Maro
I have many memories from my childhood in St. Louis, more than six decades ago. My family lived on Aubert Avenue, one of fifteen Greek immigrant families. At the time I was unaware of the comfortable, enduring feelings living in such an environment had on me. There were times, of course, when the strong ethnic bonds had its drawbacks; good behavior was the cardinal rule, because it was unacceptable to a Greek family to become embarrassed in the neighborhood. Growing up with the warmth and familiarity of Greek people, however, made for positive and long-lasting experiences for me.
Aubert Avenue was in the West End of the city; a middle class neighborhood, of two family brick flats, with a few single family, two story homes, also constructed of brick. After a devastating fire in St. Louis, towards the end of the previous century that burned many blocks of wooden buildings, an ordinance was passed in the city that declared all future construction was to be composed of brick.
The street itself was level, but some homes were built on a slight terrace. To reach my house it was necessary to go up the terrace about twelve steps to the sidewalk and the porch, then up another six steps to the front door. In the 1920's the street was laid with bricks, and later blacktopped, while beautiful, large-leafed sycamore and small-leafed silver maple trees lined the street.
Almost all of the Greek families had come from Asia Minor. The men were self-employed, small business men, owning barbershops, restaurants, a shoe repair shop, or were hatters and cleaners. Most of them had arrived before World War I, either to avoid service in the Turkish army, or to work and send money back to their families. Most of the women came later, refugees from the 1922 Smyrna Catastrophe, who had married men who had gone back to Greece looking for a wife. My parents fit in neither category, they had come to the United States in 1919 on their honeymoon, to stay a few years, and then return to what they thought would be a comfortable life in Smyrna. However, that was not to be, so my parents accepted their fate, and adjusted to life in their adopted country, not lamenting the life they had left behind. Some of the wives, who had married in Greece while they were refugees, however, lived in St. Louis with memories of Smyrna, and the life they had once had.
Evangelos and Katherine Pasmezoglu and their daughter Maritza had arrived in the United States in 1912, from Smyrna. At that time, the father was fifty-eight years old, the mother fifty years old and Maritza was nineteen years old. After the death of Mr. Pasmezoglu, twenty years later around 1932, Mrs. Pasmezoglu and Maritza moved to Aubert Avenue. Maritza by then was in her late thirties.
The Pasmezoglu family had come to the United States because their three sons, Hector, Epaminondas and Miltiades were already here, and each one was financially secure. It was a well-known fact among the fifteen Greek families on Aubert Avenue that the Pasmezoglu family had been a distinguished and aristocratic family in Smyrna, prominent and wealthy. They had been in the silk manufacturing business.
My parents were friends with Mrs. Pasmezoglu and her daughter Maritza. They rented the first floor of a two-family flat, down the street, four doors from our home. The two women made a lifelong impression on me.
On many a humid, sweltering St. Louis summer afternoon, when I happened to pass their house, I would see the mother and daughter sitting in their rockers on the wide veranda porch, fanning themselves with hand held paper fans; talking to each other and observing the activity on the street.
Hector was the oldest of the three sons and had come to the United States just before the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair on business. By the time his parents and sister came he was a well-established business man and was married to Penelope, the daughter of Father Phiambolis, one of the first Greek priests in St. Louis. Hector was also the Greek consul in St. Louis. He was coordinator of the Olympic Games at the 1904 World's Fair; he was the president of the Acorn Supply Company, and in the theater business with the Skouras brothers. He had a home on Forest Park Boulevard, a neighborhood which then was considered very upper middle class. St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox church was built on the lot next to his home, and years later the church bought his home and used it as an office and Sunday School building. His wife Penelope was president of the Mozart Amusement Company.
The mother, Mrs. Pasmezoglu was a domineering, temperamental, controlling woman, who demanded blind obedience from her daughter Maritza whom she called Maro. Maro served her like a slave. Maro had been proclaimed a stunning beauty when she had come to St. Louis. She had classical Greek features. The Greek neighbors were curious that she was a spinster, and could not understand why she had never married. Maro could be described as a sweet, dutiful daughter, but could also be termed a little dull normal in intelligence. Mrs. Pasmezoglu had explained her daughter's mental failing by saying that Maro had had a serious childhood illness, the effect of which left her a little dimwitted. Maro's limited faculties were obvious to everyone. Mrs. Pasmezoglu lived in the past. Her conversation, spoken softly in beautiful and correct Greek, consisted of stories of her social life and of the prominent people she knew, servants she had, of her life in Smyrna. She would mourn her fate, of losing her riches, to come to this end. Very often, during Mrs. Pasmezoglu's reminiscences, Maro would ask her mother in an innocent and sincere manner, "Mama, ego to thimame afto?" (Mama, do I remember that?). Without fail, the answer would invariably be, emphatically, "Oxi, Maro, esi eisouna poli mikri." (No, Maro, you were too young). In many, many instances according to her mother, Maro was always "poli mikri" (too young).
