Cape Breton Island

Shortly after 1900 several Greek men arrived on Cape Breton Island to work in the coal mines. In his well-researched book, The Greeks in Cape Breton, Prof. George Gekas points out that many of the earliest Greek immigrants to Cape Breton came from mining areas in Greece such as Lavrion and Euboea. Even if the men had never mined in Greece, they were recruited by the Cape Breton mining companies, and especially by the Dominion Coal Company. At a 1914 company party 154 Greek miners were counted. These men had been living in a number of poorly equipped shacks near the Caledonia mine. This was the time period when mining in Cape Breton was probably at its most difficult, and when living conditions for the miners were generally very bad.

Peter Parousis, who had come from the island of Paros in 1911, was one early Greek who worked in the Cape Breton mines for his entire life, but he was an exception. The deep underwater coal mines of Cape Breton turned out to be very different from the surface or short tunnel mines which were common in Greece. Because of this, many of the early Greek miners in Cape Breton turned to other types of employment, where they could, or left the island. As they turned in large numbers from working in the mines, like Greek immigrants elsewhere in Canada and the United States, the Cape Breton Greek men first worked in, and then opened their own restaurants, sweet shops, shoe repair shops and other businesses. For example, Mr. Nick Vallas owned a series of businesses in the 1930s and 1940s. First he opened an ice cream parlor in New Waterford, and later he owned and operated the Latona Restaurant in Sydney. Still later he sold the restaurant to another Greek family: the Rossos family. The Dragatses Grocery Store in Glace Bay was owned by three brothers-John, Basil, and Nick Dragatsis- who had come to Canada from Crete. Their grocery store is remembered as the place where tram conductors were told to drop off any newly-arrived Greeks so that they could receive assistance and shelter. Dragatses Street in Glace Bay honours the memory of these fine Greek Canadians.

After young Steve Markadonis had been refused entry to the United States in 1911, he and his father George reached Cape Breton to work in the mines. Since they did not wish to stay in the mining industry, the father and son eventually opened a shoe repair shop in Glace Bay. In 1917 George Markadonis went to New York to meet his wife Eleni and the rest of their children who had just arrived from Greece. This family prospered in Cape Breton and eventually helped others from their native island of Milos to come to Canada. It was George Markadonis who donated a building site for the first and only Greek church on Cape Breton.

Though many of the first Greek immigrants to Cape Breton were bachelors or men whose wives and families were still in Greece, gradually men arranged for their families to join them. A few men did arrive on the Island with their wives and families. The three earliest Greek wives known to reach Cape Breton were Maritsa (Rossos) Vallas, Sophia (Philihos) Markotjohn, and Irene (Vallas) Dezagiacomo. These pioneer Greek women are remembered for the care and strength that they gave their husbands and families. From time to time some of them worked in various family businesses. Most had rudimentary English and must have found life very difficult, when they ventured outside their homes to confront the non-Greek environment of Cape Breton.

The early years of the Greek community in Cape Breton were marked by a terrible event. In September 1930 Nick Marathos, a well-liked and hardworking fireman at both No. 2 coal mine and the Caledonia mine, was found bleeding to death on a lonely road outside Glace Bay. Apparently he had been killed for the money he was carrying and for his gold watch. His killer was later convicted and executed. This violent death caused tremendous upset in the small Cape Breton Greek community.

When Greece was under occupation by the Italian and German forces in World War II, the Greek government in exile established the position of Greek Port Master in several countries. Sydney, Cape Breton was one place in Canada that had a Greek Port Master. The Sydney Port Master had to see that Greek government regulations were enforced on all Greek ships visiting the port, and that the Greek sailors received their proper food, accommodations etc. They also acted as liaison officers with the Canadian Department of Defense. Until 1960 many Greek ships came to Cape Breton. Their arrival was the opportunity for the Cape Breton Greek people to meet and entertain the Greek crews. Sometimes they gave financial assistance to stranded Greek sailors. During World War II, the Greek ships ‘Emy’ and ‘Aikaterini’ (whose crews were well-known on Cape Breton) were sunk. The ‘Emy’ went down just outside Glace Bay’s harbour, almost certainly sunk by German submarines. Because the timber cargo from the ship floated in the water, the Cape Bretoners were able to save most of the crew. The ‘Aikaterini’, on the other hand, was lost with the entire crew while en route to Saint John, New Brunswick. The cause of the ‘Aikaterini’ sinking was never determined. Since the 1970s only a few Greek ships dock in Sydney to pick up coal and steel rails, and the position of Greek Port Master no longer exists, but the spirit of Greek hospitality on Cape Breton still holds strong for any visiting Greek sailors.

Although many Cape Breton Greek families have now been in Canada for decades, they continue to hold fond memories of Greece. Before his death in 1947, Mr. George Markadonis sent money to purchase a clock for the tower of his hometown church on the island of Milos. Mr. Vasilis Hilakos helped his home village build a central square with facilities for running spring water. Like Greeks elsewhere in Nova Scotia, the Cape Breton Greek community gave generously to the Greek War Relief Fund, especially after 1948.

A major disaster occurred in November 1961, when, along with another non-Greek individual, four prominent members of the Cape Breton Greek community drowned, while trying to bring a cabin cruiser into Sydney’s port during a severe storm. Suddenly Emmanuel Xidos, his brother-in-law John Farmakoulas, Costas Vihos and Emmanuel Raptis were taken. In the 1950s Emmanuel Xidos and John Farmakoulas had sponsored almost 200 Greek immigrants to Canada. Emmanuel Xidos owned or managed a chain of shoe repair businesses reaching throughout Atlantic Canada to Quebec and Ontario. Together Emmanuel Xidos and John Farmakoulas developed a dry cleaning and laundry business called Koolex, a combination of their family names. This dry cleaning business was also expanding through Atlantic Canada at the time of the deaths. The sudden deaths of such leaders in the Cape Breton Greek community was a blow, first of all to their own families, but to the community at large, and to their growing businesses which now ceased to exist or were sold.

