remember the guerrillas coming in the evenings, knocking on the door and asking for flour, bread, wheat... We gave them and one night they asked for papers, a notebook. And I had a notebook in my bag because I was going to school and I gave it to them and they left.
AB: Who were these rebels? Were they from the village? Did you know them as a family?
AK: They might have been villagers. We didn’t have many in the village, but they were from other villages. They came down to our village. They were looking for us, my brothers were going to get them.
AB: Yes, and did your own family have problems with these rebels you’re describing to me?
AK: No, we didn’t.
AB: You didn’t have a big problem.
AK: In the whole village. In the evenings, they were looking for food. And when my father went to the meadow with my mother, my mother stepped on a mine... She stepped on it, she suffered, and so then we started to leave. My father said, he said, to leave, to leave from here. And so, we children started to leave.
AB: And your sister left first, you told me?
AK: My sister left. I came, then I brought one of my brothers, then I brought the other brother and we left my sister alone, she was married, and my brother older. She stayed in the village.
AB: Good. So tell me. In the village, had people started leaving earlier?
AK: A lot of them went to Australia.
AB: To Australia.
AK: In Australia, the poor people were leaving with photographs, with marriage proposals, that is, those were the years in the 1950s and 1960s, everyone was leaving for a better life. Because our parents had gone through the wars, as my mother used to say, the Germans, the English who had come to Greece and as soon as things were settled, Karamanlis then started collecting the children, because he was being paid by Canada. For every child who left Greece, Karamanlis was paid $500 per person in those years. That’s why they were expelling us, minor children, from Greece.
AB: So you left first. Tell me about your sister, how did she leave? And why here in Canada? Can you describe it to me a little?
AK: That’s what she wanted, how should I put it, my sister was a bit proud, and she wanted to marry a man, she said, who wouldn’t work in the fields, wouldn’t work in livestock farming, so she could marry a man in a suit, yes. And that’s how she found him. And she came here.
AB: And how, was he here and did he bring her?
AK: He was here, came to Greece, married her and they left, within two months they left.
AB: Do you remember, those days? How was your family? What did they say?
AK: Our family was in turmoil.
AB: My mother, my father?
AK: We all had problems, we argued. My brothers said no. My sister wanted to marry him, I’ll take him. You do whatever you want. And they didn’t fall in love, it was arranged.
AB: Did they meet through letters or had they met?
AK: Nothing, nothing. The child simply went down to the village in Toichio and his godfather was there, he was from our village. And he came to the village, and then the godfather and I were very...we were neighbours and worked in the fields that we all worked together. And they made him an offer and my sister wanted him so much, I’ll take him, I’ll take him and within 2 months they got married and left.
AB: And she left too.
AK: And she left too. We don’t even know who the groom is, nothing, and that’s why she says she’s stuck here alone.
AB: She told you in her letters. Did she send you a letter and tell you about it, or did she tell you about it later?
AK: I didn’t notice. When... my father and my brother, they did all the paperwork for me to leave. But one day the postman came and brought a letter in my name. And when I opened it, I won’t forget it, I started crying. My mother says, why are you crying? I said, a letter in my name for me to leave. I said, “Where am I going?” I ran to my older sister, who is married, and I told her, “Sister, look, a letter came to me from Canada, I don’t even know what it is.” She takes it too, reads it, and cries. I say, ‘Why are you crying?’ He says, ‘You’re going to leave.’ I say where? To Canada, he says. But, why should I leave, I say, I’m fine here now. All my siblings... She left, I said, I was left alone, a girl, at home, the children were outside, one of my brothers was a soldier, the other was with the sheep. And I was left alone at home with my parents. And so, whether I wanted to or not, I came.
AB: So, I mean, just a minute to understand. Your sister just invited you to come but you weren’t told. Your father had arranged it for you.
AK: Yes, yes. My father... My father and my brother. They did this to me. And that’s how I started...
AB: And did your mother agree?
AK- What could she say? My mother didn’t even understand why I left.
AB: Yes.
