In The Shadows Of Olympus
IN THE SHADOWS OF OLYMPUS:
FINDING PLACE IN A NEW WORLD
THE QUIET OF A CEMETERY
As I walk through Mount Olivet cemetery in Salt Lake City, certain names on the markers and monuments read like elaborate word puzzles: Sargetakis; Kastenakis; Yanopoulos. Wander through this sea of marble and granite long enough and you will find the small area marked with the name Kichas. My ancestors are buried in this place. They were human beings caught up in a complex wave of disparate events that led to the mass migration of thousands from Greece in the early twentieth century. Ultimately they refuge in the Wasatch Mountains on the eastern rim of the Great Basin, and new life on the shores of the Great Salt Lake.
Situated on the foothills of Salt Lake’s northeast bench, Mount Olivet cemetery has the quiet calm of a church or cathedral. While the busy streets of the city run parallel to its gates, the serenity found here is peaceful and distinct. Maple, oak, and aspen trees have been growing here since the cemetery was founded over 100 years ago, and they provide a verdant canopy that effectively acts to block out the incessant sounds of city life that continually hum beyond the wrought-iron cemetery gates. Today a herd of mule deer move throughout the grounds, and each spring is marked with the appearance of new members of the herd. Whenever I visit this place I seek them out. Their living presence in an environment full of the shadows of spent human lives acts as a potent reminder of the unceasing cycles and rhythms of the natural world.
Of course, there was a time when this cemetery existed well outside the world of housing and commercial development that has grown up around it. When Utah was still in its territorial existence of the nineteenth century, this ground was maintained by federal troops stationed at neighboring Camp Douglas. Perched on a hill above the city, the placement of the fort was no accident. Colonel Patrick E. Connor had originally led a detachment of federal troops to the Utah Territory in 1862 with orders to secure the Western trails here. In his opinion the Mormons of Salt Lake (and their leader, Brigham Young) were a seditious group, and he saw it as his task to keep literal watch over them from this vantage point above the city. In 1874 the U.S. Congress acted to set aside a 20 acre tract of Earth on the grounds of Camp Douglas for use as a nondenominational public cemetery, and in 1877 the first burial was made, forever marking the soil here as distinct, special, and set apart.
Limitless stories resonate in a cemetery. Each stone serves as a reminder of a human life and the plethora of connections it made in its brief, beautiful burst of directed energy before returning to the soil. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust. It is the Earth that binds and connects us. The land we walk upon is the common ground we each share. Soil serves as a literal bridge that spans and connects generations. As I stare at the tombstones marked with the name Kichas, I reflect on this small piece of Earth and the individuals buried here. I wonder what led them to sever themselves from the roots of their homeland and put down new ones in an environment that was simultaneously both similar and wildly divergent. I reflect on the pain and losses they suffered in ultimately finding this place and making a home on this soil. As I stand on the Earth of Mount Olivet, surrounded by so many potent reminders, I wonder at how this place has become ours.
A CERTAIN QUALITY OF LIGHT
This story begins with four brothers. My grandfather, Nickolas, stands second from the left. In his young face I can see the resemblance and small similarities now carried in the genetic language of my brother and I. These were men who were unfortunate victims of a deteriorating social and economic situation in their homeland of Greece. Conditions well beyond their control fatefully drove them into exile with nothing more than a rough hope that life might be better in the wild unknowns of a new country.
As a people the Greeks have been fundamentally shaped by both the unique environment around them, and the swirls of history that have periodically swept across the Mediterranean. Mountains, water, and a particular quality of light are all features of their world that have found repeated voice in cultural expression. There is a still quality to the light that has had a unique effect on the Greeks. Famed Greek author Nikos Kazantzakis wrote, “in every Greek landscape...the light is the protagonist-hero” (Papanikolas “Amulet” 6). This particular quality of light, as well as the unique circumstances of climate (long, dry summers and short, moist winters) has bred a culture that places premium value on time spent outdoors.