As was the case in other parts of Canada and Nova Scotia, in the 1950s and 60s new individuals and families arrived on Cape Breton Island from a variety of places in Greece and Cyprus. About one dozen additional families emigrated from Cyprus to Cape Breton in the troubled years of the 1970s, as tensions increased between Greece and Turkey. All of these people had family members or friends already living there. Most of them were young couples with children. Their arrival was viewed as an opportunity to increase and enhance the Greek nature of the community which many of the senior members feared was being lost.

The reality in Cape Breton has been that young Greek Canadians have been moving away to seek employment in other parts of the province and country which do not have the intense economic problems of Cape Breton. An additional worry (at least for the older members of the Cape Breton Greek community) is that many of the younger people have married non-Greeks and now have few contacts with their Greek heritage. While many people of Greek background on Cape Breton support Ss. Anargyroi’s, the Greek Orthodox Church in Glace Bay, others have now become regular members of non-Orthodox churches, particularly of the Roman Catholic Church.

Today there are about 200 people of Greek ancestry living on Cape Breton Island. Most of these Greeks are located in the industrial areas of Cape Breton with the largest percentage being in or near Sydney, Glace Bay, and New Waterford. Like Greek immigrants to other parts of Nova Scotia and Canada, most of the first-generation Greeks to Cape Breton had low levels of formal education. Only three individuals are known to have had a university degree at the time they came to Canada. The second and third- generation Greeks in Cape Breton are increasingly well educated. Many Cape Breton Greeks have sent their children to the University College of Cape Breton, but other young people have gone to universities outside of Cape Breton, particularly to Dalhousie University in Halifax. The young Cape Breton Greeks have entered a variety of careers, with teaching being one of their most popular choices.

In the early 1980s Wanda Pierrynowski found five Greek Canadian women in Cape Breton who were actively involved in either operating or assisting with the operation of small businesses. These businesses included three tailor shops, a shoe store, and a clothing store. The women said that they received moral support for their work from their husbands who operated other businesses. One or two said that their husbands provided assistance with building maintenance or bookkeeping, but in essence these women ran their own businesses. From Pierrynowski’s data and from those conducted by the author, it was found that many other Cape Breton women have worked and now do work outside their homes. This is very different from the earlier years of the Greek people on Cape Breton, when few Greek wives and mothers had lives separate from their families.

Greek people on Cape Breton have become active, well-integrated members of Island life. While there have been efforts from time to time to establish particularly Greek organizations like AHEPA and the Ladies Philoptochos, these have generally faltered and disappeared. Instead the adults have become loyal members of local organizations such as the Lions Club, and have taken up popular community interests such as hockey and curling. Their children play baseball, hockey, soccer, and basketball, and also join the Scouts and Guides. The Cape Breton Greeks have made many firm friends among people who are not Greek. In an interview conducted in the 1980s elderly Mr. Nick Raptis of Sydney described how happy he had been living in Cape Breton, and said that he had no wish to return to Greece. When his eyesight deteriorated and he had to stop driving his car, he allowed his next-door neighbour, a Presbyterian minister, to park his car in the now empty driveway. In return, the grateful neighbour cut Mr. Raptis’ grass for him.

Mrs. Katherine Farmakoulas, widow of John Farmakoulas from the 1961 boating accident described above, is a lively Greek senior whom we had the pleasure to interview early in 2000. She is the long-time president of Ss. Anargyroi Orthodox Church in Glace Bay, and has a special permission or blessing from the Greek bishop to look after the sanctuary of the church. In the interview she said: “My father came to the United States in 1914. After a couple of years he returned to our village on Milos, where he met and married my mother. Father came to Cape Breton in 1925 to work in the mines, but he did not stay long in that difficult environment. Instead, he started various businesses in Glace Bay. My father went back and forth to Greece over the years, but the rest of us did not come to Canada until 1940. My father had never seen my youngest sister Vickie, before she arrived in Canada. When I first reached here at sixteen, I remember being sad, because I had left behind my friends and my school. After we had arrived in New York, I found it very dark, and all that I could see were what I thought to be big wooden barns. I asked my father where the people lived. He laughed and told me that the wooden barns were houses, but that I should not judge by appearances, because the houses were larger and much warmer than those in Greece.

When we came to Canada none of us children went to school, but rather started working with our father. I tried school here in Canada, but I felt so out-of-place after a couple of weeks, that I decided not to go back. I did not give up learning the language, but instead started studying English at home. In 1948 I returned to Greece for a visit. That’s where I met my husband who was studying law in Athens. We got married and came together to live in Canada. At first it was very difficult for my husband- and for me- to adjust to the lifestyle here, but eventually we did. We used to invite other Greeks, especially young Greeks who did not have families here in Canada, to Sunday dinners, or for Greek Easter, or for Christmas.

We had our family growing up and my husband was very active in the business life of Atlantic Canada. Then I lost him in that boating accident. Somehow I went on. My children are all grown now with families of their own. Some family members live close to me in Glace Bay, others are in Halifax. My daughter Irene is married to Louis Angelopoulos, co-owner with his brother of the Halifax Koolex Kleaners. I stay active in my church in Glace Bay, I visit my family in Halifax, and sometimes I still travel to Milos. It’s a busy life.” Mrs. Farmakoulas’ grit and spirit, and her dedication to church, community, and family seem to be characteristic of the best features of life among Cape Breton’s Greek Canadians.