Stories

Narrative episodes the family record has accumulated — the runaway boys, the pasha's wife, the drawstring bag, the Pergamon warning. Each one weaves together people, documents, and events that live elsewhere on this site.

  1. before 1915 · jeannopoulos

    The Pasha's Wife

    An Ottoman pasha's wife is in difficult labor. Down the road, a Greek doctor sits in a prison cell under a death sentence. A deal is struck.

    people: Lazaros Jeannopoulos

  2. 1922 · jeannopoulos

    The Pergamon Warning

    Before the 1922 catastrophe came for the Anatolian Greeks, a Soma doctor warned his wife's hometown to leave. They didn't. Her family was among those killed.

    people: Lazaros Jeannopoulos · Eftyhia Jeannopoulos

  3. 1925 · jeannopoulos

    The Runaway to Greece

    Two thirteen-year-old boys, demoted to grade school and bullied for not speaking English, forge passports and run away to Greece. Their mother goes after them.

    people: John Jeannopoulos · Takis Jeannopoulos · Eftyhia Jeannopoulos · Lazaros Jeannopoulos

  4. 1950s–1976 · jeannopoulos

    Nene and the Drawstring Bag

    A grandmother in a 1960s NYC apartment carried two kinds of candy in a drawstring bag in her bra. The grandchildren rejected the butterscotch. They never knew who it was for. Decades later, dying of cancer, an uncle finally told them.

    people: Eftyhia Jeannopoulos · Takis Jeannopoulos · Aline Pepe

  5. 1950s–1968 · jeannopoulos

    The Bungalow

    A beach house on the sound where three generations gathered — Eftyhia frying flounder in the kitchen, Takis sipping ouzo on the porch, Alina at the piano, Ines singing along, John pointing his daughters at Venus and telling them Greek myths.

    people: Eftyhia Jeannopoulos · Takis Jeannopoulos · Alina Jeannopoulos · John Jeannopoulos · Ines Jeannopoulos · Mya Durso · Claudine Boyhan · Aline Pepe