Her parents insisted all their children consumed lots of dairy products because they needed that nutrition to grow strong bones and good teeth.
The visits to her cousin and her other aunt’s house were infrequent, not enough to get some much-needed nourishment, on a daily basis. The uncle was supposed to give Efrossini lunch money for school too, but most of the time he forgot to do that also. She was too afraid of him to ask for lunch money. Instead she went HUNGRY. The times she had bought the school lunch, she was elated, and she would clean up her plate with appreciation. She loved the school lunches and could not understand what some children complained about. Or maybe they never experienced HUNGER!
Efrossini basically just stayed hungry. She could not believe when she thought about it that she came to America with all her opportunities to be hungry. She was hungering for bread and love! Yet she had to do adult jobs around the house and stayed up late past midnight to finish her schoolwork. Other than cleaning the kitchen, the floor and washing the dishes, her aunt never let Efrossini in the kitchen.
She did not want her to learn to cook. Before she left Greece, her mother was the official cook and she did not learn to cook there also.
Many years later as an adult, Efrossini understood the reason she was the shortest of all four sisters. Her three sisters were 5’ 8” tall and she was only 5’ 5”. The older sisters had even lived in some harsh years and maybe their nutrition was not perfect especially during the war. Still, they grew tall.
Anna, the youngest sister, was pretty much on a gravy train because those were the best of financial times and she was given everything. She was the baby of the family, the menopausal child, and all the brothers and sisters were now long gone from the paternal home. She grew properly, nice and tall too.
Efrossini was not just hungry the four years she lived with her aunt and uncle, but she was also not given the right foods a growing young girl needed to grow properly. The foods her aunt cooked were well done meats with a starch like a potato or noodles and one canned vegetable. This type of cuisine was more like hospital food.
Her aunt did not cook as if she were Greek. Efrossini does not remember seafood or anything resembling the nutritious fresh Greek cuisine.
Another thing Efrossini did to earn some much-needed cash is to walk a 6-mile round trip to Astoria under some bridges. This did not take place often enough. It was a very lonely, short cut, imagine that! When Efrossini finally reached her destination she was out of breath and truly famished. She would hear her stomach growling!
The poor young girl would climb the stairs to the second floor, with hunger pains in her stomach. This apartment was on top of a restaurant and the scents from the foods would permeate the air. Efrossini’s grocer neighbor Pericles in Greece had this older sister Angeliki, in English it would be Angel.
She was the oldest sibling in that family and the only one that had immigrated to America bravely by herself when she was just a youngster. In the 1960’s this lady must have been in her seventies. Efrossini understood this lady’s pain. She knew she had some sad stories to write about.
Angel was legally blind but, in her apartment, she was able to get along and even sew such magnificent custom beaded wedding gowns. Efrossini remembers Angeliki having to hold the fabric so close to her eyes, sewing the beads, pearls and sequences in great patterns. She was even very famous for her craft, locally. This lady could not write to her brother and family in Greece. Maybe she did not know how to write. So, when Efrossini found this out she was so eager to go there and write Angel’s letters to Greece.
Her tiny kitchen had two indoor laundry clothes lines strung above the doors towards the ceiling where she would hang her wash. When the clotheslines were free, Angel would turn her dozen parakeets loose in that kitchen and it was a sight! Efrossini hurried up and ate what Angel would fix her before the birds started to fly.
Angel had promised Efrossini to create a one of a kind, the most magnificent beaded wedding gown for her, whenever she was married. Efrossini was fed well, she wrote lots of letters for Angel to all the Greek relatives and she was giving $10 dollars for her efforts. This was a lot of money for Efrossini. If she did not need it, she would not have taken it. But she needed it desperately.
She also took the letters with her to mail them at the post office the next day. Angel loved Efrossini so much for helping her in such a way. She told her so, while hugging her and kissing her.
Efrossini always made sure she left early enough not to be walking in the dark, under the bridges saying her prayers again and again to find the strength. Her prayers kept her going and they gave her much needed strength. She also thought how she would budget and spend her ten dollars. She needed so much: shoes, stockings, shampoo, toothpaste and some fig Newton cookies. They reminded her of her mother’s fig preserves which they ate on toasted bread in the winter.
When she had the money, she bought something to eat slowly and relish its flavor. Her childhood was long gone, and she had to act and think like an adult now
At the house one time after she returned from Astoria, she had six heavy, old-fashioned metal venetian blinds waiting to be taken down and carried to the bathtub. The living room ones were as wide as the bathtub. They were so heavy! In the tub she used hot water, bleach and detergent to wash them in, without rubber gloves. Her little hands suffered from the hot water and bleach.
At night she had to sneak a little of her aunt’s hidden Jergens almond scented hand lotion. This venetian blind ritual was done seasonally. The windows were open in the spring and summer and the blinds got dusty. This was a difficult job for her especially after she had just walked for six miles.
It was ironic she had walked to Angel’s house to help her but to also earn a little money, to be able to buy her necessities and a little food.
Angel fed her, but the few hours she spent there, and that long walk back consumed any nutrition she had in her belly and now she was famished again.
The short cut she always took under the bridges by the highways had no retail food stores. She had $10 in her pocket and she was still hungry!
With her head held up high, she walked without fear. She had God on her side. She was dreaming of tomorrow when she could buy at the five and ten cent stores after school, her much needed toiletries and a little food. This is what kept her going, giving her strength to do those venetian blinds. She looked forward to eating fig newtons.
She always had to find something that gave her pleasure to make it through hard times. Efrossini day dreamed that is how she comforted herself. The girl was lucky she had so much love in her first thirteen years of life. She hung on that to keep her faith that someday things would be different. She would say: this too will pass…
Efrossini was compelled to do well by her responsibilities and duties, to keep her sadness inside her but to always wear a smile. At school they called her SMILEY. If her school mates only knew, what she was going thru. But they did not really know. A couple of times someone hinted but Efrossini never revealed anything to school mates.
1948, (from left) Achillea, Taki, Malama, Panos, Stelios baby girl, Efrossini
CHAPTER 16
SOLVING THE HAIR DILEMMA
When Efrossini’s hair was getting almost shoulder length, her aunt took her to her usual beauty shop and told the hairdresser to cut the hair short and then give her a tight,
