Position of Elsewhere

This abstract phrase is the title of an hour-long piece in the repertoire of the Cullberg Ballet troupe, danced to the music of Jean-Louis Huhta. It was my great pleasure to see it performed recently at the Vitabergs Park Theatre, an amphitheatre, in Stockholm (Parkteatern, Vitabergsparken).

One cannot successfully describe (literally, put into writing) the sublimity of the graceful, intricately simple, competent and just plain beautiful movements of dancers who are so fully integrated in their movements they often appear as a single living organism.

There. I tried to put the experience into words, anyway.

Here is a Youtube presentation of a rehearsal of “Position of Elsewhere” by the Cullberg Ballet.

Diane Pavellas, a student of Ephraim Geersh, around age four, Brooklyn, New York

It has been too long since I have seen ballet performed by professionals; that is, dancers who have as a basis for their art the movements and other attributes of classical ballet. Members of my family have appreciated classical ballet since I can remember. My younger sister, Diane, took ballet lessons for eight years in Brooklyn, then in San Francisco (with the Christiansen Ballet) when the Pavellas family moved back to their home town.

A cousin through marriage, Christine Sarry, influenced by Diane’s love of ballet, began lessons also and eventually was a major dancer with at least two ballet troupes in New York: The Eliot Feld Ballet and the American Ballet Theater.

Christy was a principal dancer in Aaron Copland’s Rodeo, choreographed by Agnes De Mille.

…producers were hard-pressed to replicate the skill with which de Mille had portrayed the lead (“Cowgirl” in Rodeo). De Mille retained veto power over any casting of the ballet, which often sent companies to extremes in order to find a worthy Cowgirl.” (Source)

Here is Christy dancing as “The Cowgirl.” Agnes de Mille’s will has a provision granting Christine Sarry exclusive rights to approve dancers for the role of (or for a certain dance of) “The Cowgirl”.

This reminiscence has value, perhaps, in establishing a small measure of authority in my remarks here about the Cullberg Ballet.

Members of the Cullberg Ballet taking their final bows at the performance of August 24, 2009 at Parkteatern, Vitabergsparken

From the Fall schedule of Dansens Hus (The House of Dance), I see that the Cullberg Ballet will perform “Matter of a Maker” in Stockholm in November, the 21st, 22nd and 24th. The music will be by Owen Belton and Beastie Boys.

They will also perform “Xpectacle” by Crystal Pite November 25-27.

I’ll be sure to get my tickets early.

Islands, Islands and More Islands …

This for the family blog, only.

After two days of solid rain, my last full day in Arholma started out sunny, so I thought I’d better take a hike before the skies opened up again.

It was a shorter walk than I anticipated, but I did see some beautiful sights in the early morning between 7:30 and 8:30.

The view from my stuga

I walked about one kilometer to the other side of the island to see the Österhamn (eastern harbor) and the farms and houses along the way and beyond.

On my way back west I took more pictures of the countryside, all of which you can see here (please click on this).

Before returning to my stuga to continue my writing project, I took a side trip to Båken, the very old lighthouse, long out of use and now a historical monument.

As for the reference to Islands in the title of this article, just look at the last picture in the album.

I’ll be returning next month to the little stuga for four nights and some days of writing and walking.

Tobacco: a Seduction

The first heavy smoker in my family to die was Uncle Tommy, my aunt Bee’s husband. He was around 65 and had a massive stroke which felled him, one side of his body completely disabled. He was confined to a hospital bed for a year before his death.

I started smoking cigarettes at age 11 and smoked two packs per day by age 12. This was an attempt to prove to the guys I hung around with in Brooklyn that I could possibly advance to manhood someday. This was in 1948.

My dad was also smoking heavily then. When my little sister ratted me out to him he said “you’ll be a man before your mother.” Nonetheless, I continued to smoke steadily. We moved back to California in 1951. (I don’t remember when Dad quit smoking, but it was many years before he died at age 87. Mom never smoked and died at age 90).

