A History of the Syrian Community of Grand Rapids, 1890-1945: From the Beqaa to the Grand 9781463235062

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A History of the Syrian Community of Grand Rapids, 1890-1945

Munaqashat: Gorgias Studies in the Modern Middle East 1

Munaqashat: Gorgias Studies in the Modern Middle East takes an interdisciplinary approach towards understanding the formation of the Arab world, Turkey, and Iran from the late Ottoman period to the present day. Munaqashat , the Arabic word for “conversations,” assesses these social, political, and historical factors, as well as the region’s dynamic global interactions, through a critical lens. This series aims to appeal to specialists as well as general audiences seeking to diversify their understanding of the modern Middle East.

A History of the Syrian Community of Grand Rapids, 1890-1945

From the Beqaa to the Grand

James F. Goode

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34 2013

Gorgias Press LLC, 954 River Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com Copyright © 2013 by Gorgias Press LLC

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of Gorgias Press LLC. 2013

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ISBN 978-1-61719-028-5

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Goode, James, 1944A history of the Syrian community of Grand Rapids, 1890-1945 : from the Bekaa to the Grand / by James Goode. pages cm. -- (Munaqashat : Gorgias monographs in Middle Eastern studies) Includes bibliographical references. 1. Syrian Americans--Michigan--Grand Rapids--History. 2. Grand Rapids (Mich.)--History. I. Title. F574.G7G39 2012 305.892’75691077456--dc23 2012041064 Printed in the United States of America

TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Contents.....................................................................................v Preface........................................................................................................1 I. The Long Journey.................................................................................7 II. Doing Business in America .............................................................35 III. Upon this Rock................................................................................57 IV. The Family First...............................................................................77 V. A Muslim Minority............................................................................99 VI. A Community Transformed ........................................................113 VII. Fading Memories .........................................................................135 Acknowledgements ..............................................................................145 Select Bibliography...............................................................................147 Index.......................................................................................................153 

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PREFACE Recently, a colleague sent a copy of the Field Guide to Ethnic Groups in West Michigan, which she had helped to assemble. It is a welcome addition, designed to accompany visitors as they move through the various collections of the City Museum of Grand Rapids. As I leafed through its pages, I was impressed with the variety of immigrant groups represented there. Many people tend to think of this area historically as a largely Dutch or Dutch-German enclave, and yet by the early years of the twentieth century thousands of eastern and southern Europeans, Poles, Italians, Greeks, and others, had made their home here. What perhaps will come as a surprise is that long before the outbreak of World War I a large Syrian, Arabic-speaking, community also had settled in this rapidly growing city. This community provides the focus of my study. Referred to as “Turks,” “Assyrians” and even occasionally, “Arabians,” they began arriving in the late 1880s. Their profile was remarkably similar to that of other “new” immigrant groups. Anyone familiar with the histories of immigrants from eastern and southern Europe will immediately recognize the many ways in which they were alike. They differed, of course, in their language, in their cuisine, and in their religious tradition, for they were Antiochian Orthodox Christians. The Syrians adapted to life in the Midwest, creating a vibrant ethnic community, based on a mix of socio-cultural practices drawn from the old world and the new. A gradual transition took place in the early decades, rather than a hurried assimilation to American ways. Prior to World War I, a period when many Syrians dreamed of returning home—and many did so—marriages, funerals, religious celebrations, family gatherings continued much as they had in their faraway villages. There were frequent comings and goings, not only to and from the homeland, but also among 1

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members of distant diaspora communities in the United States, Canada, Mexico and South America. The decade of the 1920s served as a tipping point. The end of the Ottoman Empire and establishment of the French mandate over Syria, a more intensive campaign to Americanize immigrants and restrict further entry, the maturing of a new generation born in the United States, all contributed to an acceleration of the adaptive process. By the end of World War II, approximately fifty years after the arrival of the pioneering generation, their children and grandchildren were barely distinguishable from the descendants of other earlier immigrants. Had it not been for their churches and the fraternal organizations associated with them, the Grand Rapids Syrians might have almost disappeared from view. Through their churches, St. George and St. Nicholas, however, they have maintained their public identity to the present day. This study began several years ago as an oral history project in which I worked with several students to interview forty elderly, second- and third-generation Lebanese, the eldest of whom had been born in 1909. They were mostly in their late seventies, eighties and early nineties then. Sadly, since providing their crucial testimonies, many of these informants have passed away. They were generous with their time and patiently answered our many questions and follow-ups as well. They spoke freely about their parents and about their own experiences growing up in the early community. This project would have been impossible but for their assistance. With their help we were able to delineate some of the most important features in the early history of this community, which was shaped in large part by the efforts of the hardworking first generation, all of whom had passed away before this project commenced. Only occasionally, therefore, will you read in these pages the words of the first arrivals themselves. 1 When the project is finished, all research materials, including the transcribed interviews, will be deposited in the Local History section of the Grand Rapids Public Library, where they will be available for public use. My students, Erin Berg, Justin Derdowski, John Kleinbrink, Evan Murphy and Diane O’Neill, have since graduated and moved on in their 1

PREFACE

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Given the fact that individuals might misremember events, oral history interviews must be used with care. By interviewing widely, as I have done, I have been able to search for points of agreement in a number of different sources. To complement the oral accounts, I rely also on data from the censuses of 1910, 1920, and 1930, newspaper accounts both local and national and materials from the excellent archive at the Smithsonian Institution, containing interviews carried out in the 1960s among firstgeneration immigrants by Dr. Alixa Naff, who is, herself, closely related to the Gantos family of Grand Rapids. Censuses and related materials present their own problems. There are, for example, many variant spellings of names. Officials arbitrarily changed, shortened, Anglicized them at the port of entry. We find al-Ghassis, Cassis, and Ellis, for example, for one extended family and Ghareeb, Gharib or Karrip for another. In the words of Sam Hamod, the contemporary Arab-American poet, ... A man in a dark blue suit at Ellis Island says, with tiredness and authority, “You only need two names in America” and suddenly-as cleanly as the air—you’ve lost your name.

Sometimes, of course, immigrants altered their own names, so they would sound more American. 2 In May 2006, I had the good fortune to be able to spend a week in the two villages in the Beqaa Valley from which most of these immigrants set out for America a century or more ago. This visit helped me to become familiar with the locale where their story began. My wife and I will long remember the hospitality of families and individuals in Aita al-Foukhar and Rashayya al-Wadi, especially Josephine and Eli Abou-Maarouf, Lilliana and Fadi Sayfi, and Deeb Barhoum. careers, after co-authoring a short article about the community. Erin Berg, et al., “From the Bekaa to the Grand: The Lebanese Community of Grand Rapids, 1890–1940,” Grand River Valley History (2004) 20: 12–22. 2 Gregory Orfalea, Before the Flames: A Quest for the History of Arab Americans (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1988), 80.

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The Syrian community of Grand Rapids, never far from my thoughts in recent years, has attracted little attention from historians of American immigration. Elsewhere, descendants of these early immigrants have written accounts of widely dispersed Lebanese communities. Those focusing on New York City, Worcester, Massachusetts, Detroit, Michigan, and Birmingham, Alabama, come readily to mind. Grand Rapids has received relatively little attention, despite being one of the earliest and largest such centers in the United States. It may be that the larger, more diverse and better-known community in Detroit overshadowed its smaller counterpart one hundred fifty miles to the west. An important series of articles on the Syrians in America, published in 1911, failed even to mention this community. Yet, it boasts two of the oldest and most successful Orthodox church communities in the United States. These historians, however, have written interesting and important works on other early Syrian communities in the United States. I am indebted to them for their insightful observations, which have informed this work from the outset. 3 I hope this book will appeal to a general audience. Moving beyond the limits of local history narrowly conceived, I have sought to place this community clearly within the broad context of early twentieth-century American history. It will contribute to our knowledge of the complexity of immigration history, and, in particular, deepen our understanding of the Lebanese in America. Locally, it will help to enhance an appreciation for the immigrant experience and contribute to a better understanding of the ethnic complexity of this region. Finally, I hope that it will serve as a fair, accurate and useful history for the numerous descendants of that “Syrian colony” of long ago, who now refer to themselves proudly as Lebanese Americans or Americans of Lebanese descent and, less commonly, as Arab Americans. I have learned a great deal over the life of the project. Writing a community history such as this poses a number of challenges. Of particular note are works by Elizabeth Boosahda, Sarah Gualtieri, Eric J. Hooglund, Akram Fouad Khater, Alixa Naff and Gregory Orfalea, which I have cited often in the following pages. 3

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Most importantly, one must remain constantly sensitive and alert to the concerns of family and community members, who possess a shared understanding of their own history. My objective has been to deepen historical knowledge, while approaching all views with respect. At the same time, I have endeavored to tell a story with appeal to the broader community. Finally, a word about geographical terms. Naming provides an important device for confirming identities and ownership. This can become a contentious issue, especially in the modern Middle East. Using the term, Arabian Gulf, for example, rather than the more common, Persian Gulf, has contributed occasionally to diplomatic crisis; similarly, whether one refers to the land immediately west of the Jordan River as the West Bank or Judea and Samaria carries great political significance. Names, of course, change over time, and that creates predicaments for contemporary historians. Today, most of the descendants of the immigrants, who are the subject of this study, refer to themselves as I have indicated above. They call the old country Lebanon. Their parents and grandparents, however, spoke of themselves as Syrians and called their homeland Syria. Lebanon came into existence officially only in 1943 at the time of the French mandate. Hence, earlier generations thought of themselves as part of a larger political entity. Women from the Grand Rapids community, who volunteered to assist on the home front during World War I, wrote that they spoke “Syrian” and that they had been born in “Syria,” when they filled out their information cards. In 1946 it was the “Affiliated Syrian Clubs of Grand Rapids” that sponsored the community event honoring their returned soldiers at the end of another world war. Only gradually in the postwar years did “Lebanon” replace “Syria” in common usage. Throughout this work, therefore, I refer to community members as Syrians, as they did themselves. Wherever “Lebanon” appears, it signals either the years following independence or a quotation from an interview.

I. THE LONG JOURNEY There is hardly a family in Lebanon today that cannot claim at least one emigrant in the present generation. In recent years the focus has shifted to the Arab States along the Persian Gulf, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, all rich in oil but small in population. The Lebanese with their skills in banking and trade have found a convenient niche in those rapidly growing economies. Although their success has been marked, they have also encountered setbacks. One does not have to search far in Lebanon, for example, to find those unfortunate returnees who lost much of their wealth when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. But for many young Lebanese, the Gulf still offers prospects of material success, and they leave in their thousands every year. Disturbances at home such as the military struggle between Hizbollah and Israel in 2006 have contributed, as such events always have, to a renewed outpouring of young Lebanese. This out-migration has been a continuing process since the last quarter of the 19th century. In those early decades the destinations were quite different, but the objectives very similar. Emigration offered opportunities for economic advancement, which were strictly limited at home. In the United States we tend to marvel at the Irish diaspora, which has contributed many millions of citizens to Britain, the United States and Canada as well as to Australia and New Zealand. Consider the Lebanese, however, who can boast sizable communities, not only in the nations listed above but throughout South and Central America, Sub-Saharan West Africa, France in Europe, Egypt and now the Arab States of the Persian Gulf. This represents one of the broadest-ranging diasporas of any people in recent times. It is estimated that during the years of the Lebanese civil war (1975–1989) emigrants numbered 990,000, approximately 40 percent of the country’s population. Even today, emigration to 7

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the western hemisphere continues to those countries with less restrictive immigration policies than the United States, such as Canada (20,000/1975–1980) and the South American states, which accepted almost twice as many Lebanese immigrants (45,000) for the 1978–1980 period as Canada and the United States combined. 1 Many young Lebanese grow up with the idea that they will eventually and inevitably find their fortunes outside their homeland. This has been a fact of life for well over a century. Although historians disagree among themselves as to which factors were most important in spurring emigration from Syria at the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, most would agree that the list of factors was complex. The area of Mount Lebanon and the Beqaa Valley experienced economic hardship in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Population grew rapidly, but arable land remained fixed and with rising land prices many young men had to farm smaller and smaller plots or hire themselves out to work the lands of their better-off neighbors. Some journeyed further afield as seasonal laborers. 2 For several decades the local silk industry had provided an economic panacea, but in the late nineteenth century this industry experienced a sudden collapse, the result of disease and increased competition from East Asian silk after the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. These were also the declining years of the Ottoman Empire, of which today’s Syria and Lebanon had formed a part since the early sixteenth century. Its declining fortunes had a negative impact on the Arab eastern provinces, most notably on Greater Syria and Iraq. The years from the 1880s to the outbreak of World War I in 1914 saw vast numbers of immigrants settling in the United States, Boutros Labaki, “Lebanese Emigration During the War (1975– 1989),” 610. In Albert Hourani and Nadim Shehadi, editors, The Lebanese in the World: A Century of Emigration. London: I. B. Tauris, 2002. Many Lebanese move into or out of the country depending on political and economic conditions at home. 2 Sarah M. A. Gualtieri, Between Arab and White: Race and Ethnicity in the Early Syrian American Diaspora (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2009), 29. 1

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where there were few restrictions on their entrance. (Severe restrictions would come only after the war.) These “new” immigrants came not from northern or western Europe as had earlier waves, but from eastern (Russians, Poles) and southern (Italians, Greeks) Europe and from Greater Syria at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea. Syrian youth heard repeatedly about the possibilities of success in foreign lands, especially in the United States. Early emigrants returned home displaying obvious signs of financial success, money in their pockets and fancy clothing on their backs. They told stories of the ease with which the adventurous could acquire wealth in the land of the Yankee. Emigrants tended to downplay the difficulties they encountered during their first years abroad. Others wrote to family and friends at home extolling the virtues of this new land and urging relatives and friends to join them as soon as they could. Ottoman authorities were not pleased with the growing numbers of emigrants, but there was little they could do effectively to stop them. They had instituted a series of restrictions within Greater Syria under which subjects wishing to journey within the empire had to obtain travel permits; foreign trips required passports. Countless schemes appeared to frustrate this policy. Finally, in 1899 advisors to Sultan Abdul Hamid II (1876–1909) convinced him to suppress “the regulations that prohibited the emigration of the Syrians.” Total numbers of emigrants increased dramatically following this decision. 3 When the Young Turks overthrew Abdul Hamid in 1909 and instituted a Turkish nationalist regime in Istanbul, it soon became apparent that Arabs in the eastern provinces would play only a minor role in the new government. Fighting for its life on a number of fronts, particularly in the Balkans, however, the new government of the empire needed to strengthen its military forces, and thus conscription expanded to include all Ottoman subjects. Engin Deniz Akarli, “Ottoman Attitudes Towards Lebanese Emigration, 1885–1910,” 115. In Hourani and Shehadi, editors, The Lebanese in the World. Akram Fouad Khater, Inventing Home: Emigration, Gender, and the Middle Class in Lebanon, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 2001, 55. 3

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Traditionally, Christians and Jews, protected minorities, had not served in Muslim armies. This change had a particularly startling impact on Christian groups in Lebanon, who had been relatively free from conscription under the old regime. Even in Mount Lebanon, the largely Maronite-Druze region rising behind Beirut, which had enjoyed autonomy under European protection since 1861, the Young Turks extended Istanbul’s control, introducing conscription there in 1915. 4 By 1914 it is estimated that 100,000 residents of what would eventually become the state of Lebanon had emigrated to the United States. This represented about 12 percent of Lebanon’s population. This emigrant population was overwhelmingly Christian, although substantial numbers of Muslims and Druze joined the outward flow in the early years of the twentieth century. They quickly spread throughout the United States., forming communities in New England, the South and in the Midwest and Plains States. 5 Based on careful examination of the census and the fact that many families and individuals were overlooked by the census takers, I would estimate the size of the Grand Rapids community by the early 1920s at between one thousand and fifteen-hundred individuals. That would have represented 1 to 1.5 percent of the population of Grand Rapid at the time, a not inconsequential figure. 6

Akarli, “Ottoman Attitudes Towards Lebanese Emigration, 1885– 1910,” 134. In Hourani and Shehadi, editors, The Lebanese in the World. 5 Population figures for this period are notoriously undependable; hence this can only be an estimate. For more on this subject see J. M. Wagstaff, “A Note on Some Nineteenth-Century Population Statistics for Lebanon,” British Journal of Middle East Studies v. 13, 1 (1986), 27–35, Alixa Naff, Becoming American: The Early Arab Immigrant Experience, (Carbondale, Ill.: Southern Illinois University Press, 1985), 108–109. 6 Immigrants might not have wished to reveal how many individuals or family groups were living in a small, crowded apartment. Many immigrants also were nervous about being counted by the authorities. Their experiences from the old country indicated that to be counted and 4

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Map of Lebanon (Source: Arab World Studies Notebook) listed could open one to more regulation by the state especially in regard to taxation. These and other such concerns faded slowly.

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Overwhelmingly, early Syrian immigrants to Grand Rapids were Christians, Antiochian Orthodox, with smaller numbers of Melkites and even fewer Maronites. These Orthodox came largely from the southern Beqaa Valley from villages along the slopes of the Anti-Lebanon mountain range. One of these villages, Rashayya al-Wadi, lies almost at the foot of snow-capped Jebal al-Sheikh or Mt. Hermon (altitude 9,230 feet), which today sits astride the sensitive border where Syria, Lebanon and Israel meet. Rashayya has long been the largest settlement in the immediate area with a population one hundred years ago of perhaps five thousand, equally divided between Orthodox and Druze. Nearby villages such as Ayn Arab, Dar al-Ahmar and Mahiethy were smaller and largely self-contained, but their inhabitants frequently sought marriages with related Orthodox families in Rashayya. Villagers could walk or ride a donkey the few miles required to celebrate feast days of patron saints in one of the local settlements. The villagers’ world was restricted. Few traveled out of sight of their home village. Year after year they experienced the usual milestones, plantings and harvests, religious services and feast days of the saints, births, weddings and funerals. They looked on outsiders with suspicion, and they tended to spend their leisure time—what little they had— with members of their extended families. 7 Mike Haddy, who grew up in Ayn Arab and came to the United States at age fourteen in 1895, reported that the only time he had left his village was to go to a village a half mile away. There was, he explained, “a close social and economic relationship between his village and Rachayya.” He recounted the story of a Rashayya band coming to help celebrate the wedding of a Rashayya Maronites and Melkites are both Eastern churches in union with the Roman Catholic Church. They retain their own rites and customs. Melkites, the smallest of the three Christian sects, are closer in their practices to the Orthodox. The Maronites are the largest Christian sect in Lebanon today. The Druze live largely in Syria, Lebanon and Israel. Their sect was founded by Shaykh Darazi, who preached that the Fatimid Caliph, al-Hakim, 996–1021, was the last of a series of emanations from God. 7

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Rashayya souk (market place) girl to an Ayn Arab man and also to a funeral in his village. From the higher elevations of Rashayya, one could look across the plain to the west and north and see these and other villages scattered across the countryside, and Mount Lebanon rising behind them. The nearest city was Zahle with a population of perhaps twentyfive thousand in 1900, most of it Christian. It was located about twenty miles to the northwest. 8 The second major source of Syrian emigration to Grand Rapids was the village of Aita al-Foukhar, with a population of one thousand five hundred. It was once famous for its pottery, little of which remains today. There, Orthodox Christians and Sunni Muslims divided evenly into their separate neighborhoods. The geographical position of Aita differed substantially from the open

Interview with Mike Haddy, Los Angeles California, 1962, Faris and Yamna Naff Collection, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. 8

Jebel al-Sheikh (Mt. Hermon), May 2006

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landscape surrounding Rashayya approximately ten miles to the south. To reach Aita one traveled east along a straight, slowly rising road toward the mountains, leaving the plain behind. At the head of a narrow valley lay the village spread out on two facing slopes, one considerably lower than the other. Along a narrow dirt road to the north one could espy in the distance the small chapel of St. George, looking down on the village, from its perch atop Mount Khidher a few thousand feet high. Aita appeared more isolated than Rashayya, with no nearby villages. Overall, the latter appears the more prosperous of the two, supporting a larger population. Indeed, Rashayya became an important provincial administrative center during the French mandate (1922–1946) and continued this role after the establishment of an independent Lebanon in the early 1940s. Residents of Aita would have to travel to Rashayya to obtain copies of government documents and other official papers. In recent times their histories have differed as well. Rashayya was occupied by the Israeli army for several years in the early 1980s, while Aita played reluctant host to a joint Syrian-Palestinian force until the general Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon in 2005. The Israeli occupation inhibited the movement of Rashayyans, who needed special permits to pass through check points on their way to Zahle or Beirut. Some Lebanese, refusing to have anything to do with the occupiers, remained cut off in the town. Both Aithi and “Riyyashni” (Rashayyans) welcomed the departure of the foreign forces. It is almost impossible to determine with certainty when and why the first Syrian emigrants came to Grand Rapids. Records indicate that Moses Salamy, an Orthodox Christian from Baalbek arrived in the United States in 1878, and settled in Grand Rapids in 1884. Joseph Howard, from Aita, arrived in 1885. Of him there is almost no record, but Salamy (1863–1944) became a prominent figure in the early community. He owned a number of parcels of land, operated a grocery store, a vaudeville showplace and a realestate agency. He was president of the society formed to establish a church for the Orthodox community in Grand Rapids in 1908 and a frequent petitioner to the city government. Perhaps because he did not come from either Aita or Rashayya and because his only

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Aita al-Foukhar road sign.

