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Mrs. Helen J. Pappas
Born: Helen Socorelis in Langadia, Greece in 1893. She was the daughter of Vasilios and Vasilo Socorelis. She came to this country at the beginning of the century in 1900 at the age of seven.

Let me share with you my mother’s story.

She was an innovator in the way she earned her passage to this country. It wasn’t meant to be that way but she was a cute little thing who loved to sing and dance and never tired of showing off.

Like most immigrants, they traveled in steerage, that part of the ship allotted to passengers paying the lowest fares. There was lots of excitement on the voyage. Some passengers told stories, some played their precious own instruments, some like my mother could only offer their singing voices. So my mother sang the songs her mother taught her. Because she was so little, they lifted her on top of a table and encouraged her to sing and dance. The passengers poor themselves had very little themselves; but some had gold coins, probably farewell gifts from their families. Anyway, in appreciation for her singing, the passengers would pat her head and say, “Here’s a little present for you, for being such a talented little girl.” This certainly helped pass the time. It took them 36 days to come here from Greece. My mother’s nine-year-old sister Mary was her chaperone. That may seem odd now, but there were lots of children ‘in the same boat’ whose parents had emigrated earlier and sent for them.

When her father picked them up at Ellis Island, she handed him forty-two or forty-four dollar coins given her for her singing. He was surprised and told her it was exactly what her ticket had cost.

Her father was employed as a boot maker at the tannery in Lowell. The boots were made for the U.S. Cavalry. Mr. Mello was the superintendent of the tannery at the time. Anyone living in Lowell will associate The International Institute with Mrs. Mello.

Well, one day, a long time ago, 100 years ago to be exact, Mr. Mello, who admired his bootmakers ability to create these fine boots from beginning to end, invited her father to his house to visit. My mother went along with her father.

Her father, like a good gift-bearing Greek, brought his boss a treasured carabina – a gun, and a pair of tsarouhia, the pom-pom leather shoes worn by the Evzones, the Greek Royal Guard that stands at attention, at the tomb of the unknown soldier in Constitution Square in Athens, Greece.

She remembered the Mellos lived on High Street. Mrs. Mello offered a box of almond chocolates, and she had never seen any before. She did not know if it was proper to take one or ten.

When Mr. Mello heard that she sang her way across the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, he showed them his recording machine, a bulky thing with a big horn in front and a black tube in the back. She sang two songs into it, and it sang them back to her. She was thrilled. Her first week in America and this wonderful thing happened to her! She said that she was the happiest little girl in the whole country.

Now my mother’s father had seven children plus a wife and himself to feed. For a talented bootmaker, this must have been a gargantuan task for the sole breadwinner and her father soon became ill. They moved to the country hoping the fresh air would cure his malady. I remember they said he coughed up blood. I also heard them talk about his illness as having a leaking valve of the heart. I suppose by today’s diagnoses, it would have been called consumption. However you call it, it must have been very difficult for this father to support his family. I do remember them saying how poor they were.

They moved to Westford and bought a little farm. All the family lived on Leland Road near Westford Center. Because of his great love for his family and fearing his sickness was contagious, her father chose to live away from his family in a covered wagon. This decision created much sadness for her mother, as the couple were extremely devoted to each other. Living apart, seeing each other from a distance and having no personal contact must have wrenched both their hearts. You don’t have seven children without having loved very dearly.

I remember my grandmother very well. We used to visit often. My lasting impression of her was one I shall never forget. She sewed her own clothes by hand. She always wore black. Her blouses were of silk and her layered skirts were of wool serge. I remember her sitting on the stone wall sitting with her head held low with her hand holding her chin and crying, with tears rolling down her cheeks, pining for her beloved who was no more.

