The dark-eyed little girl in the picture: Old photos tell the story of an immigrant family from Greece

Mary Gekas, circa 1919-1921 (Digital Maine).

Browsing through the archives of Digital Maine, this photo of young Mary Gekas invites questions.  Born in 1915, she would have been 5 or 6 when this photo was taken at the Mark Dennett School in Kittery, Maine, and saved by a teacher in  scrapbook. Mary seems very serious for such a young girl. She lived on a farm on Dennett Road with her parents, Sophie and George Gekas, Greek immigrants from Turkey who were probably illiterate, at least in English.

When Mary’s mother Sophie registered as an “alien” at the Kittery Town Office in 1940, she signed her registration form with an X, and her husband George scrawled a rough approximation of a signature.  All of the four Gekas children went to school in Kittery. Like  many immigrant families, the Gekases probably highly valued education.  Mary eventually became a buyer for Kimball’s Department Store in Portsmouth, as well as a mother and grandmother. She was a passionate gardener and loved animals — perhaps the legacy of farm life.

Tony Gekas, circa 1919-1921 (DigitalMaine).

Mary’s brother Tony, a year younger, looks equally serious in this photo taken at the same school. Later, at Traip Academy, Tony played on the football team, graduating in 1934. He began his career as a welder at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, and served his country during World War II in the 361st Infantry Regiment, 91st Division in the Italian campaign. After the war, he married, became a father to three children, and eventually landed in the Tilton, NH area, where he worked in insurance and, with his wife, operated a well-known pizza shop, and, according to his obituary, “was known for the many kindnesses shown to the area youth.”

In the school photo below, Mary and Tony’s younger sister Esther appears a bit mischievous — perhaps the family rabble rouser.  By age 19, at the time of the 1940 census, Esther was managing a dress shop in Portsmouth, so she was a go-getter. She married, but never had children, and was probably well-known at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church in Portsmouth.

Growing up on a farm in the Great Depression, these three children understood hard work. At the time of the 1940 census, when Maine and then the federal government required their parents to register as aliens, all three of these by-now young adults had jobs off the farm.

When these photos were taken, these siblings had no inkling that eventually they would welcome a baby sister, Garifelia, born in 1938. She’s still around,  living in the Midwest.

Undated class photo, Wentworth Dennett School, possibly around 1930, when Esther would have been 9 years old. She is in the second row, 1st child on the right. Note her stylish bob cut, and big smile — a contrast to her somber siblings.  Esther appears to be wearing jeans or leggings — very rare for a girl circa 1930. Was she a rebel? (DigitalMaine)

Their father, the farmer George Gekas, came to America around 1908, from Turkey. Their mother Sophie followed a couple of years later. Eventually, after spending time in Connecticut and New Hampshire, the Gekases bought a farm on Dennett Road. Two years later, they were joined by another Greek family, who bought a neighboring farm: the Vourvases, from Smyrna, Turkey. Smyrna was a tense spot in the Mediterranean, a Greek city in Turkish territory. Eventually, in 1922, the Turks burned the city in their drive to claim it as Turkish. Were these families fleeing the tensions that eventually flared into the Greco-Turkish War and the burning of Smyrna? Or were they economic migrants, heading to America for a better life?

Traip Academy football team, 1931 season. Tony Gekas is in the 2nd row, 2nd from right.

I suspect that the Gekas and Vourvas families, stood out in Kittery, with their dark eyes, hair and skin. At the time, anti-immigration nativist politicians and their supporters were stirring up a frenzy against the “yellow menace” — the flood of immigrants arriving from Italy, Greece and other countries in southern Europe.  The country, they said, was being overrun by these “dirty undesirables.” To stop them from turning America into a mongrel nation, in 1924, Congress passed the National Origins Act, which outlawed immigration from Asia and imposed quotas that discriminated against immigrants from southern Europe.  As a result, in the 1920s,  immigration from countries like Greece and Italy was sharply curtailed for almost 30 years, until modifications in 1952 eased the quotas somewhat by basing them on the 1920 census (instead of the 1890 census, the original basis for determined quotas). But the Act was not abolished until passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.

By then, America had mostly forgotten that Greeks, Italians and others from southern Europe had once been “undesirables”. I wonder if the George and Sophie Gekas remembered.

P.S. I hope commenters can shed more light on these photos and share family stories. I hope to locate obituaries for George and Sophie once libraries are open and I have access to other archival sources.

Related posts:

The summer when Kittery aliens landed at the Town Office

Fragments of history: When the the KKK marched in Kittery, Maine

Sources and resources

Historic photos from the Mark Dennett School are from the DigitalMaine archive, and are part of a print collection held by the Rice Public Library, in a scrapbook titled ‘Reminiscences’, gathered by Mrs. J. Evelyn Woods when she was a teacher at the School. The original source for the Wentworth Dennett School photo and the Traip Academy  football team is unknown, but both photos are in the collections of Rice Public Library and Digital Maine.  See all names associated with the photo below and let me know if you can fill in any of the question marks!

Mary Gekas Kyrios obituary, Legacy.com, 2011.

Anthony Gekas obituary, Seacoastonline.com, 2002.

Esther Gekas Karayianis obituary, Legacy.com, 2014.

Wentworth Dennett School photo:

First row left to right: Bud Symonds, Sterling Cook, ?, Phil Gerry, ?, Robert Grogan. Second row: Vanetta Cutten, ?, Phyllis Blaney, ?. Barbara Wilson,, ?, ?, Esther Gekas. Third row: Henry Bowden, ?, ?, …Seaward, ?, ?, George Nickerson, …Curren, Clayton Edwards, Charles Plaisted, Stephen Robbins.

Traip Academy football team, 1931 season:

First row left to right: A. Ricker, Capt. Locke, R. Williams, Wilson, Blethrode, Bilbrusk, Boston, E. Obrian. Second row: Coach Slayton, Charles Neal, R. Hatch, Vinton Prince, Wm. Robins, Warren Wurm, Arthur Goodwin, Lersy Shea, Fr., Tony Gekas, Mg. Ford. Third row: Edw. McCloud, Bob Weaver, Jeff Cook, Leland Riley, Don Chick, Edw. McCloud, Bob Weaver, Jeff Cook, Leland Riley, Don Chick, Robert Stewart, Harold Hayes, Kenneth Newson, Gerald Obrian. Fourth row: F. Hatch, Fernald, Perry.