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“Welcome to Aita.”

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child, a son, settled in Ann Arbor, in eastern Michigan, few in the Lebanese community remember him today. 9 Once Salamy, Howard and a few other “pioneers” had settled, they would have written to encourage their respective kin and friends to join them in Grand Rapids. This process of chain migration was being repeated with increasing frequency in cities throughout the United States in the decades of the 1890s and 1900s right up to the outbreak of World War I. One emigrant related that two men from his village near Rashayya had gone to the United States in 1892. They soon wrote back with accounts of their financial success. One had saved $800.00 another $1000.00. When people saw that one man made $800.00 and another $1000.00 all of “Ayn Arab rushed to come to America.” It was “like a gold rush.” Seventy-two of them set out together. 10 A well-established network existed by the 1890s to assist Syrians on their journey. Would-be emigrants often borrowed money from family or friends to pay the forty dollars or so for third-class passage. Sometimes they sold possessions, even land, to finance their passage. As the community in the United States expanded, successful family members might send back the price of a ticket for a younger brother or cousin, to be repaid later. In the early years, 1880–1895, when the Ottoman Porte was trying to restrict emigration, middlemen appeared, representing organizations whose task it was for a fee to smuggle the emigrants out of the country. Once they boarded a foreign steamer waiting offshore, they were beyond the reach of Ottoman authorities. These smugglers lost their raison d’être after the Ottoman Porte ended its futile campaign to halt illegal travel abroad. Mike Haddy’s experience was typical for the mid-1890s. An agent took his group to an isolated beach outside Beirut, where he bribed Ottoman officials to let the group go out to the steamship waiting offshore. The ship took them to British-controlled Cyprus, where they purchased tickets on a French steamer. This ship took them back to Beirut, where they stayed on board, then to

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December 21, 1908, September 30, 1910, Grand Rapids Press. Nicola/Haddy interview, Naff Collection, Washington, DC.

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Aita al-Foukhar, 1890, blessing of the pottery Alexandria and Port Said and then twelve days to Marseilles. There, Syrian agents, working for different companies on commission, sent them on to Le Havre by rail, promising they would sail in an American vessel for New York. They ended up on a ship full of cattle and pigs. Conditions were poor, and it took him eighteen days to reach the United States. 11 There were many Syrians on the ill-fated Titanic. Exactly how many, no one can say with certainty, for the steamship authorities

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Haddy interview, Naff Collection, Washington, DC.

Church of St. George, Aita, May 2006

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did not take careful note of the origins of its passengers, especially if they traveled third class, as most of this group did. Often names became unrecognizable when transliterated into English, so it was almost impossible to identify ethnicities precisely using names alone. The best estimate is that somewhere between eighty and one hundred twenty-five Syrians boarded the great ocean liner at Cherbourg, France, for its maiden voyage. Sixty percent of those identified as Syrian died when the Titanic sank on the night of April 14, 1912, after colliding with an iceberg in the North Atlantic. Although there were no recorded passengers from Rashayya or Aita on the vessel, Kfar Mishki, a small village only a few kilometers from Rashayya, suffered the loss of at least five villagers. They had been traveling in a group, which was a common practice. The Syrian community in New York, the largest in the United States at the time, did all it could to aid the survivors and the grieving families of those who perished, raising subscriptions from communities throughout the country, including, of course, those in the Midwest. 12 Some fortunate ones survived. Jamelah Yared, aged fourteen, and her eleven-year-old brother, Elias, were on their way to join their father in the United States. Their relatives in Grand Rapids were relieved to learn that they had lived through the ordeal. 13 As emigration increased, so, too, did the number of steamship companies, offering services from Beirut to European ports, and, after World War I, directly to the United States. Alice Abraham from Ayn Arab set out in 1909 at age fifteen with a group of seventy-five. She knew many of her fellow travelers. She stayed twelve days in Marseilles, where some of her money was stolen. She was going to join her eighteen-year-old brother and other relatives in the United States. Following a train trip, which included a brief visit to Paris, they set sail from Cherbourg. The crossing to New York took only seven days. 14 Leila Salloum Elias, “The Impact of the Sinking of the Titanic on the New York Syrian Community of 1912: The Syrians Respond,” Arab Studies Quarterly vol. 27, nos. 1–2 (Winter/Spring 2005): 80, 83. 13 April 24, 1912, Grand Rapids Press. 14 Alice Abraham interview, Naff Collection, Washington, DC. 12

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Joseph David from Rashayya emigrated in 1911. He explained that he came from a prominent family and was an only son. As military pressure mounted on the Ottoman Empire, the government increased conscription, and family friends could no longer protect him. His mother urged him to go to America rather than serve in the military. He left unwillingly and claimed that he made more money in the old country than he ever did in the United States. He had earlier attended both a Russian and an American school in Rashayya, which boasted several foreign schools. He traveled first to Brazil, where a married sister lived. He worked for his brother-in-law for a year and then decided to visit another married sister in the United States. He was caught here by the outbreak of World War I and could not return to Rashayya. He stayed a lifetime. 15 Thomas George (Tanoos Faris George Abouasalley) left his village of Mahiethy near Rashayya with his mother Saidie and several friends on October 12, 1907. He was sixteen years old. He had sold a few acres of family land to pay for the passage. His father, Ferris, had traveled to the United States in 1892 to seek his fortune and had opened a dry goods store in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, where he had prospered. He died in 1905 before the family could be reunited. George sailed from Beirut despite the entreaties of his uncle, Rt. Reverend Habeeb that they return to the village. Their route differed slightly from the norm. They traveled to Alexandria then on to Marseilles. After spending several days touring in nearby Italy, they boarded another vessel for Liverpool. Thomas refused to pay additional money to two scammers, who turned up as the boat was about to sail, and he and his mother reached England without further mishap on October 21. They stayed at Mr. Zaha’s hotel, a resident Syrian, and left for Halifax, Nova Scotia, three days later. Zaha had recommended them to another hotel owner in Canada, who looked after them and put them on the train to the Joseph David interview, Naff Collection, Washington, DC. In addition to a school established by local authorities, there was a French Catholic, a Russian Orthodox, an American Protestant and a Baptist school. Naff, Becoming American, 37. 15

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United States after two days of rest. They arrived in Worcester, Massachusetts, on November 12, exactly one month after leaving Mahiethy. Three uncles met them at the station. Their itinerary makes clear that all along the route there were hotels, restaurants, commission agents from Syria to help the emigrants on their way. Unfortunately not all of them were as scrupulous as the hotel owners mentioned here. 16 Halifax became an increasingly attractive destination, especially in later years when a Syrian community developed there followed by an even larger one in Montreal composed of immigrants from Rashayya. They were drawn by Canada’s more lenient immigration laws and the lucrative territory available for peddlers. In fact a number of families made their way to Grand Rapids after a period of time spent in one or another of the Canadian cities. Joseph and Karima (Kazma) Elias, for example, moved to the city in 1923 from Sydney, Nova Scotia. Mrs. Elias, born in Aita, had family living in Grand Rapids. 17 It was not unusual for Syrian individuals and families to settle in Grand Rapids after spending a number of years in other locations in the United States or in other countries. In the 1920s, after Congress passed legislation to limit the so-called “new” immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean, prospective immigrants often arrived from third countries, such as Canada or Mexico, rather than directly from their homelands as they had done earlier. It was well known that entry into the United States was easier for those coming in across the Mexican border. The Nicola family, which eventually settled in Grand Rapids, provided an interesting case. Ferris Nicola came to the United States in 1892, received his citizenship in 1900, and made two trips back to Ayn Arab, one to marry and start a family, the second to bring two of his brothers with him to Iowa. He returned for a third time in 1914 and was trapped there by the war. His citizenship papers were destroyed in Syria and original copies lost in Sioux Thomas George, unpublished manuscript [copy in author’s possession.] 17 Naff, Becoming American, 151. 16

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City, Iowa. William Langer, future governor of North Dakota, where the Nicola brothers now had substantial land holdings, advised him to go to Mexico and gain entry from there. Ferris took part of his growing family with him in 1927, leaving his wife, Amine, a daughter Barbara, and young son, Joseph, in the village. When the missing papers were found in 1932, Ferris, his son, Nick, and daughter, Adel, entered the United States at last and settled in Bismarck, North Dakota. Nabeeha, another daughter, had married in Mexico, and she remained there. The family was finally reunited in June 1934 when Joseph and Amine joined the rest of the family in North Dakota. Barbara, like her sister in Mexico, had married, and she remained in the old country. 18 Such travels typified the Syrian experience. Rarely did an entire family, parents and children, emigrate at one time. In the early years of the movement abroad, most of the émigrés were young, single men, intent on making money and then returning to their villages. In the early years about 25 percent actually followed this course, but the majority remained in the United States permanently. They embraced the greater opportunities for making money, their reward for hard work and initiative. If they returned to Syria it was often to find a wife or to bring over a spouse and children left behind. The family of Sleyman and Zahia (Maloley) Abraham, who would establish a successful business after their arrival in Grand Rapids in the late 1920s, provides an interesting example of Syrian mobility. Sleyman from Dar al-Ahmar came to the United States in 1895 and using Spring Valley, Illinois, a Rashayyan center, as his base, peddled linens and specialty dry goods to rural areas in Illinois, Iowa and Oklahoma and made good money. He returned to marry Zahia, who came from Rashayya, and they had a son, Abraham, in 1912. Sleyman returned alone to the United States to open a grocery store in Towanda, Kansas, about twenty miles from a brother and his family in Wichita. In 1920, Sleyman brought his wife and eightyear-old son, Abe, to Towanda, where James and Wade and a

Interview with Joseph Nicola, March 25, 2003, Grand Rapids, Michigan. 18

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Nicola family, Zahle, 1926 (Front row: Ferris, Joseph, Amine, Nicholas; Back row: Adel, Nabiha, Barbara) daughter, Dolores, were born over the next four years. In 1926, the family moved to Grand Rapids so that Zahia could be close to her aunt, Latife Hattem, whose husband, Deeb Hattem, had recently died. They moved in, just a few doors away, on South Division Street. The Abrahams stayed for six months or so and then returned to Lebanon, settling in Zahle. Sleyman had done well in the States, and he passed much of the next two years with friends and relatives. He spent a good deal of time at the coffee house, combining business with relaxation. In 1928, Sleyman, perhaps concerned about continuing unsettled conditions in the mandate, where the French faced a series of uprisings, decided to move his family back to Grand Rapids. This was to be the family’s final move. 19

Interview with James Abraham, July 28, 2006, Grand Rapids, Michigan. 19

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Young Joseph David, whom we met earlier, had not quite reached the end of his travels. After serving in the United States Army in World War I and spending years peddling and working a variety of jobs from Minnesota to Montana to Texas, he became homesick. He decided to go back to Rashayya for a visit and to find a wife. He sailed on July 7, 1925, and was at sea for thirty-three days, stopping in the Azores, Lisbon, Algeria, Istanbul and various ports in the Black Sea. In Rumania they picked up one-thousandseven-hundred Jews bound for Jaffa in Palestine. When he finally arrived at Beirut, he received a great welcome from relatives and friends. He was married on November 20, 1926, and the couple arrived back in Fort Wayne, Indiana, on July 4, 1927, almost exactly two years after Joseph’s departure. Their son was born the following day. 20 Assad Dabakey had come to Grand Rapids in 1901 from the village of Aita. After working hard on the railroad for four years, he had saved enough money to return to Syria and marry Fuda Missad from the same village. They returned in 1906 via New York on the steamship, La Savoie. Fuda never saw her homeland again; she died in 1944. Long after her death, Assad, who never remarried, began making visits every few years to Lebanon to visit family until his own death in 1968. 21 After the early years of Syrian immigration, the proportion of women emigrants steadily rose. By 1910, one-third of all emigrants were women, many of them unmarried. This represented a higher percentage of women than for any other immigrant group at that time. Men quickly realized how helpful women could be, especially as peddlers. They could interact easily with farmwives, selling them such items as lace, ribbon and inexpensive jewelry. Syrian women also crocheted, knitted and did fine sewing on linens, providing additional desirable goods for the peddling trade. 22

David interview, Naff Collection, Washington, DC. Donald Ghareeb, unpublished notes. [Copy in author’s possession] 22 Naff, Becoming American, 115; Naff, “Lebanese Immigration into the United States: 1880 to the Present,” 146. In Hourani, editor, The Lebanese in the World. 20 21

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Karima Kazma came to Nova Scotia with her father in the first decade of the 1900s. When he decided to return to Syria, she, a rather rebellious teenager, refused to go with him, so he left her in the care of a Syrian family. They were peddlers so she, too, became a peddler and through this work met her future husband, Joseph Elias. 23 In 1909, Alice Abraham, another young woman from Ayn Arab, set out with relatives, but none from her immediate family. She had pleaded with her widowed mother to let her join her brother in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and eventually she agreed. In New York she was put on a train for Iowa. Her mother’s letter had not yet arrived, so no one met her at the station. She made her way to her uncle’s house, which was full of relatives. She had hoped to earn money peddling, but after only a few months Alice’s uncle and brother arranged for her to marry a distant relative. She consented reluctantly. 24 As more young men left the villages of the Beqaa, the pool of eligible bachelors shrank. Sometimes a young man, as we have seen, would return home to marry, but often young women would travel to the United States, where the prospects of finding a suitable husband were very good. Sometimes the marriage would be prearranged among families, and the bride-to-be would arrive shortly before the wedding. This was the case in January 1906, when Fadwa David arrived, accompanied by her future mother-inlaw, to marry Albert Tesseine, a successful grocer in Grand Rapids. Just a year earlier, Mariam Maris, only recently arrived in Grand Rapids to join her sister Sarah, became engaged to Damas Sayfee, a local silk and rug merchant. 25 Latife Maloley from Rashayya joined her brother Peter in Lima, Ohio, in 1905. Later, she moved in with relatives in Fort Wayne, Indiana. There she met Deeb Hattem, a peddler, also from Rashayya. After a brief engagement, they were married in 1910 and

Telephone interview with Dr. Richard Elias, May 23, 2003, Grand Rapids, Michigan. 24 Alice Abraham interview, Naff Collection, Washington, DC. 25 January 29, 1906, February 11, 1905, Grand Rapids Press. 23

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settled into the Syrian community of Michigan’s second city, Grand Rapids. 26 Regardless of the circumstances leading to marriage, the traditional wedding ceremony was always elaborate. It extended over several days with guests arriving from Syrian communities as far away as Toledo, Chicago and Fort Wayne. Pre-nuptial festivities for the Sayfee-Maris wedding mentioned above took place over a week, with much Syrian food and arak [vodka] being consumed. The groom provided the bridal gown and jewelry for the bride. The bride’s relatives and friends spent hours preparing her for the ceremony. Often, traditional musical instruments such as tambourine, mandolin and drum, would accompany the ceremony, during which guests held lighted candles as a sign of good luck. Following the service, the groom received the congratulations of guests as the new bride remained seated beside him in silence, her eyes lowered, taking no notice of the singing and dancing going on around her. Tradition required that she not participate in any of the festivities, lest it appear that she was happy to be leaving her family. 27 Marriages were commonly contracted with cousins. When no cousin was available, a suitable partner would be sought among families from the same village in Syria. Only rarely and under unusual circumstances did first generation immigrants marry outsiders. Loyalty to family was a virtue prized above all others, and one was expected to do everything possible to uphold the honor and good reputation of the extended family. A lesser loyalty was to the village, where the extended family resided. There were seldom any secrets among villagers, but they looked upon real outsiders with a good deal of suspicion. Thus, we find in the early Grand Rapids community many marriages among the Ellis, Missad, Ghareeb, Dabakey, Howard, Kazma, and Cassis families all from Aita and

Interview with Moses, Maxine and Donna Hattem, May 21, 2003, Grand Rapids, Michigan. 27 February 13, 1905, Grand Rapids Herald; February 11, 1905, Grand Rapids Press. 26

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likewise among the Maloley, Hattem, Abou-Assaley, Sickrey, Azkoul, Malick, and Yared families with roots in Rashayya. To some extent the communities established in the United States, such as the one in Grand Rapids, presented a continuation of relationships as they had existed in the old country, at least for the first few decades. According to one pioneer, “Weddings, Easter and other holidays they maintained their traditions and customs. Nothing changed for them, they followed their own customs and nothing bothered them. This was as true of Spring Valley, Grand Rapids, and other places as of Fort Wayne.” 28 It would be an exaggeration to say that “nothing” had changed, for we know of numerous adaptations among the first generation, and yet, we also know that members of these early communities retained many traditional cultural practices. An ethnic identity evolved, combining elements of the old and the new. From the late nineteenth century to World War II, they became involved in “a process in which they actively defined themselves as Syrian and American at the same time.” 29 Communities of emigrants from various villages and towns in Syria developed in many American cities. Even small villages such as Mahiethy (Worcester, MA) and Ayn Arab (Cedar Rapids, Iowa) had what the historian Alixa Naff has called sub-networks of immigrants in specific sites across the United States. Once established, they tended to attract even more newcomers from the old country. Aita had a series of centers including Lowell, Massachusetts, Charleston, West Virginia, Toledo, Ohio, and, of course, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Rashayyans mingled with their fellow villagers in Toledo, Fort Wayne, Spring Valley, Montreal and, most importantly, in Grand Rapids, which became the largest “Riyyashni” center in North America. 30 In some cases we can trace the movements of families from settlement to settlement. Salem Ghareeb (1924–2004), for example, was born in Charleston, West Virginia. His family moved to

Joseph David interview, Naff Collection, Washington, DC. Gualtieri, Between Arab and White, 14, 150–152, 156. 30 Naff, Becoming American, 151. 28 29

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Toledo for a short while and had settled permanently among the sizable Aithi community in Grand Rapids by 1930. With all these accounts of emigrant men and women coming to the United States, we must not overlook the so-called Birds of Passage, those who returned to Syria and settled there permanently. Recently, we have been reminded that at least half of the Polish emigrants who left for America returned for good to their home country between 1887 and 1915 “in spite of the deteriorating economic and social conditions in Poland itself.” Akram Fouad Khater has published a fine study analyzing the impact of Syrian returnees on their society. He writes that anywhere from one third to one half of the inhabitants of Zahle and other cities of Mount Lebanon and the Beqaa Valley in the early twentieth century were returned emigrants. Even among our relatively small survey group in Grand Rapids, we can identify a number of such individuals. 31 The grandfather of A. Raymond Kalliel, a Grand Rapids lawyer, had come to the United States at the end of the century but had returned to Syria to live. Maurice Farhat’s father, Said, had come to Grand Rapids with his brother, William, just after World War I. William settled in Grand Rapids, but Said worked in Detroit for the Ford Motor Company and returned to Syria in 1934. He and his wife went to Palestine, where there was work to be had. Maurice and his siblings were born there. The family returned to Syria during World War II. Abdou Sickrey’s father had lived for long periods in the United States from the 1890’s. He always returned to Syria, however, despite the fact that most of his children settled in Grand Rapids. 32 Ayse Chamelly explained that her father, Badoui Arafat, came to Grand Rapids with a brother and a cousin in 1914 and stayed for Roger Owen, “Lebanese Migration in the Context of World Population Movements,” 34. In Hourani, editor, The Lebanese in the World. Akram Fouad Khater, Inventing Home: Emigration, Gender and the Middle Class in Lebanon, 1870–1920 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001), 139. 32 Interviews with A. Raymond Kalliel, April 22, 2004, Maurice Farhat (telephone), August 21, 2004, and Abdou Sickrey, January 10, 2009, Grand Rapids, Michigan. 31

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ten years. He worked in factories and had a grocery store on Ottawa Street. They all returned to Syria in 1924, where her father started a bus line. Although he had fond memories of the United States, he never came back. In 1951 his daughter married Said Chamelly, a friend of her father’s from Grand Rapids, and she has lived there ever since. 33 Maryam’s father had set out for the United States before she was born. He did not return for nineteen years, finally accompanying her future husband back to Syria in 1929. He remained there after his newly wed daughter returned to Grand Rapids with her husband. She saw her father only once again, on a visit home in 1953. Elizabeth Bashara came to Toledo with her father and stepmother in 1893 at age ten. They came from Hasroun in what is today’s northern Lebanon. She peddled right from the earliest days. Her father had heard that one could shovel the money in America. “Instead they came and killed themselves for a dollar,” recalled their daughter. After she was married at age fourteen to a Syrian man, her parents went back to Hasroun for good. 34 Another group would have returned had fate not intervened. Two brothers, Abdul and Alexander Yared, had married two sisters, Selene and Mary LaHam, and the four of them decided to go back to Syria in 1910. Mary was expecting, however, and the ship’s captain would not let her board because she was too close to delivering her first child. Samuel was born in New York City; then the five of them returned to Grand Rapids. 35 Khater believes the “Birds of Passage” returned for a variety of reasons, among them homesickness and unwillingness to accept the harsh pace of life in the United States. We should not overlook the fact that leaving one’s homeland was often a wrenching experience. There is much evidence of sadness, tears and weeping

Interview with Ayse Chamelly, April 5, 2004, Grand Rapids, Michigan. 34 Elizabeth Bashara interview, Naff Collection, Washington, DC. 35 Videotaped interview with Bedea (Aunt Bud) Yared, 3 February 1996 [Courtesy of Yared family]. 33

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Return visitors to homeland: Marie Azkoul, Latife Hattem, Yamna Assaley. They are standing in front of statue of nationalist leader, Youssef Beik Karam (1823-1889) in Ehden, Lebanon. [Thanks to Ghassan Ghareeb for identifying the location.]