Maro was no longer a beauty when she became our neighbor. The years of serving her mother, neglect of herself, had taken a toll on her appearance. Her hair was still all black in color, and she wore it pulled back, in a bun at the nape of her neck, as was the custom of most Greek women of that time. She was already round shouldered, with a slight hump on her back. Her figure was matronly, and she walked with a slow, absentminded gait. She had large, sagging breasts. Her mother explained that by saying when Maro was a teenager, and her body was just beginning to develop, her breast had been tightly bound to keep it small. However, the opposite evidently had occurred.
All the Greek children on the street were taught to respect every Greek adult as if they were their parent. This was the era when respect for elders was foremost in the behavior of the children of the Greek immigrant, even though several of the bolder, daring teenaged Greek boys would caustically refer to the mother as Mrs. Pass-me-the-glue. For me, I had a dread feeling about Mrs. PasmezogIu. Perhaps it was her imperious manner, I felt she might find some fault with me and tell my parents; or the atmosphere of her home, which always appeared dark and a little forbidding, that intimidated me and made me feel a little anxious. I recall going to Mrs. Pasmezoglu's home, and listening to her as she would go into great detail about the beautiful home and the servants she had in Smyrna. She never tired of relating and reliving tales of her Asia Minor social life. Later, when I was at home, I would imitate her, wave my arms, and pronounce to my audience, "to enter my front door, you had to pass two majestic sculpted lion statues, one on either side of the steps. They were grand examples, made of stone; they looked almost real." I would laugh, pleased with myself at such a performance.
I had noticed a large black trunk in one of the rooms in the home, and one day when I was there, Maro raised the lid. I had often wondered what mysterious things she and her mother had hidden in that trunk. To my surprise and delight, Maro took out beautiful, elaborate vaudeville costumes. I was awed and impressed by such clothes. They were from the Uptown Theater, down the street, a block away on Delmar Boulevard, that her son Hector owned. The Uptown Theater had been converted from a vaudeville show to a moving picture theater, and no longer had stage shows or the need for such costumes. What, I wondered, would they do with such items? To my childish mind, they would have been great to dress up in them and play "House", or to imagine myself wearing them, a queen or princess in a fairy tale.
In the Pasmezoglu dining room there was a china closet, and I remember Maro pointing out with pride the hand painted china dishes one of her sister-in-laws had painted. In those days, one of the marks of the well bred young woman was the accomplishment of this activity.
When we got our Norge refrigerator during the Depression, around 1932, the only Greek family on Aubert Avenue to have one, we happily discarded our wooden icebox. No longer did my mother daily have to put the numbered card in the front window, for the ice truck delivery man to see how many pounds of ice we needed for that day; or have to daily empty the pan under the icebox that caught the melting ice, and empty the water into the sink, being careful not to spill any water on the linoleum covered kitchen floor. That was a difficult chore.
Our refrigerator was one of the earliest models that had the capability of making ice cubes. Maro would come with a container to get ice cubes. My mother would oblige Maro, and direct either my sister or me, to get the ice cube trays out of the refrigerator, and fill Maro's container. As I turned my back on the adults to go to the refrigerator to get the ice cube trays, I often made a face to show my irritation of having to obey my mother. I was careful that neither adult saw my reaction.
Maro had the habit of coming to our house by the back way, down the alley from her house to ours. She never came to the front door, to ring the doorbell or to knock on the door. She preferred the back way, no matter what time of day, or what season, summer or winter, spring or fall, it was the back way. Whether we were playing in the yard, or on the large back screened porch, we could easily see her enter the back gate, lumber up the five steps from the alley to the sidewalk, and then slowly walk through the back yard to the porch steps. Maro never rushed or walked fast. She moved slowly.
Whenever anyone of us saw her approaching, we would run through the house yelling, "Maro is coming, Maro is coming". We knew what that meant. When Maro would reach the screen door on the porch, she wouldn't bother to knock, she would call out, "Evangelia, Evangelia" for my mother; then open the screen door, and walk right into the kitchen. We knew Maro's presence meant something we would be involved with, and that we viewed with very little enthusiasm.
