Leonard Janiszewski & Effy Alexakis
Simply, women were not viewed as an integral part of the historical record. The vast majority remained silent and invisible, their history subsumed under general descriptions of men’s lives…
Judith P. Zinsser, feminist academic, 1993
Men dominated early Greek migration to, and settlement in Australia. Greek men sponsored other Greek men to migrate out, primarily to work in the food-catering industry. The proprietors of Greek-run oyster saloons, refreshment rooms, soda and sundae parlours, milk bars and cafés, were, overwhelmingly, male. Kafeneia in Australia were established by Greek men for Greek men – for recreation and particularly as labour market supply points for work in food catering. Greek men have told their tales of Australia’s Greek cafés and their lives around their businesses. But theirs is only part of the story. Greek women did follow. They also have tales to tell. But like many other Greek diaspora histories globally, their voices are comparatively inaudible, essentially muted by the numerical dominance of the male experience, and often even gagged by traditional patriarchal subservience. In seeking to re-balance the gender perspective of Australia’s Greek café experience, this article is a timely reminder for gender inclusiveness when researching diaspora histories. The insights offered by female voices across the generations provide stories of hope, despair, tragedy, redemption, failure and success, of lives and experiences currently – for the most part – unacknowledged.
Greek women often undertook the hidden work of a family-run Greek café, particularly during the initial development of the business. Men generally remained behind the counter dealing with customers, ordering stock, and balancing the business’ finances. The preparation of meals, washing up, and cleaning, were often left to the women in the family. When necessary however, they would join the men behind the counter or assist waiting staff. Long, hard, monotonous hours mostly behind the stove and the sink would then be followed by the responsibility of running the household and caring for the children’s comfort and well-being, including their upbringing with appropriate Greek spiritual and cultural values.
It was often a very difficult existence and many women experienced a personally debilitating sense of isolation – through their gender, their language, their culture, as well as their social, domestic, occupational and geographical circumstance. Maria Sourrys, who ran Sourrys’ Café with her husband, George, in Hughenden in north-eastern Queensland from 1939, states: ‘I was the first Greek woman here for the first couple of years… had nothing… worked hard… I’ve never returned to Greece… eight [Greek] families here once… now they’ve all gone… but I’ve always felt alone.’ Maria Georgiadis (nee Evangelou Favas) worked with her husband Leonidas from 1962 in Tamworth’s Fitzroy Milk Bar in northern New South Wales: ‘I had no relatives, no friends [Greek or British-Australia]. I couldn’t speak [English] much… we didn’t have the same opportunities like the big cities. We didn’t go anywhere together, the shop was always open.’ For Nitsa Apostolopoulos (nee Theoni Kotou), who operated the Kosciusko Café in Inglewood in south-eastern Queensland with her husband Paul during the 1970s and 1980s: ‘I felt like an outsider… My dream in life, the whole time, was to stay here a short time and then go back [to Greece], and my husband promised that. But the children were growing up… [and] well, we’re still here.’ Georgia Flaskas (nee Kakasouris), who helped her husband George run a small café in Walgett in north-western New South Wales during the 1980s, feared for her own safety: ‘My husband had brought me to the ‘zoogla’ [wild animal country]… seeing the Aboriginal women unkempt, the kids running around, the damaged buildings, the difference… when my sister came out for a holiday [from Greece], she was scared too!’ In 2002 Kyriakoula Siafarikas was operating Sam’s Takeaway with her husband , Efthimios (Sam), in Coonamble, just south of Walgett: ‘I don’t like to think about living here – you have to put up with a lot of garbage! I feel alone and that I don’t belong, and I don’t want to belong here!’
Before the demise of the ‘White Australia’ policy by progressive Federal governments during the latter part of the 20th century, Greek café women also had to deal with the sting of racism. As Maria Georgiadis (nee Evangelou Favas) emotionally points out: ‘Sometimes I would go home crying… you became thick skinned… you had to… it offends me still… the words dago and wog.’ Maude Kringas (nee Chellas) and her husband George were proprietors of the Rose Marie Café in Orange in central-western NSW during the 1930s right through to the mid-1960s. She recalls racial violence with drunks in the shop and being personally ridiculed as a ‘greasy spoon dago’.
The private despondency for some Greek café women was such that other members of the family often sensed or recognised their personal grief. Archie Kalokerinos, ‘raised in a few rooms perched above the Paragon Café’ during the 1930s and 1940s in the New South Wales, New England country town of Glen Innes, remembers that ‘mother used to go close to a break down’ and that such ‘suffering was something that a lot of these Greek women went through’.
Personal tragedy often compounded the effect of circumstance. Maria Kosseris (nee Stathoulia) had witnessed the execution of her village’s male population by German soldiers during World War II. Desperately desiring the hope offered by a new life, she migrated to Australia in 1954 and married Konstantine Kosseris the following year. Konstantine ran the White Rose Café in the small rural township of Binalong, just north-west of Yass, in NSW:
Destiny I think brought me here. But my first impression of Binalong was not very good. I was… disappointed. I told my husband and he said maybe in five years we would leave – but we never did. I looked after the kids, and when they went to school, I helped my husband… Most of the people [in the town] worked for the railway. Now the trains don’t stop anymore… about five families are left in the town… We were ready to sell before the GST [Goods and Services Tax], but
then my husband died… The future? I don’t know.