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on the part of those setting out, perhaps never to return, for a new and strange life on the other side of the vast ocean. 36 Many birds of passage had achieved financial success, and they would have an important impact on life in Syria. Even from afar they and their fellow emigrants had contributed to a “reformist awakening” at home. They came back changed men and women, bringing with them altered perspectives. They “swelled the ranks of the middle class to make it far more visible and potent in the making of a ‘modern Lebanon.’ ” 37 Nowhere was their influence more obvious than in the construction of a new style of home, especially in the villages. Twolevel homes became their model, animals below, people above. New (and expensive) slanted, red-tile roofs instead of the traditional flat peasant roofs, announced to all, the wealth of the owners within. Expansion of schools for girls and magazines for women with articles about raising healthy children and running a modern household were other new additions to life in the old country. 38

Khater, Inventing Home, 14. Gualtieri, Between Arab and White, 95–96; Khater, 109. 38 Naff, Becoming American, 80; Khater, 120, 129–130, 137, 139. 36 37

II. DOING BUSINESS IN AMERICA Western Michigan bears little physical resemblance to the Beqaa Valley. With the exception of tall, forested sand dunes along the shore of Lake Michigan and occasional steep bluffs where the Grand River has carved a channel through the glacial debris on its winding course to the big lake, it is a flat region. In the late nineteenth century small settlements surrounded by farms dotted the landscape, which was still heavily forested, south of the Grand River. In the 1830s and 1840s, groups of Dutch Calvinists had settled the area, and they had established villages to serve the surrounding rural population. Each of these settlements, many with names from the old country, such as Holland, Zeeland, and Vriesland, had its Dutch Reformed Church, the center of community life. Society was conservative. There were several small towns along the Lake Michigan shore, which attracted many summer visitors. A number of crosslake steamers still brought holidaymakers directly to Grand Haven, Saugatuk, and Muskegon. For a time there was even direct service from Chicago to Grand Rapids by steamer, but the trains had made serious inroads on that traffic by the 1860s. Grand Rapids was the major regional city. Fifty miles north of Kalamazoo and seventy-five miles west of the state capital, Lansing, both of which were considerably smaller, Grand Rapids boasted a population of more than eighty-seven thousand at the end of the nineteenth century. It was a major rail center, where the Pennsylvania Railroad, the Pere Marquette, the New York Central, the Chesapeake and Ohio, the Michigan Central, and the Michigan Southern all provided daily service. “In 1905, 1,000 passenger tickets were sold per day; 20,000 trains, 100,000 cars, and 750,000 people passed through the depot that year.” That depot, Union Station (1900–1961), was located on Ionia Street at the northern end of the “Syrian colony.” Scores of furniture factories, which had 35

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developed in response to the lumber business, dotted the inner city precincts and provided a major source of employment for native and immigrant alike. 1 At the top of the slopes leading away from the Grand River, especially on the eastern side, stood the stately, Victorian homes of the city’s elite. Heritage Hill, as it was called, was dotted with the residences of leading businessmen, especially the lumber barons, who erected their splendid mansions there in the 1860s and 1870s, when their industry was flourishing. Newer suburbs such as East Grand Rapids, also to the east of the city center, were becoming fashionable places to live by the turn of the century. Other immigrant groups had followed the Dutch. The Germans and the Poles, in particular, had settled on the west side. German churches, clubs, and, of course, breweries were common features there until World War I. Early Syrian arrivals in Grand Rapids lived on the east side of the river just south of the city center in an area bounded by Market Street to the west and Division Street to the east. Before 1910, few of them lived north of Oakes Street nor south of Wealthy. Part of the area between Market Street and the river was reserved for the city’s fruit and vegetable market. Early in the city’s history this spot marked the landing point for passengers and goods coming up the Grand River from Grand Haven or having crossed Lake Michigan by steamship. Just to the north lay a series of rapids that made further navigation toward the city center impossible. Much of the land in this area was low-lying and subject to flooding, especially with the spring thaw. The worst flood in memory struck in March 1904, when the river, choked with ice, rose more than five feet above flood stage. Although the waters of the Grand inundated more of the city’s west side, a considerable area on the east bank was also covered by floodwaters. The Syrian newcomers would have had to scramble to escape the rising waters, perhaps finding refuge in one of the fifty boats that the police chief had at his disposal to assist evacuees. 2 Z. Z. Lydens, editor, The Story of Grand Rapids (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1966), 126. 2 Lydens, The Story of Grand Rapids, 119. 1

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Grand Rapids map, c. 1890. Syrian colony at center, surrounded by rail lines. (Waterloo St. along the river would become Market St. in 1899.) Rental housing in the area was reasonably inexpensive although much of it was substandard. Numbers of single men would share rented rooms and apartments in order to save money to send back to their families in Syria. Families regularly took in boarders—often relatives—to cut costs. The 1910 census reveals that a nuclear family, that is, parents and children only, was rare in this area of the city. We find an apartment full of single men at 30 Williams Street and at 195 and 196 South Market Street as well; these were all in the heart of the colony. At nearby addresses one usually found two related families and/or three generations all from the same village in Syria. Residents from the same village or extended family also tended to cluster within the neighborhood. An added attraction of this area was its proximity to several large employers. Railroad properties abounded, and “dummy” trains carried rail workers south from Union Station to the more distant yards in suburbs such as Wyoming. The Sligh Furniture Company, a major employer, was located only a few blocks to the south, on Pleasant Street.

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This area had traditionally provided housing for the most recently arrived immigrants. French, Irish, and Dutch newcomers had all once lived in the area known as Shantytown. The Syrians did not have exclusive possession of the neighborhood, sharing it with Italians and African Americans. By the 1920s this provided one of three African-American residential areas in the city, and recent arrivals found it attractive for the same reasons as had the Syrians. Members of each group remained very much to themselves, and there appears to have been little interaction—or friction—among the recently arrived groups. Examination of city assessor files from the 1930s indicates that although many of the early homes had been torn down to make way for industry and warehouses, a number of homes were still owned by Syrians and Italians, and several African-American churches had become established there as well. 3 By the opening of the twentieth century, Grand Rapidians routinely referred to the neighborhood as “Little Syria” or the “Syrian Colony.” As early as 1895, newcomers were leaving fellow travelers in Fort Wayne to move north to Grand Rapids, where their relatives had settled. Its streets would have been crowded with recent arrivals whether from Syria, Italy or the American South. One might have heard as much Arabic or Italian as English in those early days. Children playing on the sidewalks or in the street, when not in the neighborhood schools on South Division or Sigsbee Streets, must have used a mixture of English and colloquial Arabic in their games. 4 The crowded nature of the district can be gleaned from an article in the Grand Rapids Press on June 14, 1906, concerning a dispute that came before council concerning Moses Salamy’s decision to move an old two-story frame building from the corner of Cherry and Ellsworth to Salamy’s block of land at 106 Ellsworth. This would violate the local fire ordinance and required special waiver by councilmen, which was granted. According to the Randal Maurice Jelks, African Americans in the Furniture City: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Grand Rapids (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2006), 94, 95. City Assessor files, City of Grand Rapids Archives. 4 Mike Haddy interview, Naff Archive, Washington, DC. 3

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article, frame buildings already occupied the rather small block of one hundred seventy [sic] square feet. In one building there was a double store, Salamy’s grocery with a saloon next door. The upstairs was occupied by a Syrian family of six from Rashayya. An African-American family occupied a small dwelling on the east side of the lot, and the Salamy family lived in a small building on the northeast corner. In among the buildings roamed a number of geese and chickens. Just two years later, the city building inspector moved to eliminate twenty or more shacks housing hundreds of Syrians on South Market Street. They stood on wooden piles and were flimsy. The plumbing inspector had found sanitary conditions “deplorable,” a menace to the health of the city. If a fire were to start at night, he declared, many lives would be lost. The building inspector condemned one of these frame structures owned by Michael Whalen. The building was occupied by a large number of Syrians, from each of whom Whalen received $12.00 per month rent. Whalen owned a number of such buildings in the area, all of which the inspector planned to condemn. 5 The Syrians were mainly boarders and renters in the early years. By 1910, just under 10 percent of community members owned their own buildings, often a combined store and residence at the back or upstairs. This percentage quadrupled to 37 percent by 1920, and by 1930 a large majority—64 percent—were property owners. 6 How did this new community manage to succeed so quickly? Many of the earliest immigrants became peddlers, an occupation that required a minimum of capital and provided above average profits. Few Syrians had peddled at home, but here was an important opportunity. All over the United States, many Syrians turned their hands initially to peddling, a niche they were willing and able to exploit. It helps to explain why there are Syrian communities spread across the country today. Ali Hakim, the Syrian peddler in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1943 musical, Oklahoma, was no figment of the writers’ imaginations. 5 6

November 5, 1908, Grand Rapids Press. US Census, 1910, 1920, 1930.

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Certainly, one of the best-documented of the peddling syndicates was that operated by Salem Bashara from Dar al-Ahmar, who settled in Fort Wayne, Indiana, in 1887. He soon became a supplier for peddlers throughout the Midwest. Groups of immigrants from the villages of the southern Beqaa would arrive by train from New York City, often with Salem’s name pinned to their coats. 7 This was courtesy of Najib Arbeely, a Syrian, who was hired by the Bureau of Immigration to translate for the increasing numbers of Arabic speakers arriving at Ellis Island. He would assist them, answer questions, and put them on trains bound for communities where members of the same religious sect or the same village had gathered. Years later, those he had assisted when they first arrived in America would remember him fondly. Bashara would receive them, outfit them and send them out to rural areas and small towns in the Midwest to sell basic supplies to farm families—thread, needles, shoe laces, ribbons, religious goods, rosaries, crosses “from the Holy Land,” and so forth. Groups of peddlers would split up and plan to meet on the next weekend in a designated town on the railroad. Bashara would arrange to send them fresh supplies, which would be waiting for them when they arrived. A peddler might stay on the road for weeks, covering hundreds of miles before turning up again in Fort Wayne or wherever his supply base was located. There were many such networks throughout the East, the South, the Midwest and in Canada as well. There are many accounts of women peddlers, especially young, single women. In our modern age of escalating sex-based crimes, one can hardly imagine boys and young women knocking on strangers’ doors. They usually traveled in pairs or with an older relative, seldom peddling alone or far from home. There were, of course, instances of violence against peddlers, and they had to be on their guard, but overall they were victimized much less than one might expect today. 8 Naff, Becoming American, 130–131. Naff, 185, 186. She has written the most detailed and well-informed account of peddlers. 7 8

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Sisters Selene and Mary LaHam from Rashayya, for example, peddled together as young girls aged fifteen and twelve in parts of Illinois and Indiana. They remembered fondly the kind treatment accorded them by German farmwomen around Decatur and Hoopeston, Illinois, in the early years of the new century. One young woman, Elizabeth Bashara, enjoyed peddling, and even after she returned to Fort Wayne a married woman around 1908, she peddled lingerie to the local house of prostitution run by another enterprising Syrian woman. 9 There were hardships, of course. The American public remained conflicted in its views of peddlers. Although they filled an important economic niche, they were often considered to be suspicious and untrustworthy. When Michael Shadid, the prominent Syrian-American doctor, ran for Congress in Oklahoma in the mid–1920s, for example, his opponents criticized him as a former peddler. For every poem or short story extolling the virtues of peddlers, there were accounts focusing on less noble qualities. The play, Green Grow the Lilacs (1930) by Lynn Riggs, which draws on childhood memories of growing up in Indian Territory, and which was transformed into the widely popular musical, Oklahoma, in 1943, contained some poignant examples. Riggs introduces the “peddler” as “a little wiry, swarthy Syrian, neatly dressed, and with a red bandanna around his neck. He is very acquisitive, very cunning. He sets down his bulging suitcases, his little beady eyes sparkling professionally. He rushes over, and, to Laurey’s alarm kisses her hand... . He gives a grunt of surprised pleasure. His speech is some blurred European tongue with Middle West variations.” A short while later Aunt Eller rushes into the bedroom, where the “peddler” is showing his wares to the two young women. She announces accusingly, “Thought I was gone, didn’t you? Well, I ain’t ... Not gonna leave you and two girls in no bedroom, all by yerselves.” 10 Videotaped interview with Wilson Yared, April 1996, Grand Rapids [Courtesy Yared family.] Interview with Elizabeth Bashara, Naff Collection, Washington, DC. 10 Lynn Riggs, Green Grow the Lilacs (Norwalk, Conn.: The Heritage Press, 1959), 44, 46. See, also, Charlotte Karem Albrecht, “Peddling 9

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Peddlers usually had more immediate concerns than the status of their reputations. Finding a place to sleep at night especially in winter was a constant worry, but when peddlers got together again there were always good stories to tell and much laughing and singing. And, of course, they made a lot of money, compared to the average factory worker. In 1910, Syrians made an average of $1000.00 per annum compared to a $382.00 average for an American worker. The Syrians were extremely frugal, saving most of what they earned, and using it as capital to establish their small businesses in cities such as Grand Rapids. 11 A peddler might carry a notions case or kashshi strapped to his chest and a heavy suitcase or pack on his back to hold dry goods. Thus heavily burdened he walked from farmhouse to farmhouse. This variety of peddling declined in much of the country well before World War I, but by then it had allowed many immigrants to make enough money to set themselves up in business. In Grand Rapids as early as 1908 there were at least eighteen businesses owned by Syrians. These included retail and wholesale stores, selling groceries, meat, fruit, dry goods and general merchandise, as well as a bakery, a pool and billiards salon, and a real estate agency. 12 Almost every family in the Grand Rapids community could point to a peddler or two among its pioneering generation. Joe Nicola’s father, Ferris, first came to the United States in 1892. He became a long-distance peddler, walking from New York to Sioux City, Iowa. “How he did this,” according to his son was “by stopping at stores and buying things that he could carry on his shoulders and going from farmhouse to farmhouse selling his goods.” In Sioux City, he started a wholesale store to supply Syrian peddlers in the local community and made enough money to return

Encounters: Sex, Gender, and Racial Formation in the Border Spaces of Early Arab American History.” Paper delivered at Middle East Studies Conference, San Diego, November 20, 2010. 11 Naff, 197–198; Orfalea, Before the Flames, 82. 12 Naff, 163; Salloum A. Mokarzel and H. F. Otash, Syrian Business Directory, 1908–1909 (New York: al-Hoda Press, 1908), 288–289.

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to Ayn Arab, marry and build a substantial two-storey stone house, which is still standing more than a century later. 13 Joseph Elias and Karima Kazma both peddled in Nova Scotia. Karima related the tale of going to a farmhouse one day and showing the wife her wares. The woman kept saying “pretty,” which sounded like “show me” (the goods) in Arabic, so Karima would open her valise again. This apparently went on for some time with no sales. Such misunderstandings were common. Later, Karima worked for a supplier, and there she met her future husband, Joseph. “To get his attention she used to put items in his valise and not charge him for them.” After their marriage they moved to Grand Rapids, where Mrs. Elias’s relatives lived. 14 Alixa Naff provides this humorous tale of misunderstanding told by one of her interviewees: “The absence of the p sound in Arabic was the cause of frustration to a young novice who wandered, a small box of merchandise in hand, into a smallpox epidemic. At each door, he was warned to ‘go away, smallpox.’ Angry at not having made a single sale, he returned to complain to his brother. ‘Why did you give me such a small box?’ No one would buy from me. Everyone said to me, ‘go away, small box, small box.’ ” 15 Sleyman Abraham, who would eventually settle with his wife and four children in Grand Rapids, began his life in the United States as a peddler, working out of Spring Valley, Illinois, in the mid-1890s. Later, he sold linens and specialty dry goods from Towanda, Kansas. He did very well, and by 1926 had saved around $10,000.00, part of which he used to open a candy and tobacco wholesale business in Grand Rapids. Alex Albert Kalliel from the Muslim village of Khirbitrouha in the vicinity of Rashayya, the village claiming the tallest minaret in today’s Lebanon, came to the United States in 1912. He peddled

Interview with Joseph Nicola, March 25, 2003, Grand Rapids, Michigan. 14 Telephone interview with Dr. Richard Elias, May 23, 2003, Grand Rapids, Michigan. 15 Naff, 187–188. 13

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Nicola home, Ayn Arab

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goods from a base in Crookston, Minnesota, where there were already some people from his village. “Another Arab, set him up with a pack and materials to visit farmers and sell shoelaces, bows, and so forth. After a while he had enough money to open his own store in Osenbrook, North Dakota.” Many other Grand Rapids families could tell similar stories about their beginnings in the United States. The pioneers used the money they made to travel home, to marry and, once they had decided to remain here permanently, to set themselves up in business in Grand Rapids and to bring other family members to America. 16 As catalog shopping became more common and department stores developed and advertised more widely, rural Americans had better options, and, thus, this basic style of peddling largely faded. Another type, however, continued well into the postwar period. This involved the sale of rugs and fine linens to wealthy customers in distant towns and cities. According to Joseph David, “This stuff was not for the poor. We sold to the rich. Those who peddled and carried the ‘keshie’ sold in the countryside sold cheap merchandise to farmers. We sold to doctors, lawyers, bankers and so forth.” 17 The two Azkoul brothers from Rashayya, Michael and Neuman, were engaged in this business after settling in Grand Rapids before the First World War. Neuman “would call on wealthy people throughout the Midwest . . . and be away for several days.” He loaded his car with beautiful linens and rugs. His brother, being single, traveled further afield. Even after his marriage in Rashayya in 1929, the couple would travel together as far as the West Coast, selling imported linens and rugs. Michael continued this business to the end of his working life. 18 Theodore Gantos’ father sent him to Cobalt, Canada, a silver mining center right after World War I, when conditions in Rashayya were very bad and famine widespread. He worked in a