AK: When I got on the bus in Kastoria, that’s when she started crying. She says “Where are you going?” I say where am I going, and I don’t know where I’m going. And so I left the village, in March, March 25.
AB: Do you remember the date?
AK: In 1959. I went to Athens. We took the boat.
AB: Did you have any relatives of your own in Athens? Anything?
AK: No, my brother had taken me down. And on March 25th, we entered the ship, young people, children crying, screaming, when we entered the ship. Not a single child was happy. And it was full of young children. As soon as the parade in Athens ended, the ship set sail.
AB: This was your first time going to Athens, I imagine, huh?
AK: I only went for the doctors I went to.
AB: Did you do that? Did you go to the Embassy?
AK: If you didn’t go to the doctors, you weren’t going anywhere.
AB: Can you describe that to me? What do you remember about the doctors with those papers? What was it? Do you remember roughly?
AK: The papers, everything was fine, I had no difficulty, but you had to go through the doctors, to have them look at you from top to bottom and so on. I was also a minor, and my father had to sign. Because I couldn’t come. And so we started. The ordeal started here on the ship... What can I tell you? Bad weather in the ocean, the ship was rocking… But I also had an acquaintance from our villages who were there and I was very close with him. Because I was scared too. I found a company, I had girls in my cabin, I had four girls, but they were foreigners. They were from Sparta ..I was the youngest; they were older, anyway.
AB: And what did you say then? Do you remember what you said on the ship in those days when you were hanging out? What did the groups say then? What did you talk about?
AK: We didn’t say anything. We were all scared, we came, but there were parties every night, dancing, things, drinking....
AB: Did you go, or not?
AK: I was the only one looking. Where could I go to dance? The young man we were with calls me, he says, come on, Soula, let’s dance. I said, no, no, I told him. I was afraid. Where could I dance? I didn’t really know where I was going. So... we arrived in Halifax. After that, we get on the train. Two days to get to Toronto. My acquaintance was coming, with his fiancée, bringing him here. He says, I’ll go out and see who’s waiting for me. And I tell him, wait...
AB: Where are you now? Here in Toronto?
AK: Here in Toronto it was. Yes, yes, in Toronto. I say, you go out, I’ll sit with the suitcases. I see him coming happily. He tells me, my fiancee is waiting for me. Now, he says, where are you going? I tell him where you go, I go with him. And so then, as soon as I went out with him, I also saw my brother-in-law who was waiting for me outside and that’s how I saw my sister. Then the next day at work, my brother-in-law took me to the restaurant.
AB: What? Probably, just a minute. You had, right after you arrived you went and stayed with your sister. So? What do you remember about the first day you arrived? Do you remember anything from Toronto? How do you remember the city?
AK: Oh, I told her, when we were coming by train, it was full of snow. The cars were covered in snow and we said, where are we going?
AB: But you had snow. But you didn’t have that much.
AK: We didn’t. We left with the best weather. March was good weather in Greece then.
AB: Yes, yes.
AK: But here, when we came and saw this snow...the houses were very small, they looked like a village to us, no... And that’s how the ordeal in Canada began. I worked for two years, washing dishes.
AB: Where was this restaurant?
AK: In Hamilton. I lived in Hamilton. They were downtown, what were they called? I can’t remember. It was a big restaurant and my brother-in-law worked as a cook. After that...
AB: You washed dishes.
AK: I washed dishes for two years for $25 a week. And from that, I also paid my sister rent, because I was living with my sister. After that, I got another job. I went to a factory. We made the meat there. I made the sausages myself. In the cold, the room temperature was 30.
AB: In Hamilton again?
AK: Again in Hamilton. I worked there for two years. Then I found my husband at Burlington, where they were throwing the cross. That’s where I met him. Through an arrangement, he made me his girlfriend. And so I agreed to go out with him without knowing him and in three months he tells me we’ll get married. I say “How will we get married?” “We’ll get married” he tells me “So you don’t have to work out here in the cold he says.”
AB: Tell me. Were there other Greeks in Hamilton? Was there a church? Was there anything, did you go find other people?