Smoking a cigarette at age 17, Navy Boot Camp, 1954

I quit cold when I was 19, in the US Navy. I was concerned for my health, having been born with a mild, genetically-inherited anemia, Alpha Thalassemia. I was also, and remain, a bit of a hypochondriac due to having been quite ill as a child and having had a hypersensitive nurse as a loving aunt. So, it was probably easier for me to quit than for other people, including a dear member of my family who still smokes and cannot shake the habit.

I started again at age 27. I had finally got into the graduate curriculum at the School of Public Health of the University of California, Berkeley. This was 1963. The School was housed in Earl Warren Hall at the northwest corner of the campus. Graduate students could smoke in class! My then wife, Patricia, thought a graduate student ought to smoke a pipe. She bought me a nice one and I happily took up the tobacco habit again. The pipe led to cigars and then back to cigarettes. I inhaled them all. At around age 38 or 39 I started to cough up black stuff, so I was scared into quitting again and felt much better, immediately. No more clearing of the throat and bronchi for half an hour every morning, and much more energy. Now, more than 30 years later, I cannot stand the smell of cigarettes, but I do occasionally find the smell of a pipe or a cigar intriguing.

In year 2006 I read The Importance of Living, a book by Lin Yutang which I recommend to anyone wanting a good read.

…Now the moral and spiritual benefits of smoking have never been appreciated by these correct and righteous and unemotional and unpoetic souls. But since we smokers are usually attacked from the moral, and not the artistic side, I must begin by defending the smoker’s morality, which is on the whole higher than that of the non-smokers. The man with a pipe in his mouth is the man after my heart. He is more genial, more sociable, has more intimate indiscretions to reveal, and sometimes he is quite brilliant in conversation, and in any case, I have a feeling that he likes me as much as I like him. I agree entirely with Thackeray, who wrote: The pipe draws wisdom from the lips of the philosopher, and shuts up the mouths of the foolish; it generates a style of conversation contemplative, thoughtful, benevolent, and unaffected.”

Lin Yutang’s essay goes on in this vein at some length before he then explores the virtues of Chinese incense, and it convinced me to try the pipe again. I went to a smoke shop in an upscale neighborhood of Stockholm (Sture Galleria) which had advertised a sale on specially made pipes to commemorate a major anniversary of the store’s business life. I bought one, along with the basic accouterments and the store’s special brand of tobacco. I sat on the balcony of our apartment to light up after more than 30 years, my fingers remembering all the little movements required to fill the pipe properly with tobacco. I felt a jolt when the nicotine got to where it affects the nervous system. It was a bit alarming, my body not remembering this aspect.

Practicing pipe smoking in California, 2006

I was on the verge of a trip to see my California family for an extended period, so I packed the pipe and paraphernalia in my luggage with the intention of practicing proper pipe smoking in the backyard patio. After my arrival in San Jose, I tried my best to achieve the pleasures so wonderfully described by Lin Yutang, but I concluded that the fussing with lighting and relighting and cleaning the pipe, not to speak of the dizziness and borderline nausea, was not worth the professorial image.

John Robinson, third husband to my first wife, Patricia and a heavy smoker, died of complications arising from emphysema at around age 55, having lived connected to an oxygen bottle for the previous several years. Patricia continued to smoke.

Patricia Robinson, former wife, died, age 68, neck and throat cancer. She had a tracheostomy for the last several months.

Nestor Palladius, my cousin, died age 83 of lung cancer.

Len R., old friend, died age 71, lung cancer. On oxygen the last few years.

Brian B., dear friend, died, brain tumor, age 68.

Recquiescas in pace

Our Pals in Prague

Eva and I have just returned from touring Prague, the capital city of the Czech Republic. It was our first visit. I hope we can return someday. This week’s offering is short and personal about our trip. [Please click on all images]

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A statue modeled after a surreal story by Franz Kafka (1883-1924).

Ron with the great Czech composer, Antonín Dvořák(1841-1904)

Ron with his pal Winston Churchill (1874-1965).

Eva with the great Bohemian composer, Bedřich Smetana (1824-1884).

Smetana is possibly most famous for that portion of his symphonic suite, Má Vlast (“My Country”), which is about the river flowing through Prague, Vltava, or in Smetana’s age, the German usage Moldau. Bohemia was then ruled by the Austrian Empire.