Interview with A. Raymond Kalliel, April 22, 2004, Grand Rapids, Michigan. 17 Naff, 200; Joseph David interview, Naff Collection, Washington, DC. 18 Interview with William Azkoul. 16

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Village of Khirbitrouha

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cousin’s grocery store for a short time and then moved in succession to Montreal, Ottawa, Windsor, Ontario, and finally to Grand Rapids. He continued to send money home to help support his parents and siblings. He worked briefly in another relative’s grocery store on Fulton Street in Grand Rapids before going into business for himself. He peddled expensive linens. A richly embroidered table cloth might cost $1,000.00. In 1929, using his earnings, he and his wife, Haseebie, were able to open a small store, selling linens and handmade baby clothes. 19 In later years when financial difficulties arose, such as during the Great Depression (1929–1940), individuals whose businesses had failed would sometimes return to peddling. When Assad Dabakey was forced to close his store on Grandville Avenue, for example, he began to peddle fruit and vegetables to rural residents in the counties surrounding Grand Rapids. He would go to the city market at 4:00 a.m. to buy produce and set off in his truck around 6:00 a.m. His day seldom ended before 8:00 p.m. He often bartered fruit for eggs and other farm products, which he then traded with a neighborhood baker for doughnuts, bread and sweet rolls. In this way, he was able to provide for his wife and eight children. 20 Theodore Gantos, who would eventually head a very successful women’s wear business, saw his first attempt fail after only a few months. He went back on the road peddling linens door-to-door in western Michigan. Having again saved some capital, he and his wife opened another store in 1932. This time his wife tended the shop on Monroe Avenue while he stayed on the road, coming home on weekends. Finally, in 1937, he retired permanently from peddling. 21 Generally, Syrians eschewed factory work; they wanted to be their own bosses. Some of the early arrivals in Grand Rapids, however, worked for the railroads. The city was a major center for

Haseebie Gantos interview, Local History, Grand Rapids Public Library. 20 Donald Ghareeb, Unpublished notes [copy in author’s possession]. 21 www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/Gantos-Inc-Compa ny-History; Haseebie Gantos interview, GRPL. 19

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Sligh Furniture Company both the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Pere Marquette Railroad. The passenger terminal was located on the edge of the colony and the railroad yards were not far to the south. A number of Syrian Muslims worked for the railroads; many of them were transients, moving in and out of Grand Rapids. Other important employers were the furniture factories clustered in the area east of the river and south of Wealthy Street, within easy walking distance of the community. Grand Rapids was famous for its fine craftsmanship in furniture and prospects for employment here may have attracted early immigrants. Some of them became master craftsmen. The Sligh Company continued to employ workers from the Syrian community until the Great Depression. In 1927 Charles R. Sligh, the founder, died while on holiday in Europe. His son, Charles R. Sligh, Jr., future national chairman of the Republican Party, closed the factory and opened a new one in Holland, Michigan, about twenty miles away. Eighty years later, the old building still stands on Pleasant Street; the faded company name is still legible on the old four-storey brick building. Assad Dabakey worked for the Sligh Furniture Factory for many years and became an expert in finishing furniture. He had saved enough money there to open his own grocery store on Grandville Street in 1912.

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Della Azkoul (Nimmer) in front of shop owned by Alex Malick and Neuman Azkoul on Grandville Avenue, c. 1919 Wadie LaHam started as a peddler in Indiana before coming to family in Grand Rapids. He worked also as a finisher of fine furniture until he saved enough money to open a pool room on Division Street. In most cases if a Syrian worked for a large employer, he did so only long enough to save the money needed to set up his own business. What most attracted successful members of the pioneering generation and many of their children was the prospect of owning their own small businesses. Almost from the beginning of their settlement in Grand Rapids, one finds the Syrians selling groceries, fruit and produce, and confections as well as operating poolrooms. The number of these enterprises increased dramatically over the years. Proprietors sold to non-Syrians as well, otherwise so many shops could not have stayed in business. Many, but by no means all, were located in the Market Street district. Most of the Syrian-owned businesses sold American goods and products, although occasionally a store would offer “Eastern Goods” such as A. K. Malick and Neuman Azkoul’s wholesale

Hannah Debaky (l.) in her father’s (Assad Debakey) grocery store on Grandville Avenue, early 1920s.

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grocery, which opened on Ellsworth Avenue in October 1912. They sold items such as lentils, Egyptian rice, butter from sheep’s milk, pomegranate syrup, olives, coffee and copper coffee pots and water pipes. They catered to the half dozen or so Syrian retail grocers in this trade. 22 The small store proprietors made their money by working long hours and employing their spouses and children as unpaid labor. When Assad Dabakey operated his grocery on Grandville Street in the 1920’s, his two eldest daughters, Hannah and Nebeia, had to drop out of high school to clerk in the store. “Hannah spoke often of how she cried after her father made her drop out of South High School after the ninth grade.” Families often lived in the same building as the store to cut traveling time and costs. According to Bertha George (Dabakey) “To make ends meet, we ate in the back of the grocery store . . . We lived upstairs in the rented building.” 23 Josephine Cassis, who grew up in Charleston, West Virginia, remembered that when her father died in 1929, leaving a young family, her mother insisted that the family have a store. “So we moved our porch over and built a store right by the house.” The mother and children worked there until 1940, when they sold it to another Syrian. The Nicola family settled into Grand Rapids in the late 1930s and opened a grocery store on Grandville Avenue. Joe Nicola was in high school and on the track team. He used to walk all the way to Central High School then to Houseman Field and finally back to the store. “I did my homework between customers,” he recalled. “We closed the store at 10 pm, so you didn’t get to bed until about eleven o’clock. You got up early in the morning and in the summer time, three days a week, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, were market days, so we used to go down to the market at 4 o’clock in the morning and buy produce for the store for a couple of days and then after that you’d go to the store.” 24 October 9, 1912, Grand Rapids Press. Donald Ghareeb, Unpublished Notes; interview with Bertha, Sam and David George, February 12, 2004, Grand Rapids, Michigan. 24 Interview with Eddie, George and Josephine Cassis, December 30, 2003, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Interview with Joseph Nicola. 22 23

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Many of the small grocers were quite successful. One of these was John Wawee, who owned several grocery stores in Grand Rapids in the 1920s. When the chain stores such as Piggly-Wiggly and Meijers began moving into Grand Rapids, he could not compete and gradually sold off his stores. In other businesses, too, family members worked hard to succeed. The Yared family operated a restaurant on Division Street in the 1930s called the “Wholesome Café,” serving American food. Apparently, none of the early Syrian-owned restaurants—and there were several—offered Middle Eastern dishes on their menus; that cuisine was considered too exotic for the American palate. Alexander Yared worked long hours each day. One or another of his sons worked alongside him, and his wife, Mary, worked a few hours in the evening to give him a break. This was unusual because married women did not often work in public. She also baked all the pies for the restaurant. 25 Hattem’s was a very special restaurant in Grand Rapids, located at the intersection of Wealthy and Division Streets. Deeb Hattem started out with a confectionary shop there around 1910. He and his wife, Latife, lived in an apartment upstairs. They had one child, Moses. Deeb died relatively young, in 1926, and his wife’s cousin, Sam Maloley, ran the business for many years. Eventually, after Moses and his mother had spent six months with family in Syria in 1930, the son took a more active role in the business. After the end of Prohibition, they expanded it into a restaurant with a liquor license. It became one of the “in” places for Grand Rapidians. Congressman Gerald Ford became a customer and friend. The Hattems, Maxine and Moses and their four children, closed the restaurant in 1968 after fifty-eight years in business. 26

Interviews with Bedea, Wilson and Woodrow Yared [courtesy Yared family]. 26 Interview with Hattem family. He would be known as “Mose” to his many friends. 25

Hattem’s, corner of Wealthy and Division Sts., 1931 (Building has since been removed)

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Hattem’s cigar and soda shop, c. 1920 (Deeb Hattem on left, Moses Hattem on stool, cousin Maloley on right) Several of the wholesale companies continued to achieve business success for many decades. The Ellis brothers from Aita, for example, eventually became suppliers of produce to the chain stores. Joseph and George Ellis began the business on Market Street and then brought over their other brothers, Ed, Sam and John. The Ellis children labored there. By the time the firm moved into its own building on Ellsworth Avenue, Ellis Brothers had the biggest commission house in Michigan outside Detroit. They sold produce to Krogers and A&P. A. K. Malick and the Skaff family were also in the wholesale business nearby. 27 Edward Ellis became a leader in the community, and many came to him to co-sign notes when the banks had denied them loans. He signed a number of these, and when the Depression

Interview with Edward Ellis, October 2, 2003, Grand Rapids, Michigan. 27

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Ellis Brothers in front of business on Grandville Avenue. From right Fred Ellis, Edward Ellis and his son Kenneth behind him (unknown woman behind wheel); Sam Ellis and his son Bob behind him; John Ellis; George Ellis (two individuals on left side of photo are unknown). Late 1940s. came, he could not cover them. In 1937, the bank repossessed the fine home Ellis had built on Lake Avenue in the upscale East Grand Rapids neighborhood, and the family moved back to Hall Street, not far from where they had begun life in Grand Rapids. 28 This was only a temporary setback, however. The brothers still operated their wholesale produce business and did well with that when the Depression ended. Edward Ellis maintained good contacts in the larger community. He was a friend of Congressman Carl Mapes (1913–1939), who represented Grand Rapids. “Socially

28

Naff, 216. Edward Ellis, Jr. interview.

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he didn’t really mix with them, but he had business dealings and that sort of thing,” according to his son. The Abrahams operated another very successful enterprise. Beginning with a candy wholesale business in the late 1920s at 517 Division Street, they soon included tobacco as well. Sleyman Abraham and his eldest son, Abe, then sixteen, started the business together. The family, including Abe’s three younger siblings, lived upstairs. The business grew and today Abraham and Sons, represents one of the largest transport companies in the Midwest. In addition to the types of employment discussed above, the early Syrian immigrants in Grand Rapids worked as tailors, barbers, cobblers, poolroom operators and in many other similar small-scale business activities. In time Syrian merchants became part of the city establishment and acted accordingly. In 1932 in the depths of the Great Depression, Ellis Brothers, along with several non-Syrian wholesalers, petitioned the city commissioners to raise substantially the license fee to discourage irresponsible peddlers from selling inferior fruit and produce to local merchants “to the detriment of local and legitimate dealers.” Ironically, the imposition of such local fees had frustrated Syrian peddlers for many years. 29 The first generation Syrians, through dint of hard work and family cooperation had achieved remarkable economic success. Now, their children would have more choices. They could continue working in the family business or set up their own. They could also go to college and enter the ranks of professionals. Their parents’ hard work and frugal lifestyle had opened these possibilities.

29

City Commissioner Proceedings, City Archive of Grand Rapids.

III. UPON THIS ROCK One of the most important identifiers among the Syrian immigrants was religious affiliation. As mentioned earlier most of the Syrians who settled in Grand Rapids were Antiochian Orthodox. Despite its name, the patriarch of the sect had resided in Damascus since the fifteenth century. Like other Orthodox churches since the great schism in 1054 CE, its members had formally rejected the authority of the pope in Rome. Its priests were allowed to marry if they did so before their ordination into the priesthood. From an early date, they successfully established their own church in the city, something that Orthodox in other cities such as Fort Wayne, Indiana, whose community was older and quite large, were unable to achieve. In Fort Wayne many of the early Orthodox attended local churches, especially the Episcopal Church for which the Orthodox appear to have had a special affinity. They seemed to view the Episcopalian relationship to Rome as similar to their own. Melkites and Maronites, who were in union with Rome, often attended services in the local Catholic Churches. These were not absolutes, of course, and the Syrians attended a variety of churches wherever they did not have their own. It is difficult to know why the Fort Wayne community was unable to establish its own Orthodox church. Perhaps too many became accustomed to attending other churches, or too many of the community were peddlers and not in the city for long enough periods of time to take up this important civic project. For whatever reason, no Syrian church came into existence there until 1980. Yet Spring Valley, Illinois, Toledo, Ohio, and Grand Rapids established churches from an early date. In the very early years in Grand Rapids, many Syrians attended the Catholic church, St. Andrews, or the Episcopalian church, St. Mark’s, which were located close to the community. 57

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The Maris-Sayfee marriage in 1905 was performed according to the Episcopal marriage rites. A number of families, including the Fraams, Malicks, and Yareds, sent their children to St. Andrews school. Every few months, itinerant Orthodox priests from Toledo or further afield would visit Grand Rapids to say mass in Arabic and to perform marriages and baptisms in the Syrian community. Fortunately, Grand Rapids could claim an earnest group of Orthodox men, resident in the city, who seemed determined to establish a church as soon as possible. In North America, far from the seat of the patriarch, such men formed boards, which came to exercise considerable influence over church affairs. In the homeland, the clergy exercised greater control. Thus, in the first decade of the new century, committee members took the lead in establishing their own church. This was a milestone in the history of the community. Members of the smaller Greek Orthodox community, who did not yet have a church of their own, joined with the Syrians. The officers of the church society, Moses Salamy, president, Joseph David, secretary and Joseph Dahrooge, treasurer, were able to obtain enough commitments to proceed with purchase of land and buildings for the church on Williams Street near Ellsworth Avenue, in the heart of the district. The price was $3,200.00. The existing building was renovated. Partitions were removed, an altar placed at one end and pictures from the life of Jesus were added to the walls. The first services were held there to celebrate the Orthodox Christmas in January 1909. 1 Although this first church could only be temporary, as it was too small for the community, church leaders soon had to organize a special appeal to “American friends,” especially in the Episcopal community, to help pay the remaining debt. 2 While plans to establish the church had gone forward, Fadlo Abou-Assaley from Rashayya, a Grand Rapids resident, had been sent to Brooklyn, New York, at community expense to take religious instruction from Bishop Raphael Hawaweeny. The bishop

1 2

August 5, December 21, 1908, Grand Rapids Press. May 8, 1909, Grand Rapids Press.

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Front row (l to r) Chaffee, Theodore, and Alex Assaley; second row, Anna Romley, YamnaAbou-Assaley, Rev. Abou-Assaley, Moses Malick; third row, Abe Romley, Edward Romley, Nicholas Romley, NeumanAzkoul, Della Azkoul, unidentified, c. 1917. prepared him for the local pastorate. Abou-Assaley had received a good education in Syria and had taught in Baalbek and then for nine years in Russian schools elsewhere in his homeland before coming to the United States in 1906. He settled with his family in Grand Rapids and worked at the Sligh Furniture Company before being sent to New York. Abou-Assaley celebrated his first mass in Grand Rapids on Sunday, September 20, 1908. 3 They named the new church, St. George, after its namesake in Aita, perhaps. Who made this decision has not been recorded, but it soon became a focal point for the Syrian community. In early decades, services were usually conducted in Arabic and Greek, and Interview with Rosemary Sears and Mary Martin, June 24, 2003, Grand Rapids, Michigan 3

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they were long and elaborate in their ritual. The first Easter Services lasted two-and-one-half hours and the one hundred worshippers stood throughout. Dr. Salem Ghareeb, from Aita, who would later become an Archimandrite in the Orthodox Church, sang Greek hymns. The service began in the middle of the night in a locked and darkened church. The reporter for the Grand Rapids Press explained: The knocking at the church door was symbolical [sic] of Christ’s knocking at the door of sin and death to break the barriers of hell and open the gateway to heaven for his followers. One man is stationed inside the unlighted church and as the knocking grows louder he is heard to cry out in the Syrian tongue, `Who is this king of glory?’ Then those without answer him and the dialogue continues until the door is opened and the multitude without enters and the building lighted and the services continue appropriate to the resurrection. The service lasts until daybreak. 4

Father Abou-Assaley not only tended to the local community but also traveled widely throughout the region, visiting communities that had no priest. All of Michigan and somewhat beyond was his parish. In December 1908, he led the Grand Rapids delegation to the funeral of Salem Bashara, the well-known supplier of the peddlers, in Fort Wayne. Over the years, he frequently visited that city to satisfy the spiritual needs of its Orthodox community. In August 1914, Bishop Hawaweeny himself visited Grand Rapids, remaining for a week. There were many services and celebrations in his honor, for he was widely respected in the Syrian community. Hawaweeny, who began his religious career under the auspices of the Patriarch of Antioch, had continued his studies in Russia. When the Syrian colony in New York requested a bishop, the church in Antioch was too poor to help. The Russian Orthodox Church stepped in, sending then-Deacon Hawaweeny, May 2, 1910, Grand Rapids Press. Archimandrite refers to a celibate priest, who has been raised to an honorific rank, one level lower than bishop. 4

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who was still under the authority of Antioch, to America. The patriarch of Antioch allowed him to be consecrated by two Russian bishops. Hawaweeny was an activist when it came to the position of the Orthodox Church in America. In 1912, he had sent a letter to his clergy and people “forbidding them to accept the ministrations of Episcopalian clergy.” In this way, he attempted to bring back members of his flock who had strayed. 5 His death early in 1915 plunged the Orthodox Church in America into a period of considerable controversy. The problem arose over choosing a successor. Some within the Orthodox community preferred to have the new bishop chosen by the Russian patriarch as Hawaweeny had been. Others wanted to place the church in America firmly under the Patriarch of Antioch, who resided in Damascus. This dissension provided the catalyst for a split in the Grand Rapids community (and in Toledo, Ohio, and elsewhere as well.) That divide would last more than sixty years. When the Reverend Abou-Assaley returned from Hawaweeny’s funeral, he brought with him a document drawn up by pro-Russian clergy in New York, recognizing the authority of the Russian Patriarch to name a successor. Some members of the community refused to sign, and the controversy simmered. Reverend Abou-Assaley had many fine qualities, but in the emerging dispute his determination to pursue the truth, as he saw it and for which he had “ever been ready to make war when attacked,” as one author noted, worked against compromise if any were possible. 6 It seems certain that there was more at stake in this controversy than theological matters, for the split in the church community followed predictable lines. Those who favored Antioch traced their roots to Aita, while the Russian supporters came almost exclusively from Rashayya and its surrounding villages. The

Naff, Becoming American, 295. Ernest B. Fisher, editor, Grand Rapids and Kent County Michigan: Historical Account of their Progress from First Settlement to the Present Time (Chicago: Robert O. Law, 1918), 2: 29. 5 6

Parishioners with Bishop Hawaweeny, August 1914.