And while the traditional Greek outlook on land used for agriculture and animal husbandry might be expressed as pragmatic and utilitarian, such a conception runs parallel with a deep love for “God’s mountains and streams” (Papanikolas “Amulet” 20). Over three-quarters of mainland Greece is composed of a steep, rugged mountainous terrain. However, in spite of the rocky dominance of the highlands formed by the Baltic Peninsula, the country contains over 9,320 miles of coast line along its mainland and islands. Mountains and water hold deep meaning and significance here. This vibrant connection and love for the beauty of their world also spread to the Mediterranean Sea, with claims that it could be seen from any mountaintop in the country. Chief among these rugged peaks is the highest point in Greece, Mount Olympus. Towering 9,571 feet in northern Thessaly, this long, jagged mountain is remembered as the home of mythic gods and goddesses.
But just as the physical landscape sits at a crossroad of continents, similarly human history gestures to this place as a cultural crossroads as well. Greece long served as a place of strategic military positioning during the ages of Empires and this history has had lasting impact on the country and its people. After the Hellenistic period of ancient Greece drew to a close, the country was occupied by the Romans and later the Ottoman Empire of Turkey. It was under the periodically brutal regime of the Ottomans that much of the modern Greek national character took root and flourished. Ironically, while the seeds of the Renaissance and Enlightenment were taken from much of ancient Greek thought, these movements never penetrated the Ottoman stronghold formed around the Greek mainland. Yet, in spite of this lack of opportunity to engage and participate in a growing wave of intellectualism that swept Europe in the early Modern era, the Greeks came to see themselves as the rightful heirs and protectors of an ancient culture responsible for much of Western thinking.
Yet, despite the unification triggered by this national pride, and the rise of accompanying ideals that would return the country to its ancient glory, life for many remained brutally difficult. Over time much of the Greek mainland was deforested by both the native and occupying populations, and this (coupled with few areas acclimated for large scale agriculture) left many scrambling for the basic means of survival. Many young Greeks came to see exile inexorably tied to an opportunity to send back money and resources that might help the homeland regain its former glory. However, there are no clear indications that this lofty and romantic goal of helping return the country to its former glory ever held sway over the eldest Kichas brother, James. Among the four brothers, he stands on the far left, symbolically first by birthright. By all accounts, James was a man of deep pragmatic vision. Assessing the conditions of his family and the Greek homeland that had fallen into deep disrepair at the turn of the twentieth century, he decided upon a fate similar to that of many Greek men of his generation. He chose exile and an accompanying hope that life might be better in America. Between 1890 and 1924, over 520,000 Greeks left their homeland and headed west. Many members of this great Greek diaspora of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century carried a small amulet filled with Greek earth around their neck. The soil was a potent reminder of their homeland and in the event they died as strangers in exile, the Greek Orthodox priest attending to their services would have a handful of Greek Earth to sprinkle over their graves.
When James arrived in the U.S. in 1905, he came with a plan that involved earning enough money to send for each of his brothers, in the order of their birth. First was my grandfather, Nickolas, followed by William, and then the youngest sibling, Tom. Each of these men made the decision to follow James in a context that is hard for me to imagine. Not only were they leaving their family with no assurances that they would ever see their parents or young sister, Panagoula, again, but they were also taking flight from the soil in which the roots of family and tradition ran deep.
Hailing from the area around Athens, (on the Attica periphery) harsh evidence from the world around them might have given the brothers some reason for hope in leaving. The city of Athens serves as a telling example of the costs of industrialism and globalization. For most of its 7,000 years of existence, Athens was a small community in every sense of the word. Family farms and trade from the nearby port of Piraeus marked the region. The city enjoyed status as an important cultural hub for much of its history, yet remained relatively contained until the Greek War of Independence in 1834 that led to independence from the Ottoman Empire. At that time Athens was named the new capitol for the country, and within decades its population growth (and subsequent expansion) began to explode. This rapid development in nineteenth and twentieth centuries has led to widespread environmental degradation and massive pollution that darkens the city today. In many ways Athens demonstrates some of the best and worst of Greek culture. The Acropolis stands as the highest point in the city serving as the most famous lasting landmark of Greek antiquity. The cultural and economic importance of the Acropolis led to a mandate in Athens that nothing could be built higher than. So, instead of expanding vertically the city has grown outward, bringing increasing acres of land into its urban sprawl. At the turn of the twentieth century this was a reality well underway, and may have helped spur the Kichas brothers in their decision to make the great trip into the unknown, across the Atlantic Ocean and onto the shores of America and Ellis Island.