AK: We didn’t have a church. My girlfriend, who got married, got married in a Ukrainian church. Then they built Agios Dimitris. There wasn’t much Hellenism. When we heard someone speak Greek, we ran to talk to them. We didn’t know who they were or what they were, but we only heard Greek. That’s why those years were very difficult. We didn’t have Hellenism. If we didn’t... we helped each other in those years. You would see a Greek and talk to him and tell him where you work, he says, so and so, do you have a job you can take me on? If he did, they would help us. We helped each other in those years. We were loved, Greeks, Spartans, Macedonians, we were all loved in those years.
AB: And did you have communication there at the beginning, in the early days? Did you have communication with Greece with your parents? Did you write letters? Did you receive letters? What do you remember then?
AK: We had... We had letters all the time. Every week, letters. They sent us, we sent them. Then the phones came out. The letters were forgotten.
AB: What did you write? What do you remember saying, for example? Were you trying to say that he was fine?
AK: That we are well, we are working, don’t worry, that’s all. And what can you say? You can’t say anything. But we had no complaints here either. It was good because the Canadians accepted us. The Canadians loved us.
AB: So tell me about that.
AK: And the language that we didn’t know when we worked at the restaurant, the girls would say to me, Soula, they call this like this, Soula, they call this like this...and that’s how I learned English a little bit wrong. But the Canadians loved us. I have no complaints about the Canadians. And with the neighbours in the house we had in the neighbourhood where we lived, with the Italians, we were friends.
AB: What did you remember and are telling me this now? Why are you describing it to me? Do you remember any proverb, something specific, to help you, or are you telling me in general?
AK: Look, it was general. It was general, we helped each other. Especially for work. If I had one and I knew my boss was looking for a worker, I would recommend you and tell you to come and get a job. Do you understand? Then it was... I met my husband, I got married.
AB: When did you get married?
AK: In 1963 on January 20.
AB: And can you tell me a little about your wedding? Where did it take place? How do you remember it?
AK: Our wedding took place in Toronto. We had what, 100 people?
AB: Who were the 100 who came to your wedding?
AK: Telis had several villagers from Argos. Then he had 30 people, only Jews who worked with him. He had them all as guests. And then our portion of food was $3, the chicken, and now they want $150.
AB: And you told me you got married in Saint George.
AK: We got married in Saint George.
AB: How do you remember it? Do you remember the church? Did you know the church at all? Did you come to Toronto?
AK: No, no, I didn’t know it...it was the first time I entered the church. St. George’s was a beautiful church, a very beautiful church it was, and the priest was even better, a priest... He had come from New York at the time, an American... And he knew American and at the coronation he also spoke in English so that the Jews could learn... To understand our religion. Yes.
AB: The wedding dress, those traditions, did you keep them?
AK: I rented my wedding dress for $20 from Katerina, the photographer. She was on the Danforth. She had the office that took our photos, she was the only one in those years, Katerina, I remember her. I rented my wedding dress for $20.
AB: And then you went, did you have a dinner afterwards, did you do some, or did you go on some trip, did you go afterwards or not?
AK: Well, what a trip we went on. Our best man took us to Oshawa. And there was a snowstorm. A meter of snow. We stayed there for two days and then we went back because my husband wanted to work. We didn’t have days to go on a trip far. And so we didn’t go on a honeymoon. Then we started, we got a house, our first house on Logan. We bought it for $11,000. We didn’t have any money. I had $3,000, we put it down and bought the house. After four years we sold this one, bought another one at Caledonia and St.Clair. I had my son there and after four years we left there and went to New York to stay because there were no jobs here. And the fur... My husband... I tell him we’re going to New York. I had my brother there. My brother invited us. He took us in as family for forever, but we didn’t like New York. In six months, we moved back as a family and bought the house on St. Clair and Rosemount.
AB: Okay, so let’s go back a little bit and start over. I want you to tell me when you got married, did you continue working after that, or did you stop?
AK: I worked a little at home. My husband would bring me tapes to do, because I had the kids, I had two girls and a son.
AB: Oh, you gave birth soon.
AK: Yes, I did it right away, and I couldn’t leave the children alone.