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Church of St. George, William Street, August 1914. First row standing, far left, Phillip Ghareeb; same row, 5th from right, Nellie Ellis; next to bishop, Salem Ghareeb, then, Nayf Bashara; next to Rev. Abou-Assalley, Nicholas Ghareeb; same row, 2nd from left, George Bashara; back row, 2nd from right, Salem Missad; 3rd from right, Mike Davis; 4th from right, Edward Ellis; 5th from right, Michael Howard (Awad)

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Patriarch of Antioch eventually appointed the Reverend Samuel David of Toledo—formerly of Aita—as archbishop in a new Diocese of Toledo and Dependencies. This gave added support to those opposing Abou-Assaley. 7 The crisis had come to a head in October 1917 when Archbishop Germanos of Zahle, representing Antioch, visited Grand Rapids for the second time. His arrival was associated with the move to form a new church in the Syrian community. It was announced that Dr. Salem Ghareeb, a longtime leader in the Grand Rapids church, who had been educated at the American University of Beirut and ordained in Toledo in 1915, would become the priest of the new church. 8 In December the dispute turned into a lengthy court case in which the Antioch (Aita) group, represented by Ghareeb, George Hanna, George Bashara, Michael Howard, Joseph David, Edward Ellis and others, many who had helped establish the first church in 1908, sought to enjoin Reverend Abou-Assaley and his supporters from exclusive use of the church property on Williams Street. To punish non-conformists, the priest had forbidden them access to St. George, they claimed. They not only asked the court to grant them the right to worship there but also to pass upon the right of the Russian Church to govern the Syrian (Antioch) Church. 9 One wonders how long this divisiveness had been simmering within the community between the establishment of the church in 1908 and 1915 when it first became public after Bishop Hawaweeny’s death. Did churchgoers from Aita grumble among themselves about having a priest from Rashayya? Did Rashayyans wonder why their church should not be named St. Nicholas as it was at home rather than St. George, which was the church in Aita? Village loyalties lasted a lifetime among first generation Syrian immigrants. Villagers lived together, worked together, socialized together, and intermarried, so it should not surprise that each group might have been more content within its own church. Archimandrite Serafim, The Quest for Orthodox Church Unity in America (New York: Saints Boris and Gleb Press, 1973), 110–111. 8 October 20, 1917, Grand Rapids Press. 9 223 Michigan Reports, June 1923, Hanna v. Malick. 7

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Archimandrite Jerasimus Ghareeb Salem Ghareeb did not live to see the results of the suit. He had taken the name Jerasimus when he was ordained. Later he became an archimandrite in the Toledo Diocese and was one of the

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original plaintiffs in the court case. During the war years he entered a troubled period marked by depression. His brother decided to return with him to Syria in 1918 in hopes of raising his spirits. Somewhere at sea Jerasimus Ghareeb disappeared forever. His presumed death was a great loss to the young community. 10 The court case, Hanna v. Malick, was not finally settled until June 4, 1923, after The Appeals Court affirmed the lower court’s decision. The file had grown by that point to eight-hundred pages in length. Basically the court determined that the original articles of incorporation dated October 1910—almost two years after services had begun—clearly indicated that the church would be under the authority of the Patriarch of Antioch and so they awarded the existing church property to the plaintiffs. Such court battles took place in a number of American cities at this time, as Orthodox congregations divided in similar fashion. 11 By the time of the final court decision the two congregations had opted to go their separate ways. In March 1924, the Russian group purchased property on Cass Avenue, just east of the Syrian neighborhood. They received financial support, not only from members of the Syrian community, but also from a number of local firms including Luce Furniture and Sligh Furniture, two large employers of Syrian workers. They would name their church St. Nicholas. The Antioch group laid plans to build a $40,000.00 church on LaGrave Street and Goodrich, also to the east of the original settlement. 12 The visit by a representative of the Patriarch of Antioch in April 1925 seemed to offer prospects for bridging the divide, but Ellis Khouri, the clerk of St. Nicholas, who came from a long priestly line, quickly squelched any such thoughts. He made clear that the two congregations had very different views about who should have authority in America, and they would have nothing to do with the St. George faction led, he said, by Edward Ellis. The separation has lasted, although since 1975 both churches have

Donald Ghareeb, Unpublished notes [Copy in author’s possession]. 223 Michigan Reports, June 1923, Hanna v. Malick. 12 March 22, 1924, Grand Rapids Press. 10 11

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found themselves within the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese under the authority of the Patriarch of Antioch. 13 Members of the second generation, most of whom were born after the split, were convinced that this was more an issue of personality and influence than of theology. “Religion had nothing to do with it really,” remarked a St. George parishioner, “they were the same... too many big cheeses. It was mainly because of . . . certain people that wanted to run things . . . It was strictly politics, really.” And as another concluded, “In this town, we should have just one church. But there are still some people on both sides, some of the older people will never let it happen. That’s too bad.” According to another member of the community, “The rivalry was very bitter. You can gild that a little bit and try to wash that over and say, ‘oh, they got along fine,’ but they didn’t.” 14 The two churches even took to burying their dead in different cemeteries. Woodlawn became the preferred last resting place for members of St. George, Oakhill cemetery for those of the St. Nicholas congregation. This tradition continues today. Over the years each congregation has followed parallel lines but with subtle differences. St. George, the smaller, and perhaps the more conservative of the two, has remained in the same building consecrated in 1926, choosing to renovate the existing structure as necessary rather than move elsewhere. No doubt this decision to stay put has been influenced as well by the beauty of the original, which is “an authentic duplicate of a Byzantine church from the Middle East.” St. Nicholas moved from Cass Avenue to Boston Street in 1958 and then to the Grand Rapids outskirts on East Paris Avenue in 2000, each time following the outward movement of population. 15 St. Nicholas was also the first of the two to begin to transition to the use of English in church services. As early as 1928, Archbishop Aftimios Ofiesh on a visit to Grand Rapids agreed to conduct services in English, Arabic and Greek at the request of the April 4, 1925, Grand Rapids Press. Interviews with Salem and Elaine Ghareeb, September 18, 2003, and Donald Ghareeb, September 9, 2003, Grand Rapids, Michigan. 15 Interview with Donald Ghareeb. 13 14

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young people of St. Nicholas. According to his secretary, Father Boris, “This church will thwart the drifting away of the young people.” The church began introducing English permanently right after World War II. According to one former parishioner; “our Archdiocese in The Orthodox Church has been very, very progressive in this country.” “St. Nicholas... made the change sooner and that’s why they were able to hang on to a lot of their young people,” concluded an admirer from St. George. 16 At St. George the process took place more slowly. Father Naseeb Wehby (1937–1943) tried to introduce a little English into the service in the late 1930s, as a third generation church member recalled: I was an eight-year-old kid, and it was important to me because here was this man who conducted the whole service in Arabic and finally when he was sermonizing he would turn, and we were all sitting in the front row, the Sunday school children, and we’d hear that and right away we’d sit up because we could now understand and he spoke to us in English and we got a sermon in English and we understood that and it was profound because it kept me coming to the church. 17

In spite of these small adjustments, Arabic was still used generally for services until the early 1950s. Father John Estephan, reflecting on the feelings among the first and second generations at St. George when he arrived in 1962, remembered that they couldn’t believe anything should change. When Dr. Michael Ellis became president of the church board, he tried to quicken the process, implying in his contacts with the older generation, “don’t you want your children to stay in the Church?” The service remained half English and half Arabic for many years. Today the priests in both churches are non-Lebanese and services are wholly in English. 18 September 15, 1928, Grand Rapids Press; interviews with Joseph Nicola and Donald Ghareeb. Thomas E. Fitzgerald, The Orthodox Church, Denominations in America, no. 7 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1995), 49. 17 Interview with Donald Ghareeb. 18 Interviews with Edward Ellis and Salem Ghareeb. 16

Church of St. George, LaGrave St., Grand Rapids.

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Foundation stone reads: “The Church of St. George the Syrian, 1925” What accounted, one wonders, for the relatively more conservative nature of St. George compared to St. Nicholas? Could it perhaps, be traced back to the origins of the two congregations? Rashayya was a distinctly larger community, a center for surrounding villages, geographically more open to movements through the region. Aita in contrast is considerably smaller and sits

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a fair distance away from other settlements at the head of a narrow valley. Another possible difference was that Rashayya’s population had long been composed of Orthodox Christians and Druze, both minorities in the region. The Druze, whose religious practices were secret, did not accept converts. Sunni Muslims and Orthodox Christians lived in Aita; the former had traditionally welcomed converts, and this perhaps added to the more cautious nature of the emigrants and their descendants. Whatever the former differences, today the congregations are remarkably similar. Lebanese make up approximately one third of each, the remainder composed of other Arabs, especially Palestinians, Orthodox from Slavic lands, especially the Balkans, and converts. One must take care not to overemphasize this division within the community, for the churches continued to play a central role in the life of the Syrians of Grand Rapids. Everyone could agree that their respective church was at the center of their social life at least until the end of World War II, and, for many, long after that date. As one elderly second generation respondent observed about St. George, “I was baptized there, I was married there, buried my mother, my stepdad, my husband, my daughter, I mean that’s my church.” 19 Attendance at Sunday service was mandatory, and children never thought about alternatives. They just got up and put on their best clothes for church. Most of the congregation was related in some way. There were few strangers. At St. George, the bishop’s huge chair sat on the right hand side, almost like a throne, or so it seemed to young churchgoers. Eventually, lovely stained glass windows and pews replaced the earlier frosted windows and folding chairs. Families became strongly identified with their church. The Ghareebs, for example, purchased two stained-glass windows, one for the family and one in memory of Archimandrite Salem Ghareeb. They customarily offered the Christmas Eve mass at the church. Mariam (Howard) Ghareeb would bake the (Oblation) Holy Bread for the occasion, carefully impressing the loaves with Interview with Margaret Haggai, February 25, 2004, Grand Rapids, Michigan. 19

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the Lamb, signifying Jesus, using hand carved molds. At St. Nicholas, the Nicolas, relative latecomers to Grand Rapids, became stalwarts of the church. Joseph served as sub-deacon for many years. His five children and their families attended the church. Daughter Barbara served as the first female president of the church council. Among the Yareds who attended St. Nicholas, Uncle Joe served as church caretaker, and Abe did chanting on Sunday. When the bishop visited he would talk with Alexander Yared and other men about church matters. Alexander also cooked for church banquets. Wilson, one of his sons, became president of the board. 20 The churches sponsored a variety of activities. According to one of the second generation, The Church was the focus, or the center of all the activity, and I think we fulfilled our social expressions through activities that were sponsored by the church. [We] would have dinners and celebrations, religious celebrations would end up in food and the women of the church were organized . . . to put on these wonderful Lebanese dinners, which they did frequently. And we mixed very thoroughly in the early days with each other. 21

At St. George, the Ladies Golden Link Society took charge of putting on benefits and organizing haflis or dinners, which were usually open to the general public. They were very successful. The women spent days beforehand preparing their special dishes to be served or sold at the church suppers. There would be cabbage and grape leaves stuffed with rice and meat and spices, roasted chunks of lamb on skewers (kabobs), small triangular-shaped pouches of handmade dough filled with meat, cheese or spinach and onion and baked golden brown, tabouli, hummus, baba ganouch, lots of flat bread and yoghurt. The churches would occasionally put on religious plays in Arabic about Joseph and mother Mary, and they used to wear Arab dress. They would gather for picnics at local recreational areas such Interview with Donald Ghareeb; Yared videotapes. Interview with William Azkoul, May 4, 2004, Grand Rapids, Michigan. 20 21

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as Townsend Park. Members of St. George still gather there once a year. Many families will show interested visitors photographs from these events in the 1920s and 1930s, with the priest seated in the place of honor at the center surrounded by his congregation. In spite of the strong spiritual attachment to their churches, members did not always contribute as they ought, for the practice in the old country had been that the priest should support himself. Woodrow Yared remembered his father saying, “They’ve got to put more money in the basket.” The daughter of the Reverend Abou-Assaley recalled that at first the parishioners “did not pay my dad . . . and then later, times were getting a little better and they decided that they could give him ten dollars a week, forty dollars a month.” 22 After the split, members of the two churches rarely mixed except upon some special occasion within the community such as the funeral of one of their leaders or the silver jubilee celebration of Reverend Abou-Assaley in July 1935. Occasionally, a daughter from St. George would marry a son from St. Nicholas or viceversa, and one or the other would change church affiliation. A rare disagreement with the priest of the day might precipitate a movement into the other congregation, but these were isolated events. Generally, one’s group of friends and associates came from the church. Although the Maronites and Melkites in Grand Rapids were fewer in number, they had strong ties to the Catholic church— St. Andrews—and to their own organizations within the church. The Melkites reached a point in the 1920s when they thought they might be able to establish their own church in the city, and they purchased a hall on south Division Street. At that time Father Gabriel Khouri, who was in Grand Rapids for a few years in the late 1920s, would hold services for the Melkites in the basement of St. Andrews. Subsequently, Melkite priests would visit the community from time-to-time, but a separate church never came into existence. 23

22 23

Yared tapes. Interview with Rosemary Sears. Interview with Adele Wise, October 4, 2004, Saranac, Micihgan.

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The Syrian Catholics did not completely disappear within the Roman Catholic Church. For many years, they had their own clubs, St. Ephraims for the men and the Sacred Heart Society for the women. In 1936, a youth group, American Organization of Syrians (AM-O-SY) was formed. Activities were similar to the organizations in St. George and St. Nicholas. Members of the Zainea, Najjar, Tesseine, Balish, Deeb, Skar, and Sarkees families were among those who took active roles in the clubs during their heyday from the thirties to the sixties. “When the Sacred Heart would hold Syrian dinners,” recalled Adele Wise, “they would get eight hundred to nine hundred people attending, many of them professionals, doctors and lawyers.” 24 As first and second generation members died, however, they were not replaced, and the men and women’s clubs ceased to exist, leaving only AM-O-SY, now made up of a small group of elderly men and women. One of the last members, born in 1915, compared her community to that of the Orthodox in Grand Rapids. She and others tried to get their children to join AM-O-SY, but they didn’t want any part of it, she said. The Orthodox were able to hold on to their children, perhaps because they had their own church. The Orthodox children belonged to everything concerning the church, she thought. “They had a closer watch over their children. They all worked hard for their church, which is great. I wish that we had done that.” 25 In the early years, members of the small Greek community in Grand Rapids attended services at St. George. In fact, the local press often referred to the church as St. George’s Greek Catholic or Greek Orthodox or Syrian-Greek Orthodox Church. They were all Orthodox with apparently only slight differences in religious practice. “It was not uncommon for one of the members of the Greek community to be a godfather to one of the children of these [Syrian] families. These communities were interrelated.” Only in

24 25

Ibid. Ibid.

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the mid-1920s did the Greek community organize to establish its own church, Holy Trinity, and engage its own priest. 26

January 3, 1914, Grand Rapids Press. February 11, 1926, GRP. Interview with Donald Ghareeb. 26

IV. THE FAMILY FIRST The only institution more important than the church to the early immigrants was the family, the center of the Syrian world. Traditionally, the individual was less important than the family, and members did all they could to maintain its honor and reputation. Any individual honor one might receive quickly transferred to the extended family, also any embarrassment. A good family reputation benefitted individual members in a variety of ways, when they sought marriage partners, for example, or when they wanted to enter into a business relationship. Family ties were especially important among the early arrivals in the United States because most of them came to join relatives already established here. In many cases uncles, brothers, cousins, fathers, husbands had paid for passages with their hard-won earnings. New arrivals shared accommodations with members of extended families and received guidance from them in seeking employment. After 1900, few Syrians came to Grand Rapids who did not already have relatives in the city. Although we may not know with certainty how the chain of immigration began, as time went on it became easier to see the process unfolding. We’ve already learned, for example, that the Abraham family was drawn to Grand Rapids through ties to the Hattems, who preceded them. In turn, the Nicola family was attracted in 1937 in the dark days of the Depression, due to encouragement from their Abraham relatives. George and Joseph Ellis from Aita came first, in the late 1890s. After working several years in the local furniture industry and peddling, they brought over younger brothers, Edward, Sam and John, in that order. Michael George Deeb and his wife Rosemary (Balish), Maronite Catholics, came to Grand Rapids around 1908 in part because Michael’s married sister, Mabel, lived there with her husband Deeb Balish, Rosemary’s cousin. One could 77

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go on. Every family in the old Syrian community had a similar story. As cousins often married cousins, at least in Syria and in the early years in Grand Rapids, family members could be related in numerous and sometimes—to outsiders anyway—confusing ways; but members of the community knew clearly how everyone was connected. They could also immediately recognize Syrian family names, remarking whether an individual was Maronite or Muslim or was associated with a particular village or region. This immigration process continues even today although at a much-reduced rate. Ghassan Ghareeb, an electrical engineer from Aita, came to Grand Rapids in the mid–1970s, brought by his father to escape the civil war then raging in Lebanon. His friend, John Awad (Howard), owner and operator of a Middle Eastern restaurant in Grand Rapids, came shortly thereafter for similar reasons. Jad Abou-Maarouf from Rashayya al-Wadi arrived in Grand Rapids in late 2002 to live with his relatives, the Sickreys, and to attend the local university. Families were patriarchal as in the old country. Fathers and husbands made the important decisions concerning members of the family. Decisions whether to leave Syria or remain, rested with the male head. Sleyman Abraham, for example, brought his wife and son to Kansas in 1920 and returned to Syria with his family, now consisting of four children, in 1926. These were chiefly his decisions. According to a member of the community, the authority of the father over his children extended practically until his death; he even shared and sometimes collected their wages when they were adults. In the case of the relationship between his own father and grandfather he writes the following: “He was also expected to contribute his earnings to the family coffer and help his father support the younger siblings. Even after his marriage, he continued to live in the family homestead and turn over his earnings to his father, who then gave him an allowance.” 1 Younger siblings, too, were subject to their older brother, who became head of the family upon their father’s death. In one case 1

Donald Ghareeb, Unpublished Notes.

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when a younger brother abandoned his place at the family restaurant to attend a ballgame, defying an express command, his older brother refused to speak to him for ten years. 2 Fathers maintained discipline, not with the rod, but with a stare or a raised eyebrow. “His eyebrows would raise up to the sky” remembered one daughter. Sometimes it was a hand gesture that could not be ignored. One interviewee recalled the following incident: When you visited some people’s homes, they’d always pass a plate of some candy or sweets or whatever. Kids were not supposed to touch anything. They pass a plate and fruit and you say no. You’d never take anything without first saying no three or four times. And they’d say please take something, and you’d say, no, no. Once we were visiting Mrs. Kamel’s home, and my dad and the rest of the family were sitting around the room, and she came around with a plate of oranges, and they looked so good, so I took one. I was right opposite my dad. My dad, all I saw was his hand, he moved it about a quarter of an inch. You know what that meant? “Wait ‘till I get you home.” 3

Wives and mothers usually worked long hours in the home. Families were large and labor-saving devices few. First generation women might have the assistance of live-in sisters-in-law, daughters-in-law or mothers-in-law or the added burden of brothers-in-law, uncles and so forth. Many families took in boarders—often distant relatives as well. Mary Yared had a husband and four sons and a daughter to care for. She did up twenty-six starched white shirts each week. Her husband bought her a washing machine and ironing machine as soon as these items became available. She baked bread in basement ovens and prepared kibbe, a dish of bulgur (wheat), chopped meat and spices, in heavy granite bowls, also in the basement. Once her husband opened the restaurant on Division Street, she baked all the pies and in the Videotaped interview with Wilson Yared. Videotaped interview with Bedea Yared. Interview with James Abraham. 2 3

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evening she cooked at the restaurant while her husband went home to eat his dinner. Mothers and daughters worked together to preserve foods for winter. Joe Nicola recalled his mother canning and processing prodigious amounts of fruit and vegetables for the long winters in North Dakota. 4 Men, too, were hard workers. Alexander Yared never stopped, according to his children. In addition to operating a string of businesses over the years, he helped prepare food for church suppers. He baked a wonderful fish with tahini for guests at home. Bertha George remembered that her father “worked like a dog” to make a living. With eight children demands were great. “My father was very aggressive, he saved up enough money and built a beautiful home on Alexander Street.” Men turned from one enterprise to another when necessary. They were rarely idle for long. Few members of the Syrian community sought public assistance. Used to hard work in the old country, they were quite prepared to turn their hand to any kind of employment when necessary. Uncle Joe LaHam, who was badly injured in a train accident, delivered fliers and served as janitor at St. Nicholas for years. Then, too, they could fall back on the extended family for support when absolutely necessary. Alexander Yared assisted his brother’s family in the early years. 5 Many men of the first generation died relatively young. Alexander Yared at fifty-five years (1938), for example, Deeb Hattem at forty-four (1926), Nick Fraam at twenty-nine (1920), Neuman Azkoul at thirty-eight (1933), Joseph Ellis at forty-two (1924). Husbands were often considerably older than their wives, so they frequently left young widows and small children. In some cases this caused hardship for the survivors. Domina Fraam, who had two young daughters, did dressmaking, sold insurance and took in boarders after her husband died in 1920. She did this for eight years until she remarried. Her first husband had been in the restaurant business with his brother, but her brother-in-law “didn’t

Bedelia Yared interview. Joseph Nicola interview. Yared interviews. (Tahini is a sauce made from sesame seed oil and spicy seasonings.) Bertha George interview. 4 5

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Syrian funeral. Rev. Abou-Assaley officiating give her the money she should have had out of the business,” recalled her daughter, “they just didn’t take care of her as the widow.” She took the extraordinary step of going to court to obtain her share. 6 Neuman Azkoul sold insurance for the Wisconsin National Life Insurance Company and left a $10,000 policy that his widow used to pay off the mortgage on their home on Neeland Avenue. Della (Nimmer) Azkoul never worked outside the home, but her sons Edward who was thirteen and William who was eight worked whenever they could after their father’s death, shoveling walks, mowing lawns, cleaning out butcher cases. William recalls dutifully giving his mother whatever he earned from selling magazines and Interview with Karen and Mary Henry, June 24, 2003, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Frequently, photographs of the deceased, surrounded by mourners, were sent to families in the old country. 6

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so forth, thinking he was helping to support the family. “When I graduated from high school, I got a job. She said you’re not working, you’re going to college, I said how can I go to school. She had saved every cent. It took me through two years at junior college, that’s how I went.” He went on to obtain his law degree from Wayne State University. 7 One of the more unusual situations involved the family of Joseph Ellis, who died in 1924 at age forty-two. He had six children with his first wife, Bedelia, who died in an automobile accident during World War I. Joseph needed a wife and a mother for his children so he arranged to marry Frieda (Faridi) Ghareeb in Aita in 1920. He knew her father, who had once lived and worked in Grand Rapids. The marriage took place in Syria, and they returned on the maiden voyage of the Providence. Joseph’s younger brother, John, his wife and their infants returned with them. The two women stayed in their cabin throughout the voyage while the men wandered about the ship and in the ports of call and brought back gifts and stories for their wives. Joseph and Frieda moved into a new home on Giddings Street, where Margaret was born in 1923. Having six stepchildren was difficult, and once her husband died the following year, the situation became impossible. The eldest stepdaughter did not accept her new stepmother, and Frieda finally took her infant daughter and left the home her husband had built for all of them. The four surviving Ellis brothers took charge of the six children. Margaret always believed that the family had treated her mother badly; she had to work for a living after her husband’s death. Frieda spoke little English, so she moved into the Syrian community on Division Street, living in an upstairs apartment over a cousin’s grocery store. For years she worked at the Madison Square Laundry; it was tough work. Later, after World War II, she married Sam Kallil, a distant cousin. Growing up, Margaret remembered crying because all her cousins had siblings and fathers and she had neither. “And my poor mother … she’d cry right with me.” She would try to explain that Margaret could not live with her brothers and sisters because they did not want her. “And these are the things that hurt me because they hurt her so badly.” Over the 7

Interview with William Azkoul.