Here is a glimpse of the river from a tower overlooking the city:

It was a most pleasant stay in a friendly, beautiful (and musical) city.

Click here for an album of pictures taken over the five days.

Upon Returning to a Former Scene

I was born in San Francisco, 1937. During my many and lengthy travels away from the city by the bay, I fondly remembered the murmurs, moans and whistles of foghorns in the morning, and the sight of the gently rounded pair of hills, Twin Peaks, in the middle of the city. In an apocryphal tale, possibly by Herb Caen, it is told that the Spanish settlers called them the breasts of the virgin.

After living and working in Los Angeles for four years I got a job in Modesto, in the Great Central Valley, less than two hours by car from San Francisco. I waited until my wife and I had settled in our new home before we made the first trip in some years to visit my home town; the year was 1975.

As we broached the final pass over the ranges of hills separating the Valley from the City, I eagerly scanned the horizon for the beloved hills. There they were, poised above the fog—but I was stricken with horror!

Dwarfing everything on the skyline was an immense steel structure standing tall, rigid and ugly on Mt. Sutro, next to Twin Peaks, its three towers standing far above the peaks of the hills. It interrupted and obliterated the contour of the gentle ridge, overpowering it and diminishing its hills into insignificance.

I was in a state of disbelief, then anger and anguish as I realized and was forced to accept that the Great God Television had commanded the city fathers and mothers to erect this excrescence without regard to the beauty it destroyed.

I fell out of love with San Francisco, my anchor in the physical world since I began traveling away, back, and away again since age nine.

I no longer vest my soul in any one geographical setting. It isn’t a particular hill or mountain, or forest or seashore I love, it is any of them I may visit.

The beach between Anchor Point and Homer, Alaska

But I have made an exception for that place named Alaska, where I have lived for eight winters. I have allowed myself to believe it is too vast and too harsh for man to destroy its primitive beauty, at least in my lifetime.

I return to find
The old place now imperfect.
What did I expect?

Hear the foghorn on the Golden Gate bridge

Beards of Men

Beards seem to be in fashion again.

Younger men tend to have shorter beards than older men. In some portions of the younger set it is fashionable even to appear merely unshaven for a few days. One sees advertisements, usually for women’s apparel and accessories, which show young men with three-day, untrimmed beards hanging around attractive young women looking, variously, concupiscent, unfulfilled and depressed. They usually have dark beards. I guess those with blond beards are too happy and satisfied looking.

Not too many older men currently have the long beards sported by the generation of my great-grandfathers, contemporaries who never knew each other: Konstantin Alexander Pavellas and Asbury Harpending, Jr.

The following generation of men, around the 1900s, preferred waxed mustaches which, for me, have too much vanity associated with them, as shown by my two grandfathers, Alexander K. Pavellas and George Pagonis:

I think the most attractive of beards worn by a public figure, currently, is that of Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, which is on a par with that of my friend George Wegler.

I see, everywhere in Stockholm, men of a certain age displaying beards in the style of Ben and George, and I feel a kinship with these fellows, especially those with partially or fully-silvered beards. This is how I have now grown my beard, as best as I can with a few little baldish spots on my right side.

I grew my first beard upon achieving, at age 38, my goal of becoming the chief executive of a community hospital. This was in the City of Modesto, California, in the Great Central Valley. I shaved this beard after a while, thinking it not reflecting the inner Ron. Twenty-two years later I visited the land where three of my grandparents were born, Greece, and grew what I then considered a Greek beard, sort of unruly, but with the area under my nose, my philtrum, scraped clean.

When visiting Afghanistan in 2004 as a volunteer hospital consultant, I once again grew a beard and, to appease some remaining vanity, shaved my philtrum. I have since shaved it all, and now have regrown my beard similar in length to what you see below, but without bothering with the area under my nose.

If I look tired and hot, I was, and not too good in the guts, as well. It was July, 2005. Dr. Husman’s beard is a glorious thing, however, and I envy him his hirsuteness.