AB: And what did you do at home?
AK: He brought the furs to my house and I used to tape them.
AB: So, what does that mean? Can you explain it to me? Did you sew the strips together?
AK: No. I didn’t put strips. I put something around the skin to hold them together. Do you understand? They called it tape.
AB: And you had worked with fur at all, or did you learn it here?
AK: I learned it later. In Greece, no, it wasn’t involved in it in Greece.
AB: So your husband would bring it to you and you would sew?
AK: Yes, he would bring me home to get $20 or $10, just enough to get milk for the children. And there was no money back then. We were very frugal. It was work... Things were cheap, life was cheap but we didn’t have a good daily wage. My husband was earning $60 a week. What could we do first? House, kids, food? Those were hard years. We raised our children... But we didn’t leave them in the hands of strangers. I raised my children beautifully and well, all by myself. We didn’t have any parents, and when we got married, neither my husband nor I had any parents. We got married like two little birds.
AB: I want you to tell me a little bit, Mr. Aristotelis has already told us before, but tell me too. This fur business, how did you understand it? Now that you weren’t working, you were learning it little by little. What was happening with fur in Toronto and the Greeks from Kastoria? Can you describe it a little bit to me?
AK: Look. Kastoria didn’t have any other things to do. To earn a living, the only thing you had to do was fur. Because Kastoria is built on a mountain and the lake it has, and it didn’t have it. If we villagers didn’t go to Kastoria to buy vegetables, the people wouldn’t have anything to eat. That’s why. And the fur with France was worked by the Kastorians back then, those years, people wore furs. Every woman would have 3 or 4 coats. The Jewish women four or five coats each. They wore them, now don’t you see that. No one wears them. That’s why they were busy in those years. But then the fur was limited here too..
AB: And what did your husband do with the fur? Can you describe it to me a little?
AK: My husband sewed the coats. He sewed these little pieces that were cut off and made the whole coat.
AB: What animal was that? What was that fur?
AK: They called it mink.
AB: Mink.
AK: The little animals. But they were also made from Fox. They were also made from racoons, the raccoons were slaughtered and the coats were mad. I later learned to finish, after the children grew up, I learned to be a finisher. Then I went to work in a bakery. His brother had a bakery. He went and I worked there. Then we went, from New York, where we came, we went to Florida after 18 years.
AB: Just a minute, let me ask you one more thing before we get to New York. So, you told me you came from Hamilton and stayed on the Danforth, on Logan. How did you feel about the difference now that there were quite a few Greeks on the Danforth?
AK: There weren’t. In 1964 when we bought the house, there was a store that sold fish. Like one at the bottom... And there were two or three stores. There was no Hellenism back then. No, no, no. Greeks came to Danforth later. At the time we were there, we stayed for 4 years at Logan and Danforth. After that, we sold the house and moved to St. Clair and Caledonia. And we stayed there for four years, and then we left and went to New York.
AB: So, you went, but because your husband had dances and the Pan-Macedonian with the community. Did you participate in them too? At the picnics? At those? What do you remember?
AK: We went on picnics every Sunday. We went out in the old days. The clubs, whatever club did it, we went. The Pan-Macedonian club did it, we went. We didn’t sit around.
AB: Did you have a club?
AK: Not my village because we didn’t have any patriots, so it wasn’t... Two or three families, we’re alone. But my husband was there, he had a club because they were very Argyrian. We had a good time, at the dances, then Omonia had a big club, Omonia.
AB: Did you participate in Omonia or not? Were you a member of the club? So what did you do at Omonia?
AK: Yes, yes. We didn’t do anything. We all got together for coffee, for tea, for dancing, for meetings. To unite. We were friends. All together. We went to houses. We called them, they called us. Our houses were full. Who was celebrating? Alexander? Everyone, to Alexander, come. On St. Nicholas Day, when I was celebrating my son, I gathered 50 people at my house for his celebration, to wish him well. We were more loved. That’s what I want to tell you. The Greeks were loved.
AB: I want you to tell me about New York and describe it to me a little more. Work has started to slow down a bit, I understand that, and you decide to leave. Tell me, how did this process happen?