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years, as they grew older, the stepchildren became closer to Frieda, and she would cook Syrian dishes for them. Margaret had only fond memories of her step siblings and her cousins. 8 Women in the Syrian community showed remarkable strength and adaptability as wives, mothers and widows. Rosemary Deeb managed very well after her husband died in 1951. Her daughter believed that in earlier years her mother actually had been making many important family and household decisions but letting everyone, including her husband, Michael, think that he was making them on his own. 9 Dr. Richard Elias remembered that his mother, Karima, was very strong-willed, with a dominant personality. His father always had to struggle for control of the family. They were headed for California when they stopped in to visit his wife’s Grand Rapids relatives in 1923. They never left. 10 Some women went to work outside the home after their husbands died or became too ill to work. Rose, who had come to Grand Rapids in 1929, went to work for the first time in the late 1940s at Gantos Department Store, a Syrian concern. She became a top salesperson. She got her first driver’s license then as well. Widows wore long, black dresses, many for the rest of their lives. During World War II one widow was urged to end her mourning so that her three sons, who were going off to war, would remember her in something brighter. After her sons had returned safely from the war, she was urged again to put away her black clothes. But widows did not easily put these aside, even when pressed to do so. 11 Traditionally the birth of a son brought great joy to a Syrian family; the response to the birth of a daughter was more muted. Karen Henry remembered that her paternal grandfather was not happy when her mother had daughter after daughter and no son. Interview with Margaret Haggai, February 25, 2004, Grand Rapids, Michigan. 9 Interview with Jacqueline Deeb, September 2004, Grand Rapids, Michigan. 10 Interview with Dr. Richard Elias (telephone), May 23, 2003. 11 Interview with Bedea Yared.. 8

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“And he made it very clear he was unhappy.” Bertha George recalled that “the boys were kings and the girls were nothing in that day. My dad worshipped the [4] boys.” Parents raised their sons and daughters differently. Sons were given more freedoms and privileges. One daughter recalled how it would amuse her father when he heard his eldest son say, “son of a bitch,” because that was what young men were supposed to say. It was considered manly. 12 Daughters were kept closer to home and were less free to mingle with girls and certainly boys from outside the family. Traditionally, the honor of the family was closely tied to the purity and good reputation of its women. Bedea Yared was the only daughter and the only family member not allowed to work at her family’s restaurant. Her mother was very strict with her although her father less so. She didn’t know anything about life. “Nothing.” She never had a boyfriend but went out mainly with her brothers and cousins, although once she started working, she went out with girlfriends as well. Elaine Ghareeb remembers that her husband’s sisters had to do all the ironing for their four brothers. “They hated it; they resented it.” Adele Najjar stayed home all the time until she was married; she was very protected. “It was considered more important for the boys to be educated than the girls.” Mike Wawee remembered that his sister graduated from South High School with honors, but she was not allowed to go to college, “because too many things could happen.” 13 Rosemary, remembering how strict her mother was, recounted this story: “I’d loved bicycling, but we couldn’t afford to get one, my brother had one, and he was very possessive of it.” Her friend at Central High School offered to come by after school with her boyfriend and let Rosemary ride his bicycle while he waited on her porch. “Well, I was upstairs changing my clothes, and I hear this, ‘Rosemary, Rosemary’ and my mother comes to the door and says ‘Yes?’ ‘Well, we’re waiting for Rosemary to come to play.’ Well, Interviews with Karen Henry and Bertha George. Donald Ghareeb, Unpublished Notes. 13 Interviews with Bedea Yared, Elaine Ghareeb, Adele Wise (Najjar). Interview with Mike Wawee, May 27, 2003, Grand Rapids, Michigan. 12

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she sees that boy and she said, ‘No, go home.’ ” Her only girlfriends were from the Syrian community—actually from the St. Nicholas community—whose parents were just as strict with their daughters. 14 Mary had wanted to become a nutritionist, but her parents said that would take too long. They didn’t want her to go away to college, so she attended a local business school. Her brothers went to college. 15 The issue of differing standards for raising girls reached the pages of the nationally circulated Syrian World at the end of the 1920s. It became a heated debate when one young Syrian woman sent a long letter criticizing restrictions placed on girls by their parents. Girls wanted more freedom, she argued. This was a common theme of discussion among her friends. “Here in America,” she wrote, “we must put aside those foolish ideas of the past and the Orient.” Time would gradually resolve this issue. 16 Nevertheless, traces of these restrictions lingered into the third generation. Karen, born in 1944, remembers: “Mom and Dad were really strict with me. I was the first-born and so they were really tough on me, and I wasn’t allowed to do slumber parties like other girls my age . . . And boys had to pass major inspection before I could go out with them. And I couldn’t stay out as late as any of the other kids. I was not happy with that.” 17 One of the most important family decisions involved choosing a husband or wife. In Syria’s traditional society this was often a simpler affair and could be arranged between families or more likely within the extended family. In the United States, marriage arrangements became more problematic. At first there were many more single men than women in the community. Some men returned home to marry their betrothed, others arranged for a bride to join them in America. As the number of eligible young men declined in the villages, it was not unusual for a group of

Interview with Rosemary Sears. Interview with Mary Henry. 16 October 1929, The Syrian World. 17 Interview with Karen Henry. 14 15

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young women to travel to the United States together to live with relatives, to work and to find husbands. Parents wanted their children to marry within the community. A second generation interviewee recalled that only a Syrian woman was acceptable to his parents. “I brought a [non-Lebanese] girl home from college. Oh, my God, that was the worst mistake I ever made in my life.” He remembered his dad chasing his sister’s nonSyrian suitors down the driveway with a baseball bat, totally enraged. Although this represented an extreme, parents could indicate their preferences in more subtle ways. Mixing only with other Syrians, especially those from the church community, they hoped would lead to “proper” marriages. 18 When the Orthodox Church created regional organizations in the Midwest and beyond, young people could come together at annual summertime conferences and become acquainted. As marriage prospects declined in Grand Rapids, and American-born children showed less interest in choosing a bride or groom from the old country, these gatherings became an important source of suitable marriage partners. Second generation Syrian men from Grand Rapids often married women from communities similar to their own in Akron, Toledo, Worcester, Buffalo and elsewhere. 19 Even when children married within the community they might challenge traditions and parental expectations. Sam Yared decided to marry only six months after this father’s death. His mother thought this was too soon, she was still in mourning and wanted him to wait until the traditional year had passed. The wedding ceremony went ahead as scheduled, but without Sam’s mother in attendance. 20 Try as they might, many of their children married outside the community, and this frequently led to tensions within the family. Among Bertha’s many siblings only she and her sister Hanna married Syrian men. The others married Hollanders, Polish and so Personal interview, May 29, 2003, Grand Rapids, Michigan. James Abraham (and his children), William Azkoul, Edward Ellis, Jr., and Moses Hattem, were among those who met their future spouses in this way. 20 Interview with Bedea Yared. 18 19

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forth. “At first it was not good, but later on they [parents] were very good to them.” Don recalled that his father’s younger brother married a Bohemian woman, and it was almost a riot when he brought her home. “Of course, my grandparents were very upset, but they adopted her and she became a part of the Lebanese community.” Margaret, an only child, married a Syrian man, but he came from a Baptist family, which presented its own problems at first for her pious Orthodox mother. Eventually, she came to love her son-in-law. “She babied him,” recalled his wife. 21 There appeared to be no clear pattern regarding the impact of mixed marriages on the local churches. Some couples stayed within the church community, others left the ethnic-based churches. Some Syrian couples, especially professionals, left St. George and St. Nicholas for more mainstream denominations. Many of the early immigrants arrived as children. Other children were born in the Syrian “colony” and grew to school age, speaking largely Arabic. This made for some temporary difficulties when they arrived for their first day at school. John explained that his cousin dropped him off on his first day at Alger school in 1941 and did not tell anyone he could not speak English. “So I sat there for a few days and didn’t say anything.” Finally, the teacher called his mother saying she thought he might be retarded. “Well, my poor mother didn’t know what mentally retarded meant, but it didn’t sound good.” She came to school and managed to explain the problem, and the teacher worked with him at recess for a few months. 22 As a young girl, Margaret spent much of her time with her widowed mother, who spoke only Arabic, and when she began first grade at Lafayette School in 1929, she knew very little English. In later years she always had trouble at school with English grammar. Moses could not speak English when he began at South Division school in 1917, and the teacher got mad at him. She told his

Interviews with Bertha George, Donald Ghareeb and Margaret Haggai. 22 Personal interview, May 29, 2003, Grand Rapids, Michigan. 21

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mother and father, “you’re in America here!” You weren’t supposed to use Arabic. 23 Adele Najjar (b. 1915) could speak very good Arabic as a child. In fact her father was so proud of her ability that he would take her to meetings at St. Ephraim’s and ask her to speak with the men. They were surprised because none of their own children could do so well. When Jim Abraham came back with his family to Grand Rapids from Syria in 1928, he could not speak any English. They put him into second or third grade—they were both held in the same room. His teacher, Mrs. Lundquist, was very nice; she worked with him, and he learned to speak it quickly. 24 As these examples suggest, Arabic could become a casualty of the acculturation process. Some parents only spoke their native language with each other or with their peers and rarely with their children. They wanted their children to become “good” Americans and for that, they believed, they needed to master English. Those children who went to school speaking Arabic soon learned English, and unless they had special circumstances such as an elderly grandparent living with them at home, they had little occasion to use their parents’ language. “My grandmother lived with us,” recalled John, “and she didn’t speak a word of English, never learned any, other than, ‘I can’t speak English.’ She would sign for coal deliveries with an “X,” I remember that. Yes, we spoke pretty much Arabic when we were at home. And then after my grandmother died, it was fifty-fifty. We started one sentence in Arabic and ended in English or vice-versa, that sort of thing.” Donald’s grandmothers taught him to speak Arabic, and he spoke it whenever he visited his grandparents. He spoke it quite well as a child but forgot most of it through lack of use over the years. At home he and his parents spoke only English. 25 Rosemary and Margaret each learned to speak Arabic quite well as children because they were at home much of the time with

Interviews with Margaret Haggai and Moses Hattem. Interviews with Adele Wise and James Abraham. 25 Personal interview, May 29, 2003. Interview with Donald Ghareeb. 23 24

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their widowed mothers. Rosemary’s older brothers, who were out of the house more than she was, learned little of the language. An exception was the Abraham family. Mrs. Abraham didn’t speak English. She did all her shopping in the neighborhood, and shopkeepers got to know her and what she wanted. Her children continued speaking Arabic with her when the family returned from Syria in 1928, probably because the children were all fluent. Even they, however, eventually lost their facility through lack of use. 26 A very few parents tried to instruct their children in Arabic. Abdo Yared, who would later become an Orthodox priest, tried to “pound” the language into his and his brother’s children. John Missad encouraged the American-born children, not only to learn Arabic but also traditional dancing and music, for he was an accomplished musician. Theirs was a difficult task, for the children often “rejected what they considered too remote and alien to their American lives.” 27 Edward Ellis recalled that his father tried to teach him the Arabic alphabet, but he was stubborn and would not try. “We kids, we just kind of in a way rebelled; it was not quite American.” Even those who learned to speak colloquial Arabic did not know how to read or write the language, which would have facilitated the learning process. As the first generation passed on, there were fewer and fewer opportunities to use the language. 28 The controversy over language also reached the pages of the Syrian World in June 1922, when the editor observed that young Syrians were failing to study and learn Arabic because they were “ashamed of their language” and, by extension, of their ancestry. This sparked many letters, pointing to the practical problems of learning Arabic in America, including the lack of instructors and materials, the dearth of courses in high schools and colleges and most of all to the failure of parents to encourage their children to study Arabic.

Interviews with Rosemary Sears and Margaret Haggai. Interview with James Abraham. 27 Interview with Bedea Yared. Donald Ghareeb, Unpublished Notes. 28 Interview with Edward Ellis. 26

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Some children of immigrants clearly had issues, as they say, with their parents or grandparents’ “Oriental” backgrounds. Margaret admitted that at one time she was ashamed of her ethnic background. Elaine’s children would remind their grandmother to “talk English” when they were out in the town so as not to draw attention. 29 This was often a response to various incidents of discrimination, which produced a strong desire to fit in. Although discrimination rarely took the form of physical threats, many adults could recall uncomfortable incidents as children, especially at school. Adele related that the Syrian children were made to feel inferior. “Among the kids you always felt different . . . Years ago being Syrian or Italian was about outsiders, and people really picked on us.” She went on to explain that “we were ashamed of our food and everything.” 30 Richard remembered being a loner at South High School. His only friends were Syrians because there was considerable prejudice against dark-haired, dark-skinned people of the Mediterranean region. Later, as a young dentist, he believed he was not invited to some parties because of his ethnicity, even though he saw himself as part of the larger community. Margaret remembered discrimination at school; she was ostracized. She spent most of her time at Ottawa Hills High School with her cousin. They joined the Senior Girls League but didn’t feel comfortable. This, she admits, was perhaps as much a social class issue as an ethnic one. Recalling an incident many years later at Burton Junior High, however, she had no doubt that it showed discrimination. Her son was a rascal and frequently in trouble with the teacher. When they went for a conference the teacher said right away, “I knew I was going to have trouble with him with his dark hair and his dark eyes.” 31 Bill Azkoul remembers moving from the Syrian colony out to Neeland Avenue in 1929. It was a conservative Dutch neighborhood. “They called us names . . . wops and dagos and Interviews with Margaret Haggai and Elaine Ghareeb. Interview with Adele Wise. 31 Interview with Dr. Richard Elias, May 23, 2003. Interview with Margaret Haggai. 29 30

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whatever other name they could think of, and they were just not friendly people . . . I think we all kind of went through it in those days.” 32 John had similar memories of another Dutch neighborhood where his parents had bought a nice home. “The people had already signed the papers. The lady that owned the house tried to stop my parents from buying it. She took a hammer and puts holes in plaster walls.” They moved in anyway and soon were accepted. 33 Mike’s parents were not so fortunate in 1929. Expecting their first child, Mike’s father, a grocer, offered to rent an advertised two-bedroom apartment in a nice building managed by one of his customers, who lived in the building. Her response: “John, you know you speak broken English, and I don’t know what my tenants would say.” 34 In spite of isolated problems at school, Syrian parents placed a high value on educating their children. To read a long article in the Grand Rapids Herald one would have concluded that the situation at the South Division Street School was almost ideal. This was, of course, a school with an immigrant majority, representing thirteen different nationalities, the Syrian being the largest at the time. The principal made several positive comments about her Syrian charges. Although, she reported, when they first entered they tended to be rather dull. (Perhaps, her observation reflected the initial English language problem.) They quickly “woke up,” however, and progressed faster than any of the other foreign children. 35 A number of young men from the community were soon seeking tertiary education. The first of these to complete his studies was Nayf George Bashara, nephew of the late Salem Bashara of Fort Wayne. He had attended Central High School in Grand Rapids and won the State interscholastic contest in his senior year there. He received his law degree from the University of Michigan in June 1923. After his graduation the community gave him a rousing reception at the Rowe Hotel in Grand Rapids with many Interview with William Azkoul. Personal interview, May 29, 2003. 34 Interview with Mike Wawee. 35 December 20, 1908, Grand Rapids Herald. 32 33

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visitors from Detroit, Toledo and Lansing, including Supreme Court Judge John S. McDonald and Senator William Alden Smith. Edward Ellis, one of the unofficial leaders of the Syrian community served as toastmaster. The young lawyer went into practice in Detroit, where he later was elected circuit court judge and became honorary Lebanese Consul-General. Bashara was the first of many in his generation. The two Deeb brothers attended Notre Dame—their family was Maronite Catholic—and Joseph Deeb became a United States Attorney. The Deeb daughters also attended college, something of an anomaly in the interwar years. Dr. Arthur Tesseine graduated from St. Louis Medical School in 1932. Young Richard Elias worked his way through seven years of college, 1927–1933, graduating from the University of Michigan dental school. They both set up practice in Grand Rapids. Sam Yared studied engineering at Western Michigan University, 1927–1929, and worked as a chemist for the Kelvinator Company in Grand Rapids. His younger brother, Woodrow, received his bachelor of science degree from Michigan State University in 1939. This was the beginning of what would become a flood, interrupted only briefly by service in the military after the entrance of the United States into World War II in December 1941. But we should not rush ahead with the story and neglect the social life of the early community or the ways in which members entertained themselves during those first decades, for here we can see how little traditional practices had changed. The Syrians socialized very much among themselves, and there was little mixing with the broader community at that time. This was before the age of movies and night clubs, which the second generation found so alluring. Eventually, some of the older Syrians joined the organizations of Middle America such as the Elks, the Eagles, or the Lions Club, but that came later. Members of extended families would gather at their different homes in what were commonly known as sahras or evenings. These were frequent events at which men would sit in a circle, exchanging the latest news and telling stories about the old country, all, of course, in Arabic. This was often the only instruction in cultural heritage that the children would receive, and if they found these occasions boring, as many did, they might end up knowing very little about the homeland or its traditions. Occasionally, a youngster

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would find these gatherings of great interest and would listen carefully to the oral history being recited, but they were exceptions. The women would serve Turkish coffee and a variety of treats, such as a mixture of boiled wheat, walnuts, anise and sugar, called ummah (amah). The men also played card games and backgammon. The Dabakey family owned a phonograph and several recordings of Arabic music, which proved a big attraction. 36 Edward Ellis remembered that his father’s home was open all the time, a tradition carried over from Syria. “If it wasn’t, people would not turn to him. This was as true in the United States as in the old country.” Twice a week they had sahras. Ellis had become a leading figure in the local community, highly respected, so that when problems arose, people would come to see him. Physically, he resembled many of the men in the community, with black hair and brown eyes. At 5’ 9”, however, he was a few inches above the average height. In his younger years he weighed about onehundred-fifty pounds. Ellis spoke English almost without accent. He had begun studying the language at the Russian Orthodox Missionary School in Aita when he was a boy. According to his son, he was a kind of fixer. At one time his goddaughter was having problems with her husband; she came to Edward Ellis, who worked things out discreetly. 37 Sunday afternoons were reserved especially for visiting or entertaining family and friends. “My mother would drag me to go visiting every Sunday, to this uncle, to that aunt,” recalled Margaret H. “That was what we did. So, she kept me in with the family, where most widows will pull away, not her.” Eddie C. remembered clearly those Sunday visits. “After church ... Uncle Ferris and Aunt Regina would come over and Aunt Zahour, and they’d be drinking Turkish coffee ... and serving the sweets and stuff.” Sometimes the priest would come as well. He recalled listening to “the old Arab singers, Umm Kulthum ... the old 78s ...

