Lunch and Learn Spartanburg – 1-28-11 – Dr. Deno Trakas: Because Memory Isn’t Eternal: A Story of Greeks in Upstate South Carolina
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Friday, January 28, 2011 – 12:30-1:30 pm
Dr. Deno Trakas: Because Memory Isn’t Eternal: A Story of Greeks in Upstate South Carolina
Moseley Building 1st Floor Conference Room – Chapman Cultural Center, 200 E. St. John Street
$5
Join the Spartanburg Regional History Museum for January’s Lunch & Learn Spartanburg with Dr. Deno Trakas and hear the stories of Greek Americans in the Upstate.
In 1895, Nicholas Trakas left his village in southern Greece, boarded a steamship for America, and made his way to Spartanburg where he became the city’s first Greek resident. He opened The Elite – one of the finest candy kitchens in the South – built a house on a lot he purchased for $44 and a pet parrot that could cuss in Greek, and began a wave of Greek immigration into the burgeoning Upstate area. A century later, his grandson Deno Trakas explores a peculiarly Southern version of the Greek-American story in Because Memory Isn’t Eternal. By introducing readers to four generations of Trakas family members, their remarkable friends, and their hardworking business partners, he tells a greater story and reflects on how these complex, larger-than-life characters have preserved the best of Greek culture down South. This intimate and often humorous memoir includes stories of Greek-American marriages, food, language, restaurants, religion, and misadventures, including the day two Trakas boys accidentally burned down the family’s church.
Dr. Trakas has published fiction and poetry in more than two dozen journals and is the chair of the Department of English at Wofford College where he also serves as coordinator of the creative writing program.
864-596-3501; njefferies@spartanburghistory.org; www.spartanburghistory.org
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