Some though, consciously managed to rise above both personal tragedy and circumstance. Maria Benias (nee Samios) is a salient example of such:
I came out in 1963/64 on the Patris. I thought I was going to be rich: you work hard, you get rewarded… I hated it! I couldn’t speak English. I didn’t know anybody. I wanted to go back to Greece… What kept me going? Stupidity, ignorance… laughter. After I learnt English, I lost my desire to go back… Moved to Dubbo in New South Wales [from Ipswich, Queensland] in 1977. My husband had a gambling problem. He saw that a café was for sale in Dubbo. He thought if we moved he could get away from his gambling. But it didn’t work like that… It was a terrible time. I was seven months pregnant. I just took off and went to a women’s refuge. I saw a solicitor. He told me what to do… I decided to educate my four children. I didn’t want them working in cafés… I got a… shop in Narromine… that’s what helped me educate the children. I was there for eight years… I then bought the Athenian Take-Away in Dubbo in 1992. My children are the driving force of my life. Three are in Sydney. My youngest son is at Newcastle University.
Indeed, for many Greek women, the negative strains of café life could generally be managed through the perceived potential of socio-economic advancement for their children that the café could provide – it offered a financial foundation for the higher education of offspring. As Nitsa Apostolopoulos (nee Theoni Kotou) points out: ‘I didn’t want my sons to take over the business. I wanted a better life for them, a life gained through a good education.’ Although initially the education of boys was favoured ahead of girls, by the 1950s some Greek café families were already rejecting this culturally sexist bias. Matina Comino (nee Moulos), whose family operated the Astoria and then the Niagara cafés in Singleton, just north-west of Newcastle in New South Wales, indicates: ‘My Mum made it a point that the girls did what the boys did… we could learn whatever we wanted to… I went to the conservatorium.’ For Litsa Serras (nee Papadopoulos) who runs Kostas’s Café in Northbridge in Perth, Western Australia – with her husband Konstandinos – her role in the café is aimed at directly benefiting both of her children, Alexandra and Dionisis: ‘We are here for tomorrow and the day after that, and so on. We work very hard – it is very demanding. But for me, my children are my wealth. They are halfway through their degrees now… After that, our future in the café will depend on what the children are up to.’
The female offspring of Greek café families, whilst generally being nurtured towards a better life than that of their parents, also experienced their own personal challenges. Anna Cominakis (nee Sofis), who grew up during the 1940s and 1950s in Barraba’s Monterey Café in north-western New South Wales, points out:
The café was more a home than the house was — that was the life there [in the café]. I think the home was [just] for sleeping. Mum spent more hours in the café ... as I got older I hated the café! It was just constant — seven days, seven nights.
Similarly, Evangelia Dascarolis (nee Theodorakis), whose parents operated the Popular Café in Cootamundra, (north-east of Wagga Wagga) New South Wales, recalls of her childhood during the same period: ‘We never went on a family holiday ... We rarely celebrated events — everyone had to work.’ Katherine Paxinos’ family had the Red Spot Café in Port Adelaide, South Australia, during the 1950s and 60s. She also disliked working in her family’s café: ‘I wanted to be like the other young girls, but it was my duty to help.’ Katherine particularly feared the racist violence which the café attracted: ‘On Saturday nights there were fights. I hated it! Always the same troublemakers, always drunk… I remember blood on the walls. I would have to run to the police station.’ During the 1930s racist name-calling resulted in a young Coula Salagaras (nee Papayianis) – whose family ran the Central Café in Peterborough located on the southern edge of South Australia’s Flinder’s Ranges – feeling, desperately isolated and unwanted:
We lived very hard – people don’t understand how hard it was going through the Depression and being Greek. We were the only Greeks there [in Peterborough]. I went to school there. All the Aussies called me “Dago, dago, dago!” … I cried everyday. Yes, everyday. I wanted to go back to Greece – to go back to where I fitted in.
Growing up during the 1950s in the White Rose Café in Cootamundra in New South Wales, a young Lula Saunders (nee Bahles/Behlevanas) experienced the imposition of traditional Greek values pertaining to her gender:
We were Greek in the home… a very strict Greek family. We weren’t allowed to participate in [broader] community life. I think we only went to one birthday party… My brothers were allowed to swim, we weren’t… My family’s aspirations for my sister and myself was nothing beyond getting married… My father wanted us to acquire enough education to help him do his books for our café. Our prika [dowry] was a very big part of us growing up… My mother’s marriage was arranged and I grew up with stories about what a girl’s place was – my mother’s life wasn’t involved in anything outside the home: she had five children, the café and a language barrier… so [as was expected], we [my sister and I] would get together with other Greek girls and do our handiwork [for our prika].