AK: I told my brother. “Look,” I told him, “there are no jobs here, and I don’t want my husband to come for a week, two weeks.” I say, he should leave. I say, we have three children here, what am I going to do? Why don’t you invite us? And my brother says, “Okay, since you want to come.” He invited us.
AB: When did this happen?
AK: In the 1970s. He invited us. We arranged everything from here with the doctors, and with that, we sold our house and left.
AB: So you left here, you had simultaneously obtained a Canadian passport, you had managed to obtain citizenship? Did you leave as a Greek woman, did you go to New York or as a Canadian woman?
AK: No, as a Canadian. Yes, yes. I had my papers done. I went as a Canadian… The children were all born here. We got Canadian passports, we went.
AB: And your brother, what was he doing in New York?
AK: My brother was in the fur industry. Yes, yes. He had gotten married there, too.
AB: But he learned the fur trade there in New York, right?
AK: Yes, yes. Because. I brought him here.
AB: Tell me.
AK: Before I got married. I brought him... But because he also washed dishes with me, me during the day, he at night in the same restaurant. And my brother says, “Why should I sit around washing dishes,” he says, he wanted to go to New York. We had a cousin there. He calls him and says, cousin, he says, I want to come. He says, “Come.” So he went there as a tourist, and to stay there, he had to get married. He found a Cretan girl and got married so he could stay. And then he invited me to go too, so I could hang out. But one thing I didn’t like was the schools there.
AB: Why, what do you mean you didn’t like schools?
AK: Because, they were all black. What can I tell you? They weren’t the kids now... One of my daughters was five, not five... Grade second and third, my son was three years old. But... They weren’t in a school. They didn’t accept us to a school. The Catholic school I had in my neighborhood didn’t want, they said if you’re not Catholic, they wouldn’t take you. So, I sent them to a public school. I took my little one to second grade. What did I see? All black. Only my daughter was white. And I say, oh my, how will my girl do here. Her older sister had a mix of white and black people. And with the bus going, and with the bus coming in. They were arguing on the bus about the children, and I told my husband, “Listen to me, let’s get up and leave again,” I said.
AB: At the same time, you had found a job over there.
AK: I wasn’t working. No, no, I hadn’t gotten a job.
AB: But your husband?
AK: My husband had gotten a job in the fur industry, yes he worked but I said I’m leaving. I’m not staying here, I say. In Canada, I said I was free, my doors were open. I wasn’t afraid. Here, I say I’m locked in an apartment. We rented an apartment.
AB: Where was that? In what area? Do you remember?
AK: In Castlepoint no, it was…
AK: No, no it wasn’t Astoria.
AK: It was a good neighbourhood. There were Jews living there, and Greeks and Jews, too. I don’t remember. And I stayed alone for 6 months and then I came back. Back in Canada, we got the house in Rosemount.
AB: And when you came back again, what did you do?
AK: I started working in fur then.
AB: Where did you work then?
AK: Let me tell you, I was working with my husband again. But I was working at home. Yes. He would bring me coats home, and I worked so I wouldn’t leave the children alone. And so, you say in the 1960s... My children grew up. My son had grown up. The girls had gotten married. My daughter got married in 1983. The other one got married in 1988 and we made a decision. We went for our 25th anniversary to Florida, in Clearwater Beach. I had a friend there, and she had a small motel, and I said to her, “Hey Niki, I think you’re fine here.” I really liked Florida. I left here with the snow, because I left in January, and Florida was a godsend. I say, the weather is beautiful, Niki, I say, are you doing well, I say. “Yes,” Soula tells me, I’m happy, she says. And the motel across the street was for sale. And just kidding, I say, “Is the motel for sale, Niki?” She says, “Yes,” she says it is. I say, “Can we see who has it.” She says, “Greeks have it.” And so we found a way and got it without realizing it. And we say we’ll go to Toronto, sell the house and come. My son was 18 years old. He had finished high school here and the girls had stayed here. In the meantime, I took my son and we left. And those were my best years.