I feel, now, part of a fraternity of older men who are comfortable within their own skin and hair. It is a great pleasure to admire the beards of others. My only mild regret is that I never had the courage to let all my head hair grow out ‘naturally’ as did two people I admire, in the 1970s:

John Hartford and Allen Ginsberg

Thinking About Memories

I thought of my father as Eva and I walked along the wooded path beside the lake.

He’s dead nine years now, but he and his stories, his life story, are still with me.

He seemed to intend that I and my younger sister Diane should carry his memories with us. We have. This was how his mother raised him, to remember her memories and fantasies. She died before I was born, before Dad and Mom married, in a state mental hospital—of malnutrition secondary to “melancholia.”

So here I am, and was earlier this morning, remembering Dad’s memories, or at least my version of them.

There are many, so many that I can no longer distinguish among what were his stated memories or my version of what he said, or my own memories and imaginings. These memories could possibly be interesting to others if told well as a story, but this is not where my thoughts took me as Eva and I walked, slowly, in the quiet, sunny morning under the trees along the lake.

Here is what I thought: Dad’s memories will die with my death and my sister’s death. He will then, and his mother will then, be truly dead.

Such melancholy-seeming thoughts were probably elicited by the death, a few days ago, of the last remaining relative we knew in the older generation: Mom’s sister, our Aunt Bee. She was 96.

Nestor, Genevieve, Conrad (Dad)

Gone are Mom and Dad, Dad’s aunt Genevieve and her son, our cousin Nestor and his wife Timmie, Aunts Bee and Angie, Uncle Harry. Diane and I are the oldest now, and not too old: 67 and 72. We remember things, especially about Dad and his life that no one else can remember.

I thought earlier this morning of how I, following my father’s pattern, tried to inculcate family memories in my five children and the older of my grandchildren, to no apparent avail. I do not have what Dad had—an almost violent need to relive the past and make sense of it. My need is not as strong; and, my children were not trapped in the household as Diane and I were in Brooklyn for five years, away from all other family members and from the safer neighborhoods in California just after the end of World War Two.

How we got to Brooklyn and why we stayed there for five years before returning, happily, to San Francisco is another story that will die with Diane and me.

That’s the point of this ramble. All these memories we try to preserve through storytelling, documents, photographs and sometimes moving images are not really interesting or useful to those who follow except, perhaps, as fantasies or academic exercises.

“This is it!” as Alan Watts insists, as do others of a philosophical bent. There is no past, there is no future. There is only Now. We continue to learn primarily through our own experiences, if at all. We are condemned to re-live history. And, the ability for a person to transmit memories over the generations to promote a legacy for oneself dwindles, inexorably.

So, I allowed these meandering thoughts about the value of memories to rustle through my gray matter for a bit, then I got back to the business at hand—to enjoy each moment of my walk with Eva, along the lakeside path under the trees, on this beautiful sunny morning at latitude 59 degrees North, in Stockholm, Sweden.

26 April 2009

Wisdom From Oz

Johnny Dooit’s Song:

The only way to do a thing Is do it when you can, And do it cheerfully, and sing And work and think and plan.

The only real unhappy one Is he who dares to shirk; The only really happy one Is he who cares to work.

From The Road to Oz, by L. Frank Baum, 1909: In which is related how Dorothy Gale of Kansas, The Shaggy Man, Button Bright, and Polychrome the Rainbow’s Daughter met on an Enchanted Road and followed it all the way to the Marvelous Land of Oz, encountering strange people and interesting adventures along the way.

My father read to me and my sister Diane, and we later read for ourselves, all 14 Oz books written by L. Frank Baum. There were more written by others after Baum died, but they didn’t come up to the standard his books established, according to both Dad and me.

I often think of Johnny Dooit when I am engaged in manual labor; he provides inspiration. I also learned to appreciate the value of tools and a can-do attitude through him, later buttressed by real life experiences.

The first book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and the unforgettable movie made of it in 1939, are essential parts of my childhood. “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” sung by Judy Garland, never fails to evoke tender feelings in me.