36 37

Donald Ghareeb, Unpublished notes. Interview with Edward Ellis, Jr.

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Sunday family picnic, pre-1914

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Rev. Abou-Assaley and Bishop Hawaweeny, August 1914. Outing in Ada, Michigan, home of Harris Joseph, farmer.YamnaAbou-Assaley next to her husband; Salem Ghareeb driving second auto from left in background.

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spinning around. We’d hear that and my uncle George would get out the derbeky [drum] and start playing sometimes.” 38 Holidays were very special times for visiting. At Christmas and Easter younger people visited the elders first, and then the elders visited them later in the day. “Easter day was a festive all-day affair, celebrated with large quantities of good food, fancy pastries and sweets, and arak [anise vodka] and other drinks. At Easter, of course, it was also the custom to ‘crack eggs’ for good luck and to symbolize the regeneration of life.” Visitors from out of town were especially welcome, and there was a lot of traveling back and forth among communities in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. 39 In the summer large family groups would go off for picnics along the banks of the Grand River or out into the countryside, perhaps to Ada. Wagons and later cars would be packed to overflowing with people and baskets of homemade food and drink and off they went after attending church. Salem Ghareeb remembered those occasions well. “All the old men would go someplace down the road there, all sit in a circle . . . They had their booze [arak] and their mezzes [snacks] . . . They’d sit away from the kids and the families.” The women socialized and looked after the children, who waded in the creeks and played games. Pleasures were simple, but these few short hours gave some respite from busy routines and long work days. 40 Food was the center of Syrian life whether at home or at church. Women prided themselves on their skill in preparing traditional dishes for which Syria would later become famous among the general public. Women baked a variety of traditional breads in their own ovens. “My mother used to make the best flat bread in the city of Grand Rapids,” recalled Salem, “so thin you could barely see it. I don’t know how she did it without poking her

Interviews with Margaret Haggai and Edward Cassis. Umm Kulthum (1899–1975), an Egyptian, was perhaps the most famous singer in the Arab world. She began her concerts in the 1930s. 39 Donald Ghareeb, Unpublished Notes. 40 Interview with Salem Ghareeb. 38

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hands through it.” There was also tulami, round and much thicker. “With all those kids all she ever did was cook,” he explained. 41 The Yared brothers, who went to Catholic Central High School, used to bring some non-Syrian friends home occasionally. They loved to sit in their mother’s kitchen and eat her Middle Eastern dishes, which were completely new to them. “I’m not that good at cooking American foods,” remarked Margaret Haggai. “It’s the Lebanese foods that I do well.” “I never had beef until I was in high school . . . All we had was chicken and lamb.” Her mother cooked wonderful lamb dishes at a time when few Americans ate that meat. Kibbe, cabbage rolls, stuffed grape leaves, meat pies, meatballs, rice with pine nuts, stuffed green squash, baklava, these were dishes central to the Syrian diet. 42 Women not only had to feed their own families, but they worked hard preparing dishes for church dinners also. Sometimes they had to bring along their own pots and pans and cooking utensils. These events, open to the public, provided much-needed funds for the local churches. The essence of the first generation, then, was hard work and lots of it. Men and women did all they could to establish themselves financially, to provide for their children and to support the church. They made adjustments where appropriate in favor of Americanization, while maintaining complex links to the larger Syrian community in the United States and beyond. In retrospect, they were remarkably successful. 43

Ibid. Woodrow Yared interview. Interview with Margaret Haggai. 43 Gualtieri, 152. 41 42

V. A MUSLIM MINORITY The Syrian community in Grand Rapids was overwhelmingly Christian. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Muslims generally did not emigrate to non-Muslim lands. They might have wondered how they could practice their faith in such environments. “Christian societies were perceived as unfriendly, if not hostile, to Muslims.” It was always easier for Christians from the Middle East to adjust to life in the United States. More of their fellow believers had emigrated, and thus they could rely for support on a stronger network of relatives and friends. 1 A small number of Muslims lived in Grand Rapids, however, from early in the twentieth century. Some of the railroad workers were Muslims. Most of these were transients and single. Some of them boarded in the Syrian colony, which was not far from the railroad yards, but they did not purchase property or make a lasting impact on the community. They arrived and departed to new assignments on the railroad, without much notice. The press sometimes seized on the flimsiest evidence to trumpet an outbreak of Christian-Muslim “warfare.” In November 1906, for example, a fight between two workers, a Muslim and a Christian, at the Pere Marquette roundhouse, caught the paper’s attention. The Press returned to the subject of religious antagonisms a few years later at the time of the overthrow of Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II by the so-called Young Turks in far-off Istanbul. Claiming that “the spirit of the Crusades is revived,” the reporter cited Muslim-Christian enmity as the reason for a recent fight ending in a knifing. The paper singled out that hatred “long felt between the followers of Mahomet and Christ” as the root of the 1

Naff, Becoming American, 84.

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incident. Racializing the incident, the reporter referred benignly to the Syrian Christians gathered on one side of the courtroom, while “the other section of the room was filled with the swarthy followers of the Prophet Mahomet.” The case was soon resolved peacefully out of court, perhaps to the chagrin of the reporter; it seemed that affection for a young lady was in large part responsible for the fight. One of the Press’s last forays into threats of communal violence came in August 1913 with a bold headline announcing, “Christians in City Fear the Mohammedans.” Once again the reporter cited “age-old hatreds,” which had resulted in “horrors and atrocities, which have shocked the world.” He thought the recent Balkan Wars (1912–1913) between the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria, Greece and Rumania—all Christian nations—had triggered this recent threat. Local Muslims had supposedly been praying “to the Prophet” for success of the “terrible Turk.” They had, he reported, been amassing a war chest to pay any fines local Muslim warriors might incur as a result of violence against the Christians in the local colony. According to the reporter, cooler-headed Christian leaders had so far been able to maintain the peace. That these articles showed little understanding of Islam is not surprising; that they conjured such an unlikely menace suggests deeply held suspicions toward Islam and its adherents. 2 Said Zehra, store owner and president of the local Muslim society, quickly put rumors of impending warfare to rest, pointing to the miniscule number of his co-religionists in the Christian city of more than one-hundred thousand. Any organization among his fellow Muslims was for charitable and benevolent purposes only. Besides, he added, Syrian Muslims had little love for the Ottoman sultan, who had oppressed them, too. They just wished to be left alone to get on with their work and their lives. News of the Balkan wars may have agitated the local press, it seems, more than it had the Muslim community. 3

2

November 29, 1906, March 29, 1909, August 2, 1913, Grand Rapids

Press. 3

August 5, 1913, Grand Rapids Press.

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The realities of life within the Muslim community in Grand Rapids were far less titillating than the reporter would have had his readers believe. The permanent Muslim residents of Grand Rapids and environs probably numbered no more than seventy-five individuals prior to World War II. Several single Muslim men came to work in the city both before and after World War I. Badoui Arafat spent the decade after 1914 living with a cousin and working in Grand Rapids. After laboring on the railroad and in local factories, he opened a grocery store on Ottawa Street. Having saved his earnings, he returned to Syria in 1924, where he purchased a bus and started a bus line. After he married, he would reflect fondly for his children about his days in America. His daughter, Ayse, would later marry Said Chamelly, a merchant, who came originally from Khirbitrouha, and return with him to raise her own family in the city, where her father had lived and worked as a young man. Muhammad Yeggie came to the United States in 1907 and settled in Grand Rapids soon after. He worked successively as a peddler and a railroad laborer, and eventually opened a grocery store on Finney Street. He served in World War I and married relatively late in life, on the eve of the Second World War. Muhammad Nemer owned a junk business. He also had a house on King Street and later on Graham Street, where several of the single, Muslim men lived. Nemer returned to Syria after he retired and spent his last years there. There were few Muslim women in this community. According to Alixa Naff, “The immigration of Muslim and Druze women was, at this time, virtually nonexistent. The conservatism of their societies effectively restricted their migration. Muslims `felt it was immoral to take their women to a Christian land.’ ” Hence, many Muslim men lived as bachelors, especially in the early decades of the twentieth century. Those who did marry were more likely than their fellow Christian immigrants to marry outside the faith because the pool of eligible Muslim women was so small. 4 Only a few Muslim couples and families resided in the local community, among them, the Abbassees, Abrahams, Ahmeds, Browns, Gorleys, Katips, and the Yeggies. Alex Brown was a 4

Naff, 90. Gualtieri, 139.

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barber and Milhelm Ahmed and Muhammad Abraham owned stores in the area. Abdo Katip served in World War I and was a fifty-year employee of the Pennsylvania Railroad. The Abbassee family was especially important because Muhammad Said Abbassee and his American-born wife, Elsie, had eleven children, born between 1913 and 1935. Their home, first on Wealthy and then Finney Street and later east of Division, became a regular gathering place for the small community. Muhammad Said Abbassee came from the Beqaa Valley, from the village of Khiara south of Zahle, and traveled to the United States in 1906 at age 22. He joined a cousin, Ahmad Smiley, in West Virginia. Earlier Abbassee’s father had made two trips to this country and returned home with enough money and good tales to encourage his son to try his hand there as well. The young man worked in a coal mine, peddled, and ran a restaurant in Logan, West Virginia, before joining the Pennsylvania Railroad and moving to Grand Rapids in 1916. Before coming to Grand Rapids, he had married Elsie Waldron, who converted to Islam. She not only gave up her faith but her citizenship as well, for until 1923 that was the law for women who married non-citizens. For decades she did not vote until her daughter-in-law discovered in 1960 that a simple oath of allegiance could restore her citizenship. The Abbassees had two young children when they arrived in West Michigan. Muhammad’s cousin, “Charlie” Hussein Abbassee, who never married, also lived with them almost from the beginning of their married life. Muhammad and Elsie were observant Muslims, praying and reading the Quran daily. They raised their many children to be practicing Muslims, and they all continued as such into their adult lives. The family fasted during Ramadan, the sacred month when Muslims are expected to abstain from eating or drinking each day between sunrise and sunset. They celebrated the two major Muslim holidays, one at the end of Ramadan (Eid al-Fitr) and the other marking the end of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca (Eid al-Adha). The community was too small to support a local mosque, but they supported each other. “You could go to them if you needed help of any kind,” recalled Selma (Abbassee) Obermeyer. Twice a month members would assemble to pray and to celebrate. Much of this activity took place at the large Abbassee home. Some families

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Muslim graves at Fairplains Cemetery

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would bring favorite dishes. Single men would contribute chicken or lamb, and Elsie and her daughters would prepare it. “You ate and ate all day long . . . they cooked twenty-five pounds of flour at one time,” remembered Ahmed Abbassee (b. 1930). These frequent get-togethers helped them maintain a sense of community. 5 Imam Hussein Karoub, a religious leader from Detroit, would travel to Grand Rapids once or twice a month. He always came for funerals. Karoub had come to the United States in 1912 from Majdel Anjar in the central Beqaa Valley, and he returned there in 1921 to marry. In the states he journeyed far and wide, to Kansas and Massachusetts and many places in between, ministering to Muslims. To help keep small groups like that in Grand Rapids in touch with developments in the larger community, he sent out his own newspaper, The Muslim Sunrise. He preached a liberal brand of Islam, showing flexibility, which he thought important in the American environment. Some have referred to him as “the father of Islam in America.” 6 As members of the first generation in Grand Rapids began to age, they decided to purchase a section of Fairplains Cemetery in the northern part of the city as a burial ground for members of their Islamic Society of Western Michigan. The first burial there took place in 1929. A visitor today will find thirty or more headstones set flush to the ground, many inscribed with names in both Arabic and English. Four of the Abbassee children married Muslims. Youngest son, Ahmed, married Helen Ash, whose parents immigrated separately to Saskatchewan from Qaraoun at the southern end of the Beqaa Valley. There were not many Muslims in that distant part of Canada, so when Helen’s father, a peddler, first heard of this family from his hometown, he decided to travel the sixty miles to visit them in Shaunavon. There, Alec (Ali) met his future wife, whom he courted and later married. He was thirty-six, she just Interviews with Ahmed and Helen Abbassee and Selma Obermeyer, April 16, 2004, Grand Rapids, Michigan. 6 Abbassee interviews; Naff, 246, 303; Karoub Family Papers, box 1, Bentley Library, Ann Arbor, Michigan. 5

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eighteen. They moved to Windsor, Ontario, across the river from Detroit, in 1943, where Ahmed eventually met Helen. Two of Ahmed and Helen’s three surviving children are practicing Muslims. 7 The Abbassee children remembered no instances of conscious discrimination related to their religion. Selma related a story from her tenth-grade world history class, which revealed more than anything a lack of knowledge about the faith. The class was about to study Islam, and the chapter was titled “Mohammedanism,” a term which Muslims have long rejected but which had wide use among non-Muslims as late as the 1950s. [This term was a product of the early days of Islam, when Christian detractors out of ignorance or malice taught that Muslims prayed not to God but to the Prophet Muhammad, which is, of course, inaccurate.] Selma, a shy student, rarely spoke up in class, but she raised her hand when the teacher spoke repeatedly about “Mohammedanism.” She pointed out that that term was incorrect, that it should be “Islam.” “No,” the teacher replied, “it says so in the book.” 8 The early community has largely disappeared. Since the late 1960s another Muslim community has arisen in Grand Rapids, drawing its members from a variety of Muslim states in South Asia, the Horn of Africa, the Balkans and the Middle East. It has successfully established two Islamic centers. Its members have little knowledge of that earlier community, whose pioneering generation lies buried at Fairplains. Interactions with members of the Syrian Christian community were cordial but infrequent. They came from similar regions of the old country, and they lived and worked in the same district in Grand Rapids in the early years, but not being family nor attending the Orthodox churches, the two pillars of the larger community, they had little reason or occasion to come together. I have discovered, however, at least one very interesting exception to this general rule. As mentioned earlier, far fewer Muslims than Christians immigrated to the United States. Thus, they did not have access to the kinds of kinship networks available 7 8

Abbassee interviews. Ibid.

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to the more numerous Syrian Christians. In some cases, therefore, a young Muslim eager to set off for America would travel in the company of a Christian friend, who had connections in the United States. Such was the case of Yusef (Joseph) Ahmed Nejem, a Sunni Muslim youth, who came to the United States in 1901 with his boyhood friend, Edward Ellis. He came from a fairly well-to-do family. The two boys grew up together in Aita, and when Edward’s turn came to join his brothers in Grand Rapids, Joseph opted to go with him. Their friendship lasted a lifetime. Soon after they arrived in Grand Rapids, Nejem opened a general merchandise store at 208 South Market Street. There were several shopkeepers from Aita nearby, including Mike Dahrooge and George Hanna, and he must have enjoyed discussing local events and the news from home with them each day in their native Arabic. Soon, however, he decided to move to the lakeside village of Grand Haven at the mouth of the Grand River, where it empties into Lake Michigan. It seems an improbable destination for a young Muslim at the beginning of the twentieth century, and we do not know why he left the city and moved to this small town, which would remain his home for over sixty years. 9 Although it was located approximately thirty miles from Grand Rapids, Ellis and Nejem maintained their friendship. The young Muslim remained a bachelor, but he enjoyed frequent interaction with Ellis’s growing family of five sons. Nejem spent almost every other Sunday afternoon at his friend’s home. He never learned to drive an automobile, and so he would take the electric interurban car in the early years and the bus after the cars went out of business in 1929. Later, one of the Ellis boys might serve as chauffeur, picking him up in the morning and driving him home again in the evening. 10 Nejem owned a wholesale candy and tobacco store on Washington Street in downtown Grand Haven. Over the years he

9

Mokarzel and Otash, The Syrian Business Directory, 1908–1909, 288–

289. 10

Interview with Edward Ellis, Jr.

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Joseph Nejem, 1969

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bought a good deal of property and several buildings near that business and lived in an apartment above one of them. He prospered. In the 1920s he opened the Air Dome Open Air Theater next to his main place of business. On dry summer nights, for ten cents, audiences could attend performances by local talent or traveling vaudeville. His friend Al Merzo sold “oriental” sweets during intermission. 11 Nejem welcomed Merzo and his partner, Hussein (Sam) Rukieh, to Grand Haven just after World War I, and he helped them set up the Pineapple Café on Washington Street. The two, young Muslims had emigrated together and peddled for a while in Minnesota before coming to live near Nejem. After a few years they closed the café and purchased a hotel in Muskegon, ten miles to the north, a terminus for the cross-lake ferry. 12 He was generous to several of his nephews in Beirut and to one in Detroit, Mahmud, who married a young Muslim woman from that city. When Richard Elias was preparing for dental school, he went to see Nejem in Grand Haven to ask for a loan. Nejem had to turn him down, explaining that he was supporting his two nephews in Syria at the time. Years later, he provided for his many nieces and nephews in his will, twice as much for the men as for the women as prescribed by Islamic law. 13 One of Ellis’s sons, Edward, Junior, was particularly close to Nejem, who took him to school on his first day along with the boy’s mother. He was like a father to him. “Junior” eventually went into business with Nejem in Grand Haven and built a house there in 1951 for his wife, Josephine, and their growing family. When Nejem retired in 1960, he left the business to his friend’s son. 14 Nejem was one of the individuals in the Syrian community to whom others might turn in time of need. He allowed coreligionists, Ahmed Alley and Muhammad Said Abbassee, both of Dave H. Siebold, Grand Haven in the Path of Destiny: A History of Grand Haven, Spring Lake, Ferrysburg and Adjoining Townships (Grand Haven: Tri-Cities Historical Museum, 2007), 835. 12 Interview with Layla Rukieh, April 19, 2004, Toledo, Ohio. 13 Interview with Dr. Richard Elias. 14 Interview with Edward Ellis, Jr. 11

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Grand Rapids, to take out a poolroom license there in his name, and he deposited a $1000.00 bond because he was not a resident of the city. Abbassee had originally been denied a license for the poolroom at 89 Market Street, which had been in business since 1923. In denying Abbassee the license the city commissioners had cited “the past record of this place and the further fact that petitioner is unable to properly converse or understand the English language.” He supported them again when the city refused to renew their license because it was claimed Alley and Abbassee had allowed minors to play pool and had allowed betting there as well. The police claimed that the poolroom had become a public nuisance, with men loitering outside, making insulting and profane remarks to women passing by. In June 1929 the three men instituted a case in the Superior Court against the city clerk and the city commission, challenging their refusal to renew the license. The judge found for the defendants. Shortly thereafter, Edward Ellis, no doubt at Nejem’s urging, applied for the license, and it was granted (with conditions). 15 Nejem was a founding member of the Rotary Club in Grand Haven. He served as chairman of its International Information Committee for many years. He remained active in Grand Haven until his death in 1970. Edward Ellis, senior, died soon after, but not before he had arranged for his old friend’s remains to be returned to Aita, as he had wished. In this way Nejem showed his continued attachment to Lebanon even after all those years abroad. He was interred alongside his parents in the little cemetery behind the village mosque. Nejem apparently had acquired a sizable library and, of course, much correspondence over the course of a long life. Unfortunately, all of this was lost after his death at age eighty five. Although almost everyone in the Christian and Muslim community knew Joseph Nejem, not all the Christians knew that he was a Muslim. Perhaps, that was because he advocated a liberal brand of Islam and always emphasized the similarities among the three Abrahamic faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. He said privately to Edward Ellis, Jr., “I’m as good a Christian as I am a 15

Superior Court Law Case No. S-3336.