AB: So, how long did you stay in Florida?
AK: About 20 years.
AB: Oh, and what did you do in Florida?
AK: I had the motel.
AB: Oh, really? Very nice.
AK: We got the motel.
AB: And you worked with the...
AK: And we worked at the motel...
AB: So explain it to me. What was.....?
AK: Me and my husband. My son graduated from university there and then came here to get married. A girl found him, grabbed him, and now he says to me, Mom, what am I going to do? He says, “Shall I stay here or shall I go to Canada?” I say, “Now, since you got a Canadian girl,” I say “If she comes here, she will want you to be in Canada with her family all the time,” I say, “You go there too, my child,” I say, your sisters are there and so are we, then we sold the motel and came back again.
AB: Okay, so tell me. This motel you’re telling me about in Florida, where exactly was it, do you remember the area?
AK: It was in Clearwater Beach, right?
AB Yes.
AK: Have you been there?
AB: No.
AK: It was in the sea.
AB: So, what? What kind of people did you work with? What was it like over there? Explain it to me so I can understand.
AK: We worked with everyone there. From all over. We had people, Germany, England, Sweden, America, from all over America, Virginia, we had a lot of people. From here, from Canada we had....
AB: Did people come for vacation?
AK: For vacation
AB: And how long did they stay there, approximately?
AK: Let me tell you. In the summer, we had them for 2 weeks. In the winter, we had the older people. They stayed for two months, three months, elderly people, we had people, from everywhere.
AB: So, what?... The motel was the rooms, you had them, and that’s how you took care of them, did you have breakfasts, things like that or not?
AK: No, I didn’t have food.
AB: You didn’t.
AK: We didn’t have food. The room had a refrigerator, a kitchen, dishes, I had everything in it. They didn’t have anything to give. I just cleaned their rooms and gave them the sheets.
AB: Did you clean them?
AK: I cleaned them myself, and when the old ladies came out, sat on the chairs by the pool outside, I made them coffee, gave them some cookies. I treated them, and they were happy.
AB: And where you were staying, were there other Greeks? Was it close?
AK: It was full of Greeks.
AB: Describe it to me, what was it like?
AK: There were quite a few Greek Motels.
AB: Oh, really?
AK: Yes, there were.
AB: Was there a Greek community there? Was there a church?
AK: Church, it has large churches, and a church in... Saint, Tarpon Springs, they say, it’s Saint Nicholas, this church was built, I don’t know, with stones, the first one was...
AB: Were you close there?
AK: 15 minutes by car we went down. To Tarpon Springs. We were close. Then they built the Holy Trinity, and then we had the Virgin Mary, a small church that was adjacent to the old one... I went there too. Then they had in New Port Richey… They built a new one for St. George... Florida had a lot of Hellenism, Clearwater... It also had a Pan-Macedonian society.
AB: That’s what I wanted to ask.
AK: We all gathered there. They had bought a house and had a plot of land there. We had picnics every now and then. We gathered from all over. The Greeks ran. It wasn’t just from Macedonia, Cretans, Epirotes, all united. When we went out for picnics.
AB: And when you had moved to America, did you have any contact with Canada? You told me, with Toronto, with people you had met here, you brought people.... You told me you had some tourists sometimes.
AK: Yes, yes, we had
AB: Did your friends come too? To you?
AK: Yes, yes.
AB: Really, huh?
AK: I told you we had a lot of people. We were very much in touch with Canada. We came every year, to go to the doctors here. We didn’t leave it like that. We came every year.
AB: At the same time, your brother, did he stay in New York?
AK: He stayed there forever.
AB: And I want you to tell me. And when did you first return, if you did return to Greece?
AK: My first time was in 1969. After I left, I came down in 1969 with two little girls in my arms.
AB: 10 years almost.
AK: Exactly 10 years. My older brother had died, and I had gone down. After that, I was late coming back.
AB: How was it? Did you go back to the village? How was the village after 10 years?
AK: As I had left it. As I had left it. But now it’s worse. Now, not even your neighbour speaks to you, no one, and you can’t find anyone. Some died, others left.