But, there is so much more to the full story of Oz. Here are the 14 books, in publication date order:

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) The Marvelous Land of Oz (1904) Ozma of Oz (1907) Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz (1908) The Road to Oz (1909) The Emerald City of Oz (1910) The Patchwork Girl of Oz (1913)

Tik-Tok of Oz (1914) The Scarecrow of Oz (1915) Rinkitink in Oz (1916) The Lost Princess of Oz (1917) The Tin Woodman of Oz (1918) The Magic of Oz (1919, posthumous) Glinda of Oz (1920, posthumous)

You can access the text of all of these books online, here.

In addition to The Road to Oz another favorite of mine is Rinkitink in Oz, King Rinkitink of Gilgad is a Falstaffian character who rides a surly billy goat who talks, of course, and in a most disrespectful manner to everyone, including especially the king. There is a young man, the Prince of Pingaree, who accompanies the King to Oz, in order to escape his kingdom’s enemies and to seek help from the ruler of Oz. The Prince has three magic pearls that figure in his ability to overcome great dangers on his trip to Oz.

Prince Inga’s father, King Kitticut, had told him, before the King and Queen were captured by enemies: “Each of the three possesses an astonishing power, and whoever is their owner may count himself a fortunate man. This one having the blue tint will give to the person who carries it a strength so great that no power can resist him. The one with the pink glow will protect its owner from all dangers that may threaten him, no matter from what source they may come. The third pearl — this one of pure white — can speak, and its words are always wise and helpful.” To add spice to the story, the Prince has trouble hanging on the the pearls as he, King Rinkitink and Bilbil the goat search for the the safety and the help of the Land of Oz.

A major point in this book is that Dorothy Gale of Kansas is not the main character, as she is in so many others–and he is a boy. There is another book where the main character starts out, from our view, as a boy but is later transformed back into his original condition as Ozma, The Royal Princess of Oz. This occurs in the second Oz book, The Marvelous Land of Oz, the only book in which Dorothy Gale does not appear.

One of my favorite characters is introduced in this second book: “H.M. Wogglebug, T.E.” whom you see lecturing the assembled characters in the image on the left. H.M. stands for Highly Magnified (he escaped from a professor’s magnifying apparatus) and T.E. means Thoroughly Educated (after all, he was a living specimen for students and therefore lived at a university). This character exhibits all the pomposity and windiness of the quintessential caricature of a professor. I think Dad and I saw ourselves in him.

Dad started the tradition of collecting, keeping and passing along the Oz books to the generation that follows. Some of the books I held as a young boy (and my sister, as a younger girl) are now in the possession of my niece Vicki and her two daughters Shawna and Megan; and, also my youngest daughter Analiese and her nieces, my 7- and 11-year-old granddaughters Sydney and Sonya.

As you may sense, I could go on and on about the many and surprising array of characters in the Oz books, not all of them nice people, or even people at all.

I urge to read one to see if you can resist reading others, no matter what your age.

Please click on the map

A Family Drive From Stockholm to Växjö, Through a Sagan of Trees

First, how does one pronounce Växjö? To my English-language ears, which are fitted with aids to better hear frequencies over 500 Hz, it sounds something like ‘veck-WHOO.’

A Sagan of trees refers to “billions and billions,” a phrase attributed, humorously, to Carl Sagan by Johnny Carson on his “Tonight” TV show. I am reminded of this phrase while driving long distances through Sweden, innumerable trees always lining both sides of the highway.

Växjö is a city in Småland, a historical province (landskap) in southern Sweden. The name Småland literally means ‘small lands.’ The traditional provinces are historical and cultural entities, not contained within political boundaries. Within Småland there are three administrative counties: Jönköping County, Kalmar County and Kronoberg County, which roughly cover the entire province [Source].

Växjö City is the seat of Växjö Municipality and is the administrative, cultural and industrial center of Kronoberg County. It is also the episcopal see of the Diocese of Växjö. It has a population of about 56,000, out of a municipal total of 80,000 inhabitants. The city’s name is believed to be constructed by the words “väg” (road) and “sjö” (lake), meaning the road over the frozen Växjö Lake that farmers took in the winter to get to the marketplace that later became the city [Source].