I remember my mother telling me that she, Helen, was forced to seek work to support the family. Being the next oldest, at fourteen and most spirited, she took the family wagon and work horse, she called him “Chilli” and drove into Lowell to Market Street where the John Vlahos Wholesale Fruit Company was located. There she bought her fruits and loaded her wagon and returned to sell her wares to customers along the path to her home. She made the buying trip to Lowell three times a week. Just think of it, Westford was a thirteen or fourteen mile trek from Lowell. Picture now, a fourteen year old young girl driving her horse up and down the Old Westford Road with its hills and winding roads all alone on a big wagon. She must have had great strength and courage to do this.

Mother did tell me that she had a St. Bernard dog who kept her company. Her dog Rover walked along with her everywhere she went. I met someone years ago who told me my mother carried a gun. But I don’t believe that. Mother had great faith. She didn’t need a gun to protect her.

To laugh a little now. Mother said they were so poor, they did not have enough money to buy bones or meat for the dog, so she gave him bananas to eat.

Mother’s peddling route took her to Chelmsford, Forge Village, Littleton and Groton. Families along the way bought their fruits from her.

One weekend Mother heard that the Army was camping out on Westford Common for the night before sailing off to Europe to fight in France. She loaded her wagon again and drove her horse up the steep hill to the center of town. There she offered her fruit for sale to the soldiers. She said, in ten minutes her wagon was sold out. She sold all the apples, oranges, grapes and bananas to the hungry soldiers. They were happy and so was she.

Fate works in mysterious ways! One of her customers was a gentlewoman who worked at Whitney Cottage at The Groton School. This building housed the main dining room. After two years of bringing her fresh fruits, the woman befriended my mother and took pity on her. She felt sorry that my mother was exposed to the harsh elements of New England winds and weather. This woman was a Yankee. You know how this class protected themselves with gloves and parasols. Being out in the elements was not considered a hardship for Mediterranean women – it was a necessity.

She offered my mother a job as waitress in Whitney Cottage. It was at Whitney Cottage where the parents stayed on weekends when they visited their sons. I remember mother saying that the headmaster at that time was Rector Peabody. The year being 1909 or 1910.

The parents came on weekends with their trunks packed with fine clothing. They would be met at the train depot and be brought to the school by horse and carriage. America’s aristocrats visited their children often. The Groton School was strictly for boys then. Families with means signed their sons up at birth in order for them to be considered eligible for entrance. Many U.S. Presidents were educated in this fine school.

Mother remembered Averill Harriman as a student, and President Theodore Roosevelt’s two sons, who were often visited by their beautiful sister, Alice Roosevelt Longworth.

Mother used to tell me stories of the attention paid by the sons to their mothers. When the mothers would enter the dining room and sit with Rector Peabody for dinner, they would be wearing long velvet gowns with trains. As the mothers approached their dining chairs, the sons would help them be seated and would carefully pick up the train of their dining gown and gently place the folds under their chairs out of the way.

What an impression all this graciousness must have made on my mother who only a few years earlier had left the poor country of Greece. I do not remember what salary mother earned, but it must have helped the family stay alive until her brothers were old enough to go to work themselves. She worked at Whitney Cottage for about ten years. It was there that she learned how the rich and famous lived. She learned to admire the linens and the fine china and silverware that graced the tables. She learned how to prepare Oysters Rockerfella, lobster bisque, endive salads and unusual deserts – apple pies, raspberry turnovers, whipped cream, and cream chantelli.

Mother never went to school. She taught herself how to read and write. She even bought and drove a Model T truck while she was working in Groton. She was one of the first women to obtain a driver’s license back when to ride in a car was to risk derision from the horse and buggy public.

Mother by this time was twenty-seven years old. Time to think of making her own life complete.

She remembered the young man she met when she came into Lowell to buy her supply of fresh fruits. He was the salesman at the Vlahos Wholesale House. His name was Demetrios Pappadopoulos. (Pappa at the beginning of a Greek name denoted that there was a clergyman in the family. My father’s father was a priest in Kozani, in a small town known as Anthousa, in Northern Greece in the province of Macedonia. He too remembered mother for her quickness and entrepreneurial skills and soon a romance started between them. Horse and carriage spirited million-dollar baby.