AB: Deserted, huh? Well, I want you to tell me a little more about your return. When you returned, you had some problems, because in ‘69 there was the Dictatorship. Did you have any problem with this issue?
AK: Let me tell you, I liked Greece back then. We had such a great time, wherever we went, people were so kind, they appreciated us. You went shopping with people, they were polite. You went into the bank, you went through, beautifully and nicely. Then after that? You didn’t exist... You were first in line for the bank, they kicked you out and you went to the back. Another time was my compatriot. He had come from Montreal too, and we met in Kastoria and took the city bus to go to the village. Now my girls were in front, he’s coming, frump, he’s pushing my girls to get in front. And I turn around and say to him, “Do you do that in Montreal?” When I said that to him, he didn’t even answer me.
AB: Here in Toronto, there was a problem with the Dictatorship... I guess what was the relationship here with the Greek state at that time? Did you have a problem or rather... Because... There were various things going on. There were some marches or something like that.
AK: We had nothing. When we went, they were shouting from here, they’re going to take Telis into the army and where are you going, and what are you doing and... We say we’ll go. And if they take him, I say I’ll stay with my parents and make them happy a little. But after we went, my dad says, why did you come, he says, they’ll take him as a soldier. After about a week, we heard that they weren’t taking him; something had been heard. And we say, well, you’re shouting for us not to come, now here we are. We had a beautiful time, I told you.
AB: Did you ever bring your parents here?
AK: Yes, yes, yes.
AB: How did they feel about that? What did they say to you when they came?
AK: Well, they were happy. They saw us being well off, they were happy. My father came twice and my mother came twice. Yes, yes. It was nice. We had a great time. I have no complaints. Our life was happy.
AB: Let’s just finish the story. I want you to tell me how you got back. You told me in Toronto. So you had the motel, your children had gone to school, right? Tell me a little bit about that.
AK: My children were educated. One of my daughters works at the hospital, in... What do you call it... I forgot.
AB: You mean here in Toronto?
AK: Yes, yes. And where the nuns are. And she still works for a doctor. She studied with this doctor. The boy was in our neighborhood and she works there. My second daughter is at the Sick Children’s Hospital. She’s been working for years now. 30 years. My son, in banking, he works at the Bank of Nova Scotia. So, he’s married, and he has three kids. His kids are still in school, in college. My eldest daughter had two sons. And she has five grandchildren. He owns the Greek Grill restaurant, my grandson is. My other grandson is a teacher. And he has three children.
AB: Did you send your children to a Greek school when you were here?
AK: I sent them to the community, to Panagia.
AB: Explain to me, how did that work?
AK: Very nice. We had a teacher. The teacher was in our neighbourhood. I took them twice a week. They learned... My eldest daughter can also read... Because she liked it. While the second one didn’t like Greek. We spoke to her many times... She said it a little wrong, and sometimes we laughed and she got angry. And she didn’t like it. My son speaks it well. After he got a job at a Greek bank on Danforth, that’s when his language started to improve, and he speaks Greek well.
AB: What was your experience of Greek school? Do you think it helped, let’s say at that time, why you wanted your children to go?
AK: We wanted them to learn Greek. We didn’t want... Other parents... I have a girlfriend, she tells me that she doesn’t speak Greek to the children. I want to learn English. I tell her what you’re doing is wrong, I tell her. I prefer not to learn English, I say, for our children to learn Greek, I say. Why shouldn’t they learn the language, not know a second language? It depends on the parents ... But I wanted my children to learn Greek.
AB: In the U.S.? Could you... Was there a Greek school there?
AK: Yes, yes, there was. There was, but it wanted... America wanted money. And to send them to schools, they wanted a lot of money. And I sent them to Public schools, which were free. Yes, yes. There were schools everywhere but, depending on the parents.
AB: And I want you to tell me about what we were talking about before, about the furs. So you told me that you worked on the... You probably worked at home. Were there others in your company or among your friends who also worked from home? Was that done with the furs?
AK: Yes, yes. The women worked at home.
AB: There were...there were a lot of people working like that? Did they work? What was the process like? So, they had more.