A view of the twin spires of Växjö Domkyrka from Lake Växjö

So, why did Eva, Leo, Liv and I travel the 5½ hours by bil (automobile) from Stockholm to Växjö? To visit Simon and his sambo, Josefine; and also to visit the farmor (father’s mother) of the three of Eva’s children gathering to celebrate Simon’s and Josefine’s new household. Josefine and Simon will soon be completing their studies at Växjö University and intend to become school teachers.

Along the way south from Stockholm to Växjö we stopped at Linköping to look at Linköping University where Leo will be studying in the Fall.

We never fail to stop in one of the candy stores in or near Gränna, a center for candy-making

A fascinating place is the Brahehus, a ruined castle near Gränna. From the ruins one has view of lake Vättern and the island within it, Visingsö. Brahehus was built for the high chancellor Count Per Brahe the younger in the mid 17th century. It was intended as a country retreat but became the dower house for his wife Kristina Katarina Stenbock, though she died before it was finished. The building process started in 1638 and wasn’t finished until the mid 1650’s. It was inspired by medieval castles in Germany. A relative of Per Brahe was the great astronomer Tycho Brahe, after whom an impact crater on the moon is named. [This crater was featured in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey].

Click on the image for a better view of the castle Brahehus and the landscape below it

As we approach the south end of lake Vättern, we pass signs directing us to the Husqvarna Museum. When a youth in the USA I was fascinated by this name; I saw it as a brand on a motorcycle. [Note: Click on all images]

In a previous visit to Växjö, we visited the Swedish Emigrant Institute. The Institute was established in 1965. Its founding purpose was to preserve records, interviews, and memorabilia relating to the period of major Swedish emigration between 1846 and 1930 when 1.3 million (about 20%) of the Swedish population left the country, most of them for the USA. Eva and I toured the Institute and found it very soulful in its depiction of the hard times and hopes that led so many Swedes to leave their homeland.

Bust of Vilhelm Moberg in front of the Swedish Emigrant Institute in Växjö

There was also an exhibit of the great number of Swedes who perished on the Titanic. Outside the main building is a bust of Vilhelm Moberg who famously wrote of the emigration in four volumes, entitled The Emigrants.

The first two novels of the four-part fictional depiction of the great Swedish emigration were made into a 1972 movie entitled Utvandrarna (literally the “out wanderers” or emigrants) starring Max von Sydow and Liv Ullmann which received four “Oscar” nominations. (I admit to long having a crush on Liv Ullmann).

The exhibit hall contains a poignant sculpture by Thorwald Alef, Emigranten (The Emigrant) which, as you can see blow, shows the forward motion toward the new destination while looking back at what is left behind.

I cannot resist showing a picture, taken a few years ago in the Fall, of Eva standing under “The Echo Temple”, a water tower with acoustics making sounds echo several times underneath it. It is located near the the University area in the Teleborg area of Växjö.

And, finally for this self-indulgent article on our past and recent experiences in Småland, here is a picture with me in front of Teleborg Castle on the campus of the University:

And, keep in mind, all this and very much more is contained in just a relatively small part of a country that is 10% greater in size than the State of California.

Come on over!

Notes for a Memoir: Artemis Helen Pagonis Pavellas, RIP

Artemis Helen Pagonis Pavellas (1918-2008), around age 60

[Please click on all images and links]

This is the fifth in a series of such “Notes for a Memoir.” The previous installments were about, in ascending date order:

1. An overview of the memoir I am writing about my first 21 years (1937-1958)
2. A series introducing family members and others who preceded me and who had significant influence on my life

Isadora and Raymond Duncan

One of my great-grandfathers, Asbury Harpending, Jr.

My paternal grandparents, Lucille and Alexander Pavellas

I had intended to write this time about my maternal grandparents, Helen and George Pagonis, but will preempt and delay this telling in favor of a eulogy for, and brief biography of, my mother who died at age 90 two days before last Thanksgiving.