WINDS BLOWING WEST
A recurring story of loss, change, and emergence faced the Kichas family almost immediately upon James' arrival in the United States in 1905. Many of the Greeks who comprised this swell of immigration maintained a tremendous fear that they would be rejected at the gates of Ellis Island and sent back to scratch out a seemingly impossible living on native soil. Many carried the whole of their family fortunes with them to prove to American immigration officials that they were people of some means who could be trusted to enter the country. This was a very different time in America, when much of the infrastructure and menial jobs were legally open to the immigrants who rushed to fill them. The majority of the Greek contingent was composed of young men who had been swayed by the stories of Greek labor agents who spoke of the ample opportunities America offered to make more money in a single week than one could earn in an entire Greek year. When James arrived at the immigration processing center on New York’s Ellis Island he carried little with him beyond his hopes and the family name of Kaitsas. By the time he was processed and allowed to step foot in his new home, the name had been altered to Kichas.
In 1907, my grandfather, Nickolas, was sent for and he joined James in working in the railroad yards of Omaha, Nebraska. This work supplied the means for them to mail money back to their family in Greece and eventually send for brothers William (in 1914) and Tom (in 1915). With the four brothers reunited in the United States, they left the low plains of Nebraska and pushed further west to the coal mines of Price, Utah. Not unlike today, immigrants at the turn of the twentieth century helped fill jobs that were needed but highly undesirable. Among these were the mining jobs of Utah. A major hub of mining activity was centralized in the Carbon County area (near the Book Cliffs of eastern Utah). Near the small town of Price, huge deposits of coal lay buried in the mountains. America was still in its infancy of unearthing these resources to feed the insatiable fires of growing industry, and immigrants of all nationalities were recruited by labor agents to perform the dangerous task of mining. Proof of the risk of this work is best captured by the Castle Gate Mining disaster of 1924, and the lives left ruined by the blast. Located twelve miles north of Price, the Castle Gate mine literally exploded on the morning of March 8, 1924. Within the network of mining tunnels carved into the Earth, loose coal dust floated in the air on that spring morning, a failure in safety protocol that called for all coal to be dampened within the mine. When a miner lit a match to reignite his lamp near the roof of the mine, it sparked the coal dust and set off a huge explosion. Of the 171 killed by the explosion, 50 were native-born Greeks, 25 were Italians, 32 English or Scots, 12 Welsh, four Japanese, and three Austrians (or South Slavs). Compounding the tragedy was that weeks earlier the mine’s owner, Utah Fuel Company, had laid off most of its miners who were single and without dependents, meaning that those who were killed left behind widows and children who were in the unenviable position of being dependent strangers in a new land. For reasons now lost to time, James and Nick decided that transitory life in the mines and on the railroads wasn’t worth pursuing. In 1919, they moved the family again, this time north to Salt Lake City. What they found here must have stirred some deep memory of home. The mountains of the Wasatch Range form a dramatic eastern bench across the Salt Lake Valley and the perpetually still waters of the Great Salt Lake might have served as a reminder of the calm waters of the Mediterranean.
But while some of the natural features of their new home may have had the feel of familiarity, it is hard to imagine a comparable analog to the Great Basin that stretches beyond the visible landscape west of Salt Lake City. The soil of the Great Basin is loose, granular, dusty, and heavily alkaline. This is a place in a constant state of flux. There is deep geologic tension buckling and fracturing the surface of the Earth, leading to the distinctive pattern of basin and range that spread east to west across the region. Hydrologically, it is an area that lives up to its mythic name. Any water that falls on the interior Great Basin is trapped here, with no viable outlet to the sea. Continental drift is in dynamic process, literally pulling the Basin apart like taffy. The modern cities of Reno and Salt Lake slowly drift further away from one another, and eventually the North American continent will sever in this place and a new interior ocean (not unlike the distant Mediterranean Sea) will form. Bounded on its western edge by the jagged Sierra Nevada Mountains and on the east by the more faulted and rounded Wasatch, it is a place best described as rugged, dry, and unforgiving. It was on the eastern edge of America’s most arid and tumultuous desert that my ancestors came to carve out a new life. They were far from the first to pass through this unique space however.