AK: And others worked down on Spadina, who went to the factories. Others worked at home. Those who couldn’t go down when they had small children worked on them at home. It was easy work.
AB: They could do them at the same time.
AK: Yes, it was done at home. You had your own machine, and you sewed them.
AB: And then how did that work? Most of them were like you, their husbands and they took them to the factories?
AK: Well, yes. Because all the men worked in the fur industry in those years. In Kastoria, the children, the women, some worked, some didn’t. Depending on what jobs they wanted to do.
AB: Very nice. I want to close this slowly. I really want to ask. Will you give me a comparison of America with Canada? What did you like, what did you like most?
AK: Let me tell you, I liked Canada the most.
AB: Why?
AK: Because we were free here. We weren’t afraid. Our doors were open. Our children played outside. In New York you couldn’t do that. There was fear.
AB: After you went to Florida?
AK: It was a joy in Florida.
AB: From what I understand you would go back to Florida.
AK: Florida was a godsend. There was no fear there. No, no, no. It was a very nice place. But New York... Inside New York it’s a mess.
AB: Yes, I understand. And I want you to tell me, if here in Toronto... You told me about the picnics...so, other ways of having fun, other places maybe that you remember where you went? What did you do? So to pass the time when you wanted to go out, did you go to the movies?
AK: There was a movie every Sunday.
AB: Which cinema did you go to?
AK: Down on Danforth. Where was it? Every Sunday I went to the movies with my kids.
AB: The Titania?
AK: The Titania. Yes, yes, yes. We were at dances, at weddings, at baptisms. We were all young then; we had children, we got married, we baptized, and we were all invited. We had... We had great years. Not like our children now. Our children now didn’t go through anything.
AB: Why do you say that?
AK: Because they don’t come together. To be loved. We were loved and we fought, we were together again, the brothers.
AB: Your other brothers, did they come too, did they emigrate too? You told me at the beginning but...you told me one of your brothers is in New York. You also had.
AK: I had the other one too. He had gone to New York too. He was in Montreal, and he works with the fur. He had married Kastoriani. They separated and then he went to New York and stayed there for several years. Then he went down to the village. He got married and stayed there. He never came back.
AB: In Kastoria, and your sister who brought you here?
AK: She’s still in Hamilton.
AB: She’s in Hamilton. So, your brother, the one... who was in Montreal, did you bring him? Did you invite him?
AK: Yes, yes I brought him. Back then we had to pay $500 to bring each person.
AB: And how did you decide this? To bring him? What? Had he sent you?
AK: Because he wanted it. He says now that I’m about to be discharged from the army, he says, I want you to invite me to come, he says, and brought him.
AB: What was the process? What do you remember? Describe it to me a little. Just what was this invitation that everyone is talking about, what exactly did you do?
AK: Nothing. We would take a paper to the Consulate. We would sign there, pay the $500 and they would give me the papers. They would send them back, for the doctors to check and...
AB: And the parents in Greece? What did they tell you about it?
AK: Well, yes, my father wanted me to leave.
AB: Ultimately, why do you believe that your father wanted you to...so
AK: To get away, not to work in the mud, my father said. Get away from the mud. Because we had a lot of vegetables, we worked, we had enough sheep, we had 200 heads of sheep at home. We had shepherds. My house was heavy full of chores.
AB: Did you make milk?
AK: Milk, cheese. We sold them.
AB: Well, Mrs. Anastasia, that’s what I had to ask you. I want you to tell me something to add that I didn’t ask you, if you want.
AK: That was my life, our home. We had a great time. We came as young children but we and our children were well behaved.
AB: Very nice.
AK: We had no complaints. We have no complaints about Canada. No.
AB: From Greece?
AK: From Greece, let me tell you, I left when I was little and I didn’t care. I had nothing against Greece.
AB: Yes.
AK: I grew up well, happily. I went to school. I finished elementary school there. I was happy in my village. I have no complaints.
AB: Well, very nice. Thank you very much, Mrs. Anastasia.
AK: You are welcome.
AB: You too.
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