The fates were such that my sister Diane and I were able to conduct a memorial for mom at my oldest daughter’s house in San Jose where 14 of mom’s 16 widely dispersed descendants were gathered on Christmas Eve day, 2008. Other family members were present, as well. The following is what Diane and I recited to the gathering, with some words after-added by me. After we had our say, others remembered her in their own way.
—

Artemis, right, with her sister Beatrice, at age 18 on the slopes of Mt. Tamalpais shortly after her marriage to Conrad H. Pavellas

Mom perceived an afterlife. Within the last few years she said she wanted to be with her family and friends “on the other side.” She is now there and we can be grateful that she left here quite peacefully in her sleep.

Dad died in year 2000. They had been married 65 years. Mom mourned, but not terribly. It gave her a bit of freedom she had yearned for, we believe. Mom lived with Diane since then, and Diane has treated her like a queen: facials, nails and hair and clothes. Mom loved it.

After a year of on-and-off stays at various levels of institutional care for a hip replacement and some illnesses, mom suffered a stroke, larger than the small ones that had slightly crippled her dominant left hand around three years ago. Her cognitive functions continued to diminish. She wasn’t able to walk for around two years before her death—her brain and legs didn’t connect well enough.

Artemis at Rossi Park, San Francisco, pregnant with her first child, Ronald

Artemis Helen Pagonis began in 1918 as the youngest of four children of a poor Greek immigrant family in San Francisco: George Pagonis and Helen, née Diakakis.

George was then a skilled confectioner, but a failed businessman working for other Greeks in San Francisco restaurants. He might have had 6 or 8 years of formal schooling. George and Helen met in San Francisco, and both came from Astros, on the Peloponnesus in Greece. We know nothing of their antecedents.

Three years after mom was born, another girl was born and her mother Helen died from complications accompanying the birth. Florence was the baby’s name; the children were told she was adopted by the doctor who delivered her, but we believe this to be a tall tale for the sake of the other children’s sensibilities. More likely, she was taken to an orphanage.

Helen Diakakis Pagonis and George Pagonis near the time of their marriage, around 1910

The girls were at home alone during working hours for some time and survived on 5 cents a day while her father and brother Harry, aged nine or ten years, went out to make money. Harry sold papers on a corner and often waited up all night until George decided to return home from the coffee shops and card rooms where he spent his off-work hours. George hardly slept. (He ultimately contracted tuberculosis, for which he was treated, on and off, over the years until his death from pneumonia around age 65). The girls were mostly alone and Beatrice, who was 7 or 8, was the mother to Artemis, 3, and Angelina 4-1/2. Bea was made responsible for the household. She was in charge of the feeding and caring of the two toddlers.

The three girls were ultimately taken away by the County or the State of California because the neighbors complained there was no one home to care for the children. They were placed in a “horrible” Stockton orphanage, 60 miles from San Francisco. The matrons were stern and unloving. They carried sticks for discipline purposes. The girls were forced to eat and when they didn’t, they were beaten. Angie wet the bed so they put her in the basement with rats to convince her to stop. This made it worse. She claimed to have suffered permanent kidney damage from this, later in life, after she completed her registered nurse training at Mt. Zion hospital in San Francisco.

Mrs. Vroman of Portland, Oregon, beloved foster mother of Artemis, Angelina and Beatrice Pagonis

Whenever someone came to look at one or another of the children for foster care they all would act up so they weren’t separated into different households. They were all finally placed with Mrs. Vroman in Portland, Oregon, and were happy. Mrs. Vroman saw that Bea had musical talent and gave her piano lessons. The little girls were treated lovingly and got enough to eat. Mom remembered Mrs. Vroman, and their days in Green Oregon with great affection.

Mom and Dad first met when she was a baby. Dad’s father, Alexander K. Pavellas, was godfather to many of the children born to Greek immigrants in and around San Francisco because of his being well educated, influential and having been the Greek Consul General of San Francisco. Mom was about 5, and dad around 10. We were told that when dad and his father visited mom’s father, George Pagonis, mom sat on dad’s lap. They met again later when dad came to George’s home to sell newspaper subscriptions to the Greek-American newspaper dad inherited from Alexander when dad was 20.