Anne Carah’s father, Anthony Karofilis, operated The Bridge Café in Wagga Wagga in south-western New South Wales during the 1940s and 50s. Despite her mother, Minnie Matheson, being of British-Australian background, and her father’s public involvement in the local community beyond his business, Anthony remained a traditional Greek male:
We [my sisters and I] weren’t allowed to do lots of things the other young people did. Dad really wanted us all to marry Greeks. A couple of really nice young [Australian] men asked me to the movies but Dad said ‘no’ – he really was very strict. Seeing that he had married an Australian himself, I don’t know why he was so strict.
Amongst the turbulence of the lives of Greek café women, there were also good times and fond memories. Maria Cominos (nee Tamvaki), who ran Comino’s Bros. Central Café & American Bar at Longreach in central-western Queensland with her husband Cecil (Sotirios Nicholas) and his cousins during the 1930s and 1940s, recalls that ‘the joy of family get-togethers, picnics, visits to other Greek families, parties and dancing, helped sooth the hardships’. Olga Black (Mavrokefalos), whose father Kostandinos ran a milk bar in Melbourne during the same period, remembers that special family gatherings were full of ‘fun and laughter… [as] someone [amongst her extended Greek family and friends] always had a squeezebox [an accordion] or a guitar or both… and they all had beautiful voices’. Matina Pavlakis (nee Masselos) recalls that: ‘Our playground [of her siblings and friends] was the riverbank… we’d get crabs from under rocks… my brother Greg played cricket there… we had the time of our lives.’ Matina’s parents ran the Victoria Café, in Taree on the New South Wales north coast during the 1930 and 40s. For Thea Karofilis, another daughter of Anthony Karofilis of The Bridge Café in Wagga Wagga, one of her happiest memories was winning the first Miss Wagga (Wagga Wagga) charity competition in 1948. By maintaining her Greek Orthodox faith and cultural traditions Mary Katsantonis (nee Antonas), whose father opened the Rtiz Café in Barrick Street, Perth, in 1925, was able to find both joy and strength in her life: ‘It was a hard life, but a good life!’
Beyond personal reflections and experiences, both positive and negative, the recollections of Greek café women also provide a window into the café’s Americanisation of Australian popular culture – affecting eating and social habits, commercial food-catering ideas, technology, architecture, cinema and music. In 1954, Theo Mavromattes and Sam Vlandys purchased the New York Café in Nowra, on the New South Wales south coast. It had originally been built by the Aroney family in 1930. Kathy Orfanos (nee Mavromattes), Theo’s daughter, states:
Greek cafés in Australia offered, with such plain Australian fare as steak and eggs, fresh new Americanisms like milkshakes, soft drinks and ice-cream sodas. Glamorous and elegant, they were an island of exotica… Typically they were richly decorated and named after distant, unattainable places which for most people came to life only at the picture theatres: ‘The Niagara’, ‘The Parthenon’, ‘The California’ or ‘The New York’. The New York Café was simply beautiful… It had an iron ceiling garlanded with roses. It had curved windows full of chocolates. It was the Greek Diaspora, America and Australia combined.
Maria Cominos (nee Tamvaki), of Longreach’s Comino’s Bros. Central Café & American Bar remembers the amazement on customers’ faces as ‘cold soda water bubbled and hissed [from the soda fountain pump] into tall glasses with flavouring and ice’. The café’s soda fountain, together with its provision of American-style candies, milk chocolates and ice cream, ‘attracted people from miles around, because they were new, they were American, they were affordable, and only we [the Greek cafés] had them’.
For Irene Pantazis (nee Kanaris), who helped run her family’s Rendezvous Café in Darwin during the 1950s, the enterprise possessed almost all of the American influenced elements that could be found in other Greek-run cafés around the country at the time:
My father died in 1953 so I had to learn at a very early age to run the shop… All our perishables [chocolates, sweets, iced cream] would come from Western Australia. Mick Paspalis had the Peters Ice Cream agency… To make the milkshakes we had powdered milk – Sunshine Milk. No fresh milk… We had Hamilton Beach milkshake makers [imported from America] I think… We also made ‘spiders’ [ice cream sodas] and had a variety of sundaes… Only one picture theatre – The Star… We really worked hard at interval time… Jukebox in the shop – around 1958 or 59. Bill Haley was the craze at that time… It changed the business – you got a different clientele.
In order to facilitate a rounder, more detailed and, in particular, a balanced gender insight into the history of Australia’s Greek cafés, the experiences and observations of Greek women must be heard. This article provides a start and an example for other Greek diaspora histories that have neglected such a significant responsibility – to clearly recognise and document the female voice. As traditional Greek cafés diminish, so too their owners, with females generally outliving their male partners. They are awaiting to tell their stories. The challenge is simple – take the time to sit, listen and learn.
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully thank all the interviewees who appear in this article for generously providing their time, understanding and thoughts. All interviews are held in either recorded and/or written form as part of the ‘In Their Own Image: Greek-Australians’, National Project Archives, Macquarie University, Sydney.