Dayton, Ohio

My mom and I left for Dayton, Ohio on September 17th and returned on September 23rd. My mom went for her annual Cincinnati Reds game and Oktoberfest with her old bowling pals. I went to meet my thea Julia Zavakos and her son Tasi's family. I met Julia one other time that I know of when I received her Greek Orthodox Church newspaper at work, I took it to her sometime in the early 90's.

Thursday

I had planned to call my cousin Tasi on Thursday afternoon to see when we could get together but he beat me to the punch, calling Thursday morning. We met for lunch at the Legacy Restaurant on Keowee St. My Thea Julia, Tasi and Tasi's wife Gera were there. We chatted like we'd known each other my entire life. On the way back to Tasi's office they took me to Woodland cemetary to show me where my papou Kostantenos and yia yia Maria were buried. In the same area where they are buried is my Theo Louis, his son Deno, my Theo George, his wife Constantina and their son Harry and Nick and Jane (Gianoula Mitrakos). I guess Nick would be my cousin, he is my papou's brother Dimitrios' son. Nick was the first Zavakos to leave Greece for America in 1885.

After lunch we went to pick up Tasi and Gera's 7 3/4 year old daughter Isabella Juliana. What a doll!! She is the cutest thing and so smart it's unbelievable. She plays the piano and even though she was told she wouldn't be able to (because she was too young) she learned to play Beethoven in a week. Isabella's greek name is Anastasia after her dad Anastasi. She is in her 2nd year of studying Greek and got a 108 on her final exam. I think I could learn a lot from Isabella.

The Legacy seems to be where a lot of Greeks hang out. On Thursday's they have Greek Lemon-Egg soup which is a favorite of theirs. I tried it and it was pretty good, didn't think I'd like it because I'm not real crazy about Lemon or Eggs but you couldn't taste either. The food at the Legacy is good. While we were there on Thurdsay I met my cousin Gary Manos, son to my favorite Manos, Nick, of course he's the only Manos I knew until Thursday.

Friday

I bought a book the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church of Dayton had put together with a history of their church and it's founding members of which my Papou Otto and Theo Louis (Julia's husband) were a big part of. There's a ton of information in there, it will take me a while to get through it all but I intend to use every tidbit of information I can find. While I was there my cousin Kay Brown called to talk to Koula (the secretary). Koula let me talk to Kay and we arranged to meet at the Legacy on Monday, Kay was involved in the research done for the church's book and is somewhat of a family historian (at least in my eyes).

I was supposed to meet up with Tasi and his wife Gera on Friday but I missed them at the office. Tasi's son Bob was there though so I got to meet him. He is just as awesome as everyone else. We talked for a long time and before I left he gave me a Greek fighter WW II medallion that he had gotten on e-bay. He gave me the names of some people that can help me with my research about the family. Again I felt like I've known him my entire life.

I then went to hang out in my old neighborhood on Coventry Rd. I sat on my former neighbors porch and talked to Mary and Virgina (Mary's neighbor on the other side) until dark. Dayton was hit by Hurricane Ike on Sunday which left 300,000 people without power and my old street still didn't have power on Friday. Dayton has never seen a hurricane before and hopefully won't ever again. I felt sorry for the line workers they had to be exhausted. When we arrived they had 900 crews working to restore power, there were workers there from all over the area. We saw trucks from all over headed that way when we were on our way there.

Saturday

I went to Calvary cemetary on Saturday where my great-grandparents (Otto and Bernadina) are buried along with there son George and daughters Helen and Mary and my papou (little) Louis. I had gotten paper and graphite pencils to do tombstone rubbings on Friday, unfortunately the headstones at Calvary were too big. I did do my papou Louis headstone in 2 pieces. I'll see if I can piece it back together when I scan it in and if I can I'll go back and do the rest of them. I took pictures of the tombstones that I'll probably post on my website later. I may have to go back and take the pictures over though. Calvary is in the process of lowering the tombstones in to the ground to make cutting the grass easier and all of the headstones except for Little Louis were not "buried" at the moment.

After Calvary I went back to Woodland cemetary and did tombstone rubbings of Kostantinos, Maria, Prokopeos, George, Constantina, Harry, Deno, Nick, Jane and Louis. Louis' didn't turn out though because he has a picture on his and I couldn't get the paper to lay right. I took pictures of all of these too.

It took most of the day to do all of these, then I went to hangout with an old friend in Kettering.

Sunday

At about 12:15 Sunday morning I decided to head up to the Legacy to see who all would end up there after church. On my way I saw Tasi and family coming off of a side street on their way there, so my timing must have been just about perfect. I parked the car and walked up to Tasi when he and Isabella were getting out of their car. We had lunch and sat and chatted for a while. While we were there Deno's wife Despina (Rozakis) came up as well as a few others whose names are escaping me at the moment. After that I went back to the hotel to start reading the book I had bought so I could be more informed when I met Kay Brown on Monday.

Monday

I got up early so I could do a little more reading before my meeting with Kay. When I arrived at the Legacy the hostess asked me how many. I told her I was wondering if Kay Brown had arrived yet. She said "Would that be the Kay Brown that I know?" I told her she was a Zavakos and she said yes that was the one she knew but she wasn't there yet. She asked me if I used to work with Kay and I told her know I was a Zavakos and she looked and me and told me she could tell. It wasn't very long at all that Kay walked in, I knew her as soon as I saw her. Tasi and Julia showed up about 30 minutes later. Kay had all kinds of research that Kay Babalis had done for the book. There is so much there it will take me awhile to get through it all. She had information about a few bowling alleys none of us knew about.

I followed Kay to her house to make copies of the information I didn't have and met her husband Angelo. She had a picture of her dad there so now I can go through and identify a few pictures myself. He is one of the handsome men I have quite a few pictures of and had been wondering who he was.

By this time my mom was supposed to be back in town so I headed back to the hotel to meet up with her. I laid down to take a nap and when I woke up the hotel had lost power. I was a little concerned since I figured the line crews were a little busy in other parts of the city and they had already worked the hotel area earlier. The hotel had been without power until Tuesday. Once my mom got there we hung out for awhile then headed to my Uncle Darrell's. When we got to the corner of Woodman and Linden there appeared to be about 10 police cars there directing traffic since it's a major intersection and close to Hwy 35 ramps. While we were sitting there waiting to be flagged through the traffic lights started blinking red. Yeah!!! the power was back, of course we had to look around to make sure lights were on at the businesses in the area and they were.

Tuesday

We headed back to Corinth to get back to our lives. This is probably the first time I TRULY wished I still lived in Dayton. I want to get to know the rest of my family better and it's hard to do from 500 miles away. I guess there's always email but it's not the same. That and now I need to do research that as of yet can't be done online that I know of anyway, guess I'll have to start looking around online maybe I'll get lucky but I doubt it. Which is why if you are reading this and you know anything about my family PLEASE, PLEASE contact me and let me know what you know. Particularly about the early days in Dayton. We don't know exactly when Otto came to Dayton from Chicago and Kay Babalis has information that Otto and Bernadina's father bought a small pool room on Brown St together which is news to me.

I have lots to add to my website hopefully I will be able to get some preliminary information up this weekend. I'm sure it will probably take me months to get it all up though.