The three sisters and dad went to the movies. He and Mom talked all the way through the movie and became engaged. It was expected he would end up with Bea, the oldest and “prettiest,” by contemporary American standards. But mom fell head over heels in love, and so did he. He found her to be real, without guile and free spirited—plus, Diane believes, very sexy. He was immediately smitten. He was in need of love and companionship; he had just lost his mother, father and uncle and was burdened with the care of his aunt Genevieve and her son, dad’s cousin Nestor.

This was 1935, in the depth of the Great Depression. Dad was trying to hang on to the family newspaper business. Dad had to drop out of his senior year at Cal because the almost simultaneous deaths of the parents and his uncle who was important to the family and the newspaper.

Artemis’s and Conrad’s wedding picture, December 1935. Conrad wore his college ROTC uniform becuase he had no proper suit

Dad was on his way to Canada to sell more subscriptions and had 25 cents on him. Mom told him he couldn’t go without her because he wouldn’t come back, so she went with him to Canada with 25 cents in a Model T Ford. At the border, the Canadian officials were not going to let them in as one had to have a certain amount of money to enter, but they told the Border Patrol they were getting married in Canada so they let them in. Dad left his watch as security. We don’t know where they got married. Dad collected on a sufficient number of subscriptions to The Prometheus to get home again.

Upon arriving to home in San Francisco, they all lived together: Mom, Dad, his aunt Genevieve and his cousin Nestor. Nestor was 11. We don’t know where they lived.

My first memories are at age 4-5 living with dad, mom, Harry, Bea, Angie and grandpa (George Pagonis) in the upper flat on 433 Arguello Blvd., between Geary and Clement. I think my parents previously lived with one of mom’s sisters, after I was born, on Cherry Street when I was first born, as they mentioned it often. When I was around two years old the three of us lived for a year in the unincorporated town of Brisbane, just south of San Francisco. I had a dog, Brownie, and had whooping cough during that year.

Artemis with her children in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, around 1946

Diane’s memories, starting in Brooklyn, around 1946:

Mom tried to protect various children who were abused. She even abducted two children in our cold water apartment building who were left alone and crying because their teenage parents were gone a lot. The Grandmother for these children came and took them with her.

Mom had to protect us from the mentally ill and deranged building superintendent’s son, because he was always trying to kill Diane and her friend Barbara Suczynski. Mom also protected Barbara’s mother from her husband by hiding her at our house. She and Dad tried to keep us off the streets by giving Ron piano lessons and Diane ballet. She went to work at a Norwegian Hospital as a nurse’ aide to bring in money.

I remember her as kind but timid in this strange and dangerous world. Her happiness was her children. She was a devoted mother and tried to protect us from the streets.

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There were other more spontaneous memories shared, and two brief written ones from two former daughters-in-law recited by two grandsons.

What follows are some images with descriptions, generally outlining the arc of Artie’s life.
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Artie with infant Diane, 1942, in front of 1822 Sunnydale Avenue, San Francisco. This two-story apartment was part of a new housing project for war workers and other eligible people. Dad worked at the Kaiser Richmond Shipyards

Artie with her brother Harry and daughter Diane at Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. Unlce Harry stopped by on his way from San Francisco to Greece to Marry Sophia Malanos. He brought Aunt Sophie back with him to visit us again on his return trip.

In 1951 the Pavellas family of four returned to San Francisco and lived 6 months with Uncle Harry, Aunt Sophie and their new daughter, Helen. In this picture we are visiting Aunt Bea and her husband, Uncle Tommy Thomas at their lagoon-side home in Newport Beach, California. Pictured, left to right are: Front, Tom Thomas, Jr. and Diane Pavellas; Middle, Ron Pavellas, Artie, Aunt Bee, Aunt Angie; Rear, Aunt Angie’s quondam husband, Eben George Smith.

Artie and Connie in the first home they owned, starting around 1960, at 62 Theta Avenue in Daly City, on the southern edge of San Francisco. They lived there until Dad retired from the typographical trade around 20 years later.

Artie and Connie after retirement. They lived their last years together at Nepo Drive, San Jose.

The now widowed Artie with her beloved cats, always present in the house, a few years before her death

What she knew best, and dispensed copiously to all, was love.