Prior to white settlement, the area of the Salt Lake Valley served as a vital space of transition for Numic speaking tribes of the region. These tribes tended to make permanent settlement further north in the regions of Cache Valley, or south along the banks of Utah Lake, in present-day Provo. Like the immigrant populations who would later displace them, these indigenous tribes were fundamentally shaped by this environment. The Great Basin is the most arid of America’s deserts and the story of water is one of recurring, persistent interest. But this interest has also been balanced (particularly in the twentieth century) by a turn towards the mountains and the unique opportunities for recreation and resource that the Wasatch provide. My grandparents were married in 1928 and the challenges of adapting to life in their newly adopted home were somewhat mitigated by the close community they were able to cultivate with other Greek immigrants. With the rush of immigration in the early twentieth century, the rise of centrally-located Greektowns became a common feature of most large American cities. These were places where immigrants gathered together to rekindle something of the community and traditions that had been left behind. It was a common occurrence for these Greek immigrants to also clutch deeply to the Greek Orthodox faith that had followed them in exile and taken new root in the religiously tolerant soil of America. The power of their faith was intrinsically bound with their heritage, as demonstrated in the Greek expression, “to be Greek is to be Orthodox.” But this adherence to the old ways and customs wasn't something that lasted for all who immigrated. For the Kichas family, the seeds of a new life had been planted in the dusty soil of the Great Basin, and out of them something new was beginning to emerge.
TIES TO A NEW LAND
On the wall of my parents home there hangs a photograph that feels hauntingly surreal. My teenage father, James Nickolas, stands in the middle. On his left stands his father, Nickolas, and to his right is Uncle James (the proprietor of the James Grocery which serves as the backdrop for this scene). In my father's youthful face and posture, I see much of myself. This isn’t so strange, as I have grown accustomed to hearing how much I resemble him, both in looks and demeanor. No, to me what feels surreal is seeing the striking similarity that links three generations. The familiarity of my father's face can also be seen in the face of my grandfather, whom I never met. The roots that connect us run deep and intermingle, like the complex system of a quaking aspen grove.
Upon arriving in Salt Lake City, James and Nick worked various service jobs around the valley before opening a small grocery store on 620 East and First South in 1919. For the family, the James Grocery quickly became an all-consuming part of life. They were never far removed from it, as the family residence was attached to the storefront. Centrally located near downtown Salt Lake, the grocery store also became a hub for other Greek immigrants and their families. Many of these patrons and friends looked on their exile in America as a temporary adventure that would end with a return to the home country. This was not a sentiment shared by the Kichas brothers, however, as they had no strong desire to return to the land of their birth. One often remembered statement from James and Nick was, “We love Greece, but when we left we were starving.”
With a firm belief that America had given them a new home and a new hope, the two brothers made it formal store policy that nobody (family or patron) was to speak their native Greek tongue during business hours. Within the generation of my father much of the old ways were lost. He could recall a few words and phrases from his youth spoken around the family dinner table, as well as the memory of full conversations with his mother (who never learned English). But by the time he reached adulthood the words that had served as link to that far distant country had been severed. Today the only vestiges of the Greek heritage carried by my brother and I are locked in the language of our genetics. It is a powerful example that speaks to a truth. If you truly want to cripple a people and their culture, begin by stripping them of their language. Soon enough the stories and tradition will follow.