Our mother always treated Maro and her requests graciously. She would tell us, "Kane to kalo, kai xehaseto" (Do the good deed, and forget about it). She felt sorry for Maro and her mother, and accommodated their requests. She would often remind us that they were two women, living alone in their house, struggling with their problems without the help of a man.
The task of running Maro's errands fell on my sister or me. Maro would never approach any other Greek family to have their children run errands for her; she knew my mother was compassionate and would oblige her. Some of the other Greek mothers were not so sympathetic or accommodating. Maro would come to our house for either my sister or me to go to the Cap-Sheaf bakery on Kingshighway Boulevard, two blocks away, to buy day old whole wheat bread for a nickel a loaf; or to go to Kroger's grocery store at the corner of the Hodiamont tracks and Kingshighway Boulevard to buy some item for her.
Olympia and I used to hate to go to the store for Maro, and when she would leave our house, whichever one of us went, would grumble and complain about it to our mother. But our mother just ignored our complaints. Basically, we had no recourse, but to do as we were told by our mother, whether we liked it or not.
When Maro and her mother arrived in St. Louis, and Maro was still young and beautiful, many Greek suitors pursued her; but while her mother lived she never married because Mrs. Pasmezoglu felt no one was good enough for her daughter; they were unworthy to become a member of such a distinguished family.
One of the wealthiest Greeks of the time, John F. was in love with Maro, and wanted to marry her. He had been a shepherd in Greece, a very poor boy. After he came to the United States, he was able to start his own business, a successful meat packing plant, situated across the Mississippi river from St.Louis in Madison, Illinois. At one time he was considered the wealthiest Greek in St. Louis. He was very active in the church, one of the founders of St. Nicholas.
At a dinner party in an elegant restaurant in the Chase Hotel with John F., attended by Maro and her family, Maro's napkin fell to the floor, and the suitor failed to pick it up. Maro's mother was infuriated, and dismissed the young man as unsuitable, "aftos o choriatis, o chobanis", (that villager, that shepherd), having no manners, was not for her daughter.
After serving her mother like a slave all those years, around 1942, the old lady died. Our family was still living on Aubert Avenue when Maro's niece came and helped her move to a small apartment near St. Nicholas, the Greek church. Maro, now in her early fifties, and free of parental domination for the first time in her life, with her limited ability, had to learn to cope with the difficulties of everyday living. Word got out that Maro's lifestyle had changed; she started smoking and drinking. Her scandalous behavior was observed by Greek people in her new neighborhood, carousing and frequenting bars. Everyone was appalled at her behavior. "Ti tropis, ti tropis!" (What a shame, what a shame), was the common remark from the old neighbors on Aubert Avenue when Maro's current behavior became common knowledge.
Maro married, without consulting anyone, an old, down and out, shiftless Greek man. She and her newly acquired spouse lived in her rented, small apartment. People said he married her because he thought she had money. Actually, she had nothing. Her married life was of short duration. She died not too many years after her wedding.
A pitiful, sad ending to the promise of a life that might have been. Born into a family of wealth and prominence, she became a victim of familial arrogance, domination and interference. A victim.
Maro, another victim to the temperamental twists of life's eternal caprices. Miltiades had arrived in the United States in 1910 at the age of thirty. He became a naturalized citizen in 1919. He was an insurance salesman. He was a pleasant, and very likable man. He loved an American woman, so it was said, but his mother refused to accept her into the family, and he never married. He contracted syphilis, which in time infected his brain, and he had to be institutionalized in a state asylum. He never recovered from his devastating illness, and died in the asylum.
Epaminondas went by his Americanized name of Edwin. He was also married, and in 1920 was treasurer of the Mozart Amusement Company. Later, in the thirties, he was in the exterminating business. His company had the misfortune of fumigating a building, and through some oversight, a couple sleeping in one of the apartments was asphyxiated. That unfortunate incident doomed the future of the company, and Epaminondas and his family left St. Louis and went to another city to live.
Perry PASMEZOGLU, born Dec. 13, 1910, died Dec. 1984
Residence Los Angeles, Calif.
According to the 1921 City Directory
Edwin Treasurer Mozart Amusement lived at 4120 Enright
Kathy and Evangelos, Milton lived at 715 North Euclid
Hector President Acorn Supply lived at 4967 Forest Park
Penelope, President Mozart Amusement lived at 4967 Forest Park© 2003 by Jennie Constantini
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