By George Zimmar Memory is the diary that we all carry about with us Oscar Wilde A visit to my Uncle Tom Zoumaras’s store involved a series of transit switches from the southeast side of Chicago to the northwest section of the city. We would walk from Drexel...

Raise your glasses! Long live Greece! Long live the allies!

By George P. Zimmar for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God Romans, 3,23 Shortly after WWII ended, Greek immigration to the United States reopened, especially to those without communist sympathies. After Winston Churchill’s March 5, 1946 Iron Curtain...

By George Zimmar When we think of a pilgrimage, like Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, a spiritual journey comes to mind. My grandfather Georgios Zymaras (or Zoumaras), made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1900, where he prayed before the tomb of Christ, and earned Hadji...

Once in Athens, my sister and I were embraced by loving aunts, uncles, cousins, and various other family members. Everywhere we went in Europe, we enthused, we encountered Greece.

Our identity is not a matter of place, customs, or traditions but of an ideal.

By George Zimmar In 1953, my parents purchased a luncheonette on the corner of 75th and South Park Avenue (later named Martin Luther King Drive) in Chicago for about $7000. Actually, for the residents in the neighborhood it was a more than just a place to eat: It was...

Maybe Aspasia or her descendants are among the readers of this article. Maybe not. What is certain is that this archival material gives hope to anyone trying to discover more about family members and ancestors who were abducted during the dark times of the Second World War.

By Alexandra Kiritsy Learning your personal family history can be an incredibly meaningful adventure. As the saying goes, you can’t know where you’re going until you know where you have been, and there is no better time to delve into your family’s past than as a young...

By Alexandra Kiritsy & Gregory Kontos Alexandra: Yiayia & Me is all about encouraging and helping Greeks around the world to get involved with family history to whatever degree they’d like! We know and appreciate how people connect with their family heritage...

By Alexandra Kiritsy & Gregory Kontos Alexandra: Yiayia & Me is all about encouraging and helping Greeks around the world to get involved with family history to whatever degree they’d like! We know and appreciate how people connect with their family heritage...

A few weeks ago, on October 28th, like every year, Greece celebrated the “OXI” day. This year, however, caught me and my family by surprise! Attention: the following story has (surprisingly) nothing to do with COVID-19.