For many Native American groups, a place takes on the ultimate semblance of “home” when it becomes the final resting place of the dead. My father learned this painful lesson early in his life. Tom died from complications related to alcoholism in 1935. This was followed by the unexpected death of my grandmother, Anna, in 1949. This devastating loss sent the family into unexpected chaos, and it was the established rituals of holding the grocery store together that came to serve as a means for maintaining a sense of the ordinary. William was lost to pancreatic cancer in 1949, and the eldest brother, James, followed shortly after in 1956. In 1972, the last of the Kichas brothers, my grandfather Nickolas, passed away and was buried in the tranquil soil of Mount Olivet. I remember visiting their graves as a child, but it wasn't until a deeper, much more personal loss that I truly began to dwell on the circumstances that link me to this place I call home.
THE SHADOWS OF OLYMPUS
The morning we buried my father, silver clouds rippled over Salt Lake Valley like distorted gray glass, pregnant with the promise of spring rain. His service was held in the nondescript LDS chapel that my brother and I grew up attending with our mother. Its modest familiarity provided an unexpected level of comfort after a week spent caught in an unceasing storm of grief and raw emotion. His illness had been a slow descent that had taken on the rapid power of an avalanche in two short months. Chronic diabetes had slowly been chipping away and strip mining the quality of his life, first resulting in a loss of balance, then an early retirement, then kidney function deteriorated to the point that dialysis became our familiar three day per week ritual. Through it all he managed to maintain stoicism his ancient ancestors might have appreciated and understood.
Two weeks before he died, my mother called me on the phone, panicking that he had just been admitted to the hospital with what appeared to be a heart attack. Over the course of his illness the stale air of hospital rooms had become too familiar. But entering his nondescript room on a resplendent April day in 2004 something felt dramatically different and wrong. Up to this point my father had maintained the outlook of someone who wanted to continue the fight and hold on to the miracle of life for as long as the fates would allow. This time, however, I sensed that his resolve was spent and that our family was entering a new, darker chapter. The weeks that followed threw this recognition into sharp, cutting relief. The heart attack had restricted blood flow throughout his body, resulting in a brain trauma not unlike a stroke. Starved of precious, life-sustaining oxygen for too long, his brain had suffered irreparable damage, though knowing exactly what faculties had been compromised was not something any doctor was willing to speculate on. Sitting around his bed talking to him, I could sense parts of his personality completely intact, but too often what he had to say was lost and buried amidst a cruel cloud of confusion.
Not knowing the best course of action, my mother, brother, and I agreed that whatever was to come was best served in the comfort of our home. So, James Nickolas Kichas, the man who had helped steer my life with his example, came home. Our suspicions that this is what he wanted were seemingly validated when he passed away quickly and peacefully the same rainy May afternoon we took him from the hospital. He had lost his mother to similar complications from a failed body at the age of ten. My brother, Nick, and I were just entering our early 20’s, and as the surreal recognition that he would no longer be there to witness and help guide the course of our lives sank in, it added a particularly bitter dimension to my already overflowing emotion.
After his funeral service, my mother requested that the hearse make a detour and carry his body past the building that once housed the James Grocery, before its final stop in Mount Olivet cemetery. Days later I was reminded of his crooked smile and dry humor when I returned to the cemetery. As I pulled through the gates, and drove to our family plots, I was startled to see the entire herd of the cemetery’s mule deer feasting on the peach roses and effusive flower sprays that had been left at his grave. His low laughter was on the air as the expense and efforts of gaudy flower bouquets were quickly converted to humble wildlife buffet. My immediate thought was how he would have said something about not bothering to waste the money on the flowers when they were destined to get eaten anyway.
Getting out of my car, the deer eyed my presence before bounding off to other parts of the cemetery, and other gourmet flower stands. As I stood over my father's grave, I reflected on the freshly turned earth. Two generations of the Kichas family had now passed since their flight from Greece. Hollowed out by grief and emotion I looked up and saw the dramatic and clearly recognizable north face of Salt Lake’s Mount Olympus towering 9,026 feet above me to the southeast. And there, in the shadow of Olympus, I found my strength. This land has become our land. This place is now our place. In the midst of my deepest grief, it was in the seemingly limitless power of the natural world that I found my deepest comfort. The grave of my father serves as a constant reminder that in the shadows of Olympus this place has truly become ours.
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