They married in 1919 and moved to 230 Dracut Street, Dracut, Massachusetts. Dracut Street was the first street over the Lowell line. It was known as Moody Street, then it became Textile Avenue, after the school, and is now known as University Avenue.

Mother never forgot her dream of someday making records of the songs her mother taught her. Motherhood took priority for years, but singing was always a part of her life. In the olden days, all Greek families celebrated namedays not birthdays. These were days celebrated in families whose children were named after Christian Saints.

It was our custom to invite friends and relatives to nameday celebrations. It was a way of keeping the Greek traditions alive. For entertainment those invited guests would sit around the table and sing the songs of their homeland and become nostalgic for their parents, their villages and the memories of those they left behind.

Four children were born to Demetrios and Helen Pappas. The name was shortened to Pappas when my father was sworn in as an American citizen. Vasil, Leonidas, who died at fourteen months, Elpenice or Niki as I am known today and another son whom she called Leonidas, named after the son she lost in infancy.

The depression came and wiped out my father’s fruit business by them. Times were hard. My brother was the smartest in the family. He was Valedictorian of both his grammar school and high school. It was important to my parents to encourage him to go on to college.

Tuition to the Institute was $45.00 a year and we didn’t even have enough to pay that. My brother worked selling shoes all summer to pay for his tuition himself. My brother did graduate from The Lowell Textile Institute in 1941 with a degree in Textile Chemistry. After college, he entered the Air Corps and became a pilot. My mother wore his Cadet wings on her coat for many years. Proud that her son served our great country. Our parents were very patriotic.

Times were hard and both my parents had to seek work at the mills. My mother worked at The Mohair Plush Co. and my father worked in the shipping room of the Abbot Worsted Co., now the Market Mills complex. One day while at work, mother was a twister, working a large loom, and often she would sing while working, thinking that nobody could hear her over the looms whacking away. Once when she stopped singing because she was tired, her boss (Bill Silcox) called out, “Don’t stop Helen. It makes us happy to listen to you.”

Her dream of making records was on the back burner but still burning inside of her. She had bought a recording machine, I even remember the trade name. It was a Bogan. It came with a turntable base which held a celluloid record and had an arm with a cutting needle.

Mother would sing into the microphone, I would tend to the recording procedure. As the needle cut into the surface, tiny threads would surface and with a fine paint brush, I would gently pull the threads out of the way and guide them to the center spindle until the three minutes were used up on what was then referred to as the 78’s. Then we would play the newly cut record and listen to the finished product. Later on, I played piano for her. The piano lessons finally paid off. These were practice sessions for mother.

When my brother came back from the service (he was a Captain in the Air Corps), he handed my mother the few dollars he had saved up. What a windfall it was. The dream started up again.

One day, out of the blue, Mother told us, “I’m off to New York to try my luck.” We were all stunned! But she was determined this time. She took a bus to New York City.

She took a taxi to Greek town where the restaurants were, listened to some of the musicians and when she finally found a sound she liked, she approached the musicians at their break. She explained that she was a singer and asked them if they would rehearse with her after work. They did. They liked what they heard. They agreed to meet the next morning at a recording studio and sure enough as mother had always dreamed. She sang two songs, which she made on the first take; with no mistakes. She paid the musicians for their time. Thanked them and came home right after the recording session, very happy at last. She made eighteen records in all. She used my name on the label and called the company, Niki Records.

She made her last record at age seventy-nine, she was sick with a high fever, her adrenal glands swollen from Hodgkin’s Disease but that did not matter. She made her records, and did it all her way. A great woman with a pioneer spirit right to the end. She died at age eighty.

I look like her, wear my hair as she did, but she was a woman before her time. A giant and grateful woman whose fondest dream had come true, better seventy-one years late than never. I owe all that I am to her for she loved unconditionally.

Nicki Sarantos
Copyright © by Nicki Sarantos. All rights reserved.