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Muslim,” which sounds distinctly like Sufism or Islamic mysticism. His obituary in the Grand Haven Tribune referred to him as “a combination of Presbyterian-Muslim.” In one talk he gave to the local Rotary Club, comparing Christians and Muslims, he observed that “they walk the same paths in their beliefs and religious practices, stumbling over the same obstructions.” 16 He was remembered as a gentleman, always well dressed, never speaking sharply or harshly to anyone. He was very thin, and at approximately five feet eleven inches tall, well above the average height of Syrian men. Some irreverent children referred to him as “Andy Gump” after the cartoon character. “He was precise about everything he did, where to eat, when to eat, what to eat.” He was a vegetarian; his favorite dish was mjederrah, a mixture of wheat and lentils, which he would often request when he visited Syrian friends for dinner. 17 He was careful, fastidious, with fixed ideas about his daily schedule, which always included listening to and later watching the news. Politics interested him a great deal, and he kept abreast of developments in the Middle East over the years. In Syria he had only completed the eighth grade, and he was largely self-taught, but by all accounts he was a wise and wellinformed man. “He should have been a college professor,” remarked Edward Ellis, Jr. Joe Nicola reported that his older brother, Nick, would often go over to Grand Haven to consult with Nejem, whenever he read something that needed explanation. “He was a fine man . . . everybody liked him, he was very close with our people,” recalled Margaret Haggai. He was asked to speak at Father Abou-Assaley’s Silver Jubilee celebration in July 1935. He enjoyed more than a local reputation and was often invited to speak in different parts of the state. He considered himself an Arab-American long before the term became widely used. In October 1933 following the death of King Faisal I of Iraq, he was the principal speaker at a remembrance ceremony in Flint, and a June 5, 1970, Grand Haven Tribune. May 8, 2002, Grand Haven Tribune; Joseph Ahmad Nejem, “Where is the Frontier?” Unpublished speech [Courtesy, Clarence Poel]. 17 Interviews with Edward Ellis, Jr. and Layla Rukieh. 16

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few days later in Detroit he shared the platform with Imam Karoub, as well as with the mayor of Highland Park, and representatives of the local Arab community. As tensions increased in Palestine after World War II, he became a board member of the Institute of Arab American Affairs, founded by leading members of that community, including Professor Philip Hitti of Princeton University. The institute, headquartered in New York City, lobbied against establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. 18 In early 1948 Nejem made his first return visit to Lebanon. He left his business in “Junior’s” care, saying he would return in three months’ time. He stayed away for most of the year. These were tumultuous times, with the declaration of the state of Israel, the expulsion of the Palestinians known as al-Nakba, and the war between Arabs and Jews. Nejem would have become absorbed in these grave matters. There were urgent family problems to address as well. A decade later he visited not only Lebanon and Syria but also Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt. He had audiences with former King Saud ibn Abd al-Aziz in Riyadh and King Hussein in Amman. In Cairo he was given an honorary degree. After his return he continued to advocate for peace in the Middle East. He published articles in Arabic-language newspapers here and abroad, presenting his impression of American history “and the position of America on the Arab world in general and the Palestine problem in particular.” 19 He lobbied every administration from FDR to Richard Nixon, and he sent numerous letters to his friend Gerald R. Ford, who had been his congressman before redistricting. He wrote the last of these just three months before his death. He pointed to the continuing problem of the Palestinian refugees and Israel’s Institute of Arab American Affairs, Box 2, Philip Hitti Papers, Arab-American Collection, Immigration History Research Center, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN. 19 March 10, 1970, Ford to Nejem and attachments, folder: Middle East, March 1970, box 171, Ford Congressional Papers, Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, Ann Arbor, Michigan. 18

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continued defiance of United Nations resolutions upholding the right of return for Palestinians. The UN, he believed, had caused the Palestine problem, and it must find the solution as well. 20 Nejem established contacts everywhere, locally, nationally, internationally. His career illustrated the broad range of relationships that often developed within the Syrian diaspora.

20

Ibid.

VI. A COMMUNITY TRANSFORMED Despite limited contacts with the larger community, the Syrians did not exist in a vacuum. The language barrier and residence in a separate quarter kept them on the margins for some time, but they could not escape what was happening around them. In addition to the local press, many of them would have read, at least irregularly, one or another of the Arabic language newspapers published in various cities in the early decades of settlement. Not surprisingly, the most successful of these were published in New York City, which claimed the largest Syrian community in the country. There were papers representing the Catholic-Syrian perspective (al-Hoda, 1898) that of the Orthodox (Meraat al-Gharb, 1899) and of the Druze and Muslims as well (alBayan, 1911). According to Alixa Naff, these papers by establishing themselves “on a sectarian basis ... did not address themselves objectively to the overall Syrian community and were thereby unable to generate a broad readership.” 1 The English-language paper, The Syrian World (1926–1935) enjoyed notable influence before falling victim to the hard times of the Great Depression. This paper, like the others, carried news of events in the United States as well as in the old country. Abdo Yared, Alexander Abou-Assaley, and Fred Tesseine, each served for some time as the Grand Rapids special correspondent for The Syrian World. Most members of the community arrived during the Progressive years (1894–1917) when Americans were seeking to reform every aspect of their society. They focused especially upon the modern city, “huge, complex filled with people of many 1

Naff, 327.

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nationalities and diverse customs.” They expected to end corruption and introduced new forms of urban government such as the commission-manager system to achieve that purpose. In Grand Rapids, the new charter received approval in 1917. Gone was the board of twenty-four aldermen; it was replaced by an elected city commission of only seven members. The number of city wards was reduced from twelve to three. The mayor lost much of his power in this transformation, for the city manager, chosen by the commissioners, now ran day-to-day affairs. This came after the ten-year reign of Mayor George E. Ellis (1906–1916)—no relation to the Ellises of Aita—who, his opponents charged, had favored the interests of labor over that of the employers during the contentious furniture strike of 1911. 2 Reformers wanted cleaner, healthier, more orderly cities and the movement to tear down shacks along the Grand River, which, incidentally, deprived Syrians of their cheapest housing options, can be seen as part of that movement. In an attempt to standardize procedures, for example, city officials recommended as early as May 1895 that all wagons and other vehicles of “hucksters” and peddlers of fruits and vegetables should have bright sheet metal numbers on their sides 5” x 3” in size, with year of license clearly indicated. These were to replace the irregular, hand-painted numbers of earlier years. 3 There was a rising chorus of concern over the proliferation of poolrooms and saloons. In November 1899 Moses Salamy’s request for a saloon license at 209 Market Street brought a petition in opposition from twenty-seven concerned citizens. They set forth their argument as follows: “Believing the morals of this particular vicinity to be at low ebb, we can see no chance for improvement by the addition of a saloon.” Several years later Salamy sought a

November 18, 1908, Grand Rapids Press. Linda Samuelson, Andrew Schrier, et al., Heart and Soul: The Story of Grand Rapids Neighborhoods (Grand Rapids Area Council for the Humanities, 2003), 81. I have been unable to find any evidence of the Syrian role in this strike. 3 City Commissioner Proceedings, City Archive of Grand Rapids. 2

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poolroom license nearby at 201 Division Street. His request elicited opposition once again, and he withdrew the application. 4 The Progressive movement encouraged the formation of a number of associations organized to regularize activities of members and nonmembers alike and to provide enhanced status. In Grand Rapids one such organization was the Retailers Association of Grocers, which sent out “spotters” to enforce the ban on Sunday trading. This had significant impact on the Syrian grocers, and one of their number, George Bashara, brother of Salem and father of Nayf, was cited for violating the law by being open and doing business at 139 Cherry Street. Several stores had been open that Sunday, but only Bashara received a warrant, which had been secured by Fred N. Fuller, president of the association. The Syrians were angry, believing that this action had unfairly singled out one of their number (and especially a grocer who had probably not joined the association). Bashara eventually had his day in court and, no doubt to the chagrin of Fuller, was found not guilty. 5 Schools became a favored institution for inculcating American values in newly arrived immigrants. Progressives touted the transformative power of education. In February 1908, the mayor and the board of aldermen cautioned the board of education not to cancel the city’s night schools three weeks early. They are, remarked Mayor Ellis, “no longer an experiment but a necessity,” affording “the best opportunity for assimilating the foreign population and teaching them the English language.” The Missionary Union, representing the various city churches, strongly supported their appeal. 6 In a feature article about the South Division Street School in 1908, a decidedly immigrant school, where Syrian children represented the largest ethnic group, the principal, Helen Sauers, was quick to point out how well the different nationalities got along, studying and reciting “in perfect harmony.” Teachers Ibid. November 17, December 29, 1908, Grand Rapids Press. 6 Official Proceedings of the Board of Education of the City of Grand Rapids, Michigan, May 6, 1907- May 4, 1908. 4 5

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emphasized, of course, the beneficial use of English, and Sauers provided an example of the positive impact of this message. She told the story of a young Chinese student, who cried inconsolably when he could not master his lesson. His teacher finally called upon another Chinese student to see if he could console him. When the boy started speaking in their native language, Chu Lum leapt to his feet shouting angrily, “You stop talking Chinese to me.” The Progressive penchant for racial categories and paternalism toward immigrants came through starkly in the same piece. The writer, Abe Geldhof, referred to “that slant-eyed Chinese lad who will some day be a rich purveyor of chop-suey” and “the representative of darkest Africa, whose ambition at this primitive stage in his life extends even as far as the wearing of the full dress suit of a hotel waiter.” 7 The Syrians and Greeks of Grand Rapids made clear their opposition to any thought of being lumped with the Chinese and Japanese, who had been denied citizenship. They came to the United States, it was argued, prepared to educate themselves and become good American citizens. Syrian national leaders met with President Taft in 1910 to present the case that they should be eligible for naturalization. In response to the message of reform, the Syrians of Grand Rapids established their own associations, in which they placed strong emphasis on becoming American. The Young Syrian American Society was set up to aid members in need. Officers had to be American citizens and prospective members had to have good morals and declare their intention of becoming citizens. The trustees, Michael Maloley, Albert Ayoub, Michael Aboosamra, Deeb Hattem and Assad Kaleefey, all came originally from Rashayya or its vicinity. 8 The Syrian Apostles of Peace society had a different emphasis and included a greater variety of members from the Syrian community. Their chief objective was to improve the condition of Syrians in Grand Rapids by patriotic and philanthropic effort. It regularly taught the laws and customs of America to the uninitiated. Three hundred members attended the annual meeting in a flag7 8

November 1, 1909, Grand Rapids Press. November 3, 1913, Grand Rapids Press.

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draped hall in January 1914 to listen to three hours of speeches (in Arabic), extolling the freedom and happiness of life in the United States compared to that within the Ottoman Empire. Salem Ghareeb served as president of the society. 9 Ghareeb helped out in many ways during these early years, as did Michael Howard, also from Aita. Howard would accompany Syrians to court or go with them to the public authorities and interpret for them. He had taught himself to speak English and helped newer arrivals over the rough spots. When war broke out in August 1914, the Syrians quickly expressed their concern for parents and other relatives left behind in the old country. Once the Ottoman Empire entered the war on the side of Germany in October 1914, emigration slowed to a trickle. Some immigrants became trapped in Syria at the outbreak of war. Ferris Nicola was one of these. He was now an American citizen, but Turkish authorities, not recognizing dual citizenship, seized his papers and planned to draft him. He fled and spent the war years in northern Syria away from his family. Eventually, he was able to return to the United States with his family and settle in Grand Rapids. 10 Even before the Ottomans officially entered the war, the leaders in the local Syrian community related tales of hardship. Abdo Yared told of letters received announcing conscription for all men aged fifteen to forty-five, which left few laborers to bring in the harvest. Prices of food were rising rapidly, and it appeared that the poorer classes would suffer disproportionately. The Grand Rapids Syrians could not get funds to their relatives easily, and they could not bring them out of the country to safety in America. Neither could the United States government guarantee transmission of any funds sent by members of the local community. In Damascus hundreds of Syrians with American citizenship flew American flags from their rooftops and followed the honorary United States consul, a Syrian, around the city each day, seeking his protection. 11 January 5, 1914, Grand Rapids Press. Interview with Joseph Nicola. 11 September 18, 1914, Grand Rapids Press. 9

10

Apostles of Peace, August 1914 (Rev. Abou-Assaley and Bishop Hawaweeny at center. First row, center, Salem Ghareeb, Edward Ellis on his left, Nick Romley at end of row on his right).

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As the Allied blockade on Ottoman territories tightened, conditions became even more difficult. Much of Syria had depended on other regions for food imports, and these were cut off due to wartime conditions. Famine gradually spread throughout the region and thousands died before war’s end. The Syrian relief committee in New York, which had channels for sending aid to affected areas, urged all Syrian communities to send them relief funds as soon as possible if they wished to save their fellow countrymen from starvation. The Syrian Apostles of Peace took the lead in this endeavor, headed among others by Salem Ghareeb, Abdo Yared, George Hanna and George Bashara. They arranged a benefit performance of an English play at Powers Theater in the city. In November 1917, a mass meeting was held with the support of the city’s mayor to highlight the suffering of Syrians and Armenians and to raise much-needed charitable funds. Throughout the war the group continued to raise money that it forwarded to what became the American Committee for Syrian and Armenian Relief in New York City. It also became possible for individuals to send limited amounts directly to their families through the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions. 12 During the course of the war, Syrians in the United States sent millions of dollars to the old country via various charities and relief operations. There is no precise figure because there was no record of funds sent via other channels such as the Papal Legation and the Spanish Embassy. As American entrance into the war approached, Syrians displayed their support for President Woodrow Wilson, drinking toasts to his health, to the Stars and Stripes and to America, their home. The Yared family even named their twin sons, born in 1917, Woodrow and Wilson after the American leader. The local community sent a petition to the president expressing the wish that Colonel Theodore Roosevelt lead them on the battlefield. (This suggestion would not have pleased President Wilson.) Once hostilities began in April 1917, Syrians enlisted in record numbers. Joseph M. and Philip M. Kayal, The Syrian-Lebanese in America: A Study in Religion and Assimilation (Boston: Twayne, 1975), 119. March 6, 1915, November 17, 1917, Grand Rapids Press. 12

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By war’s end 15,000 of them, 7 percent of the entire community had served in the United States armed forces. 13 Grand Rapids provided its share of soldiers for the American Expeditionary Force. Women in the community wanted to contribute to the war effort in some way as well, and a number of them registered during one busy week in late April-early May 1918, offering their services as volunteers. They represented only a small number among thousands of American women who registered, but in addition to attesting to their patriotism, these records provide a rare glimpse into the lives of these largely immigrant women. Of the twenty-three for whom information has been found, nineteen were born in “Syria” and eighteen of these spoke “Syrian” well. (It is interesting that none of them referred to their language as Arabic.) Fifteen were married. None of this group worked outside the home, whereas all but two of the single women did so. Eighteen of the registrants lived in the “colony,” and nine of them could not read or write English. Thirteen had some elementary education; another seven indicated no formal schooling. Six of the latter and three of the former could neither read nor write English. (A few indicated they could not speak it either.) One suspects that a number of these women were illiterate in both languages. Seven married women indicated that they were in poor health. Not surprisingly, the women with most children were also most likely to report poor health. The married women, ranging in age from twenty-one to forty eight, had forty-four children among them, but six women accounted for thirty of this total. Skills offered fell almost entirely within the domestic category, especially crocheting, knitting and sewing. There is, however, no indication whether the authorities in Grand Rapids called upon any of these women for service before the war ended in early November 1918. 14 Despite their patriotic and energetic support for the war effort and relief, the 1920s confronted the community with challenges, locally, nationally and internationally. After the war the movement to restrict immigration, especially of the new immigrant variety, February 7, 1917, Grand Rapids Press. Women’s Committee of the Council on National Defense. Grand Rapids Unit Records. Collection 174. Grand Rapids Public Library. 13 14

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that from southern and eastern Europe and the eastern Mediterranean, gained momentum. As the end of the war approached, leaders of this movement acted to block millions of would-be immigrants. Congress passed a temporary measure in 1921. This set up a quota system for the first time, allowing into the United States 3 percent of the total number of immigrants for each nationality according to the 1910 census. For the Syrians, this came to slightly over nine hundred individuals (3 percent of 30,000). In 1924, a permanent and more restrictive bill, using 1890 as the base year, when there had been relatively few “new” immigrants in the United States, also lowered the percentage to 2 percent. The bill passed despite the opposition of President Calvin Coolidge and Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes. Syria received a quota of one hundred twenty-five, which was less than 1.5 percent of the more than nine thousand who had entered the United States in 1913, the peak year. Special allowance was later made for families to be reunited, without reference to the quota. This came thanks to the intervention of Senator David Walsh of Massachusetts, who counted sizable numbers of Syrian constituents in the Bay State cities of Lawrence, Boston, Fall River, Worcester and Springfield. Nevertheless, this measure effectively shut down non-European immigration for a generation. As a result, between 1920 and 1940 the percentage of foreign-born Americans declined from 13 percent to 8.8 percent. (Corresponding figures for Grand Rapids were 20.7 percent and 12.4 percent.) In tandem with immigration restriction came a renewed emphasis on racial purity bolstered by a resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan, with its millions of members. It now became a national rather than merely a regional organization. In a famous court case in South Carolina in July 1914, a judge determined that George Dow, a Syrian, was not eligible for citizenship because of his dark skin color. The Syrian community challenged this decision, and eventually, in Dow vs the United States, the United States Circuit

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Court of Appeals determined that Syrians were part of the Caucasian race and thus could become citizens. 15 Still, there were racial attacks such as the following handbill, supporting J. D. Goss for coroner, which appeared in Birmingham, Alabama, (where there was a large Syrian community) during the campaign of 1920: They have disqualified the Negro, an American citizen, from voting in the white primary. The Greek and Syrian should also be disqualified. I DON’T WANT THEIR VOTE. If I can’t be elected by white men, I don’t want the office.16

This represented just one in a long line of racist insults hurled at the Syrian community. In a heated Senate debate in 1929, David Reed (R-Penn) referred to Syrians as the “trash of the Mediterranean . . . The penitentiary group let out on condition they emigrate [sic] to America.” Although Senator Walsh again came to their defense, such racist attacks triggered a debate within the Syrian community over whether or not they could ever be fully accepted in America. 17 There seemed to have been few such doubts in the Grand Rapids community. In addition to a youth movement aiming to Americanize the St. Nicholas congregation by introducing English more widely into services there, local leaders established the SyrianAmerican Confraternity to stimulate Americanism and “to make of the Syrian people good representative citizens of the United States.” Ellis Khouri served as its president. Under a bold title, “Grand Rapids Syrians Nearly 100% American,” a January 1928 feature article reported that most of the members had become Naff, 256–257. In Between Arab and White, Sarah Gualtieri argues that securing status as whites also became an issue “of distancing Syrians from blacks and Asians in the discourse on race.” 72. 16 Eric J. Hooglund, “From the Near East to Down East: Ethnic Arabs in Waterville, Maine,” 77. In Crossing the Waters: Arabic-Speaking Immigrants to the United States Before 1940 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1987). 17 Raouf J. Halaby, “Dr. Michael Shadid and the Debate over Idenity in the Syrian World,” 63. In Crossing the Waters. 15

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American citizens. They were hardworking, thrifty and patriotic, quintessential American virtues. Many now owned their own homes—another American milestone—and their residences had become more scattered throughout the city. 18 As another marker of its adaptiveness, the civic-minded community presented a number of theatrical performances in Arabic, thereby encouraging amateur talent. The group seemed especially attracted to Shakespeare’s work, including in its repertoire Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet and Richard III, all of which had been translated by Tanous Abdo, a well-known Syrian poet. Members from both the Orthodox and Catholic Syrian communities participated in this activity. The city continued to do its part after the war to Americanize its foreign-born residents. The chief naturalization inspector in Chicago attended a Grand Rapids board of education meeting to stress the importance of Americanization classes in the schools. The board’s education committee recommended expanding already existing English language and citizenship classes. The city commissioners voted unanimously to ask the board to budget money for seeking out alien residents and encouraging them to enroll in these classes. The Boy Scouts of America also became involved in this program. 19 All of these various measures to stimulate Americanization clearly had an impact. Between 1919 and 1928, there was a rush to apply for citizenship. Most of the one hundred or so new Syrian applicants in Grand Rapids had come to the United States long before World War I but had not troubled to change their legal status. Also, with the disappearance of the Ottoman Empire in 1923, it became easier for them to opt for American citizenship. 20

January 24, 1928, Grand Rapids Herald, June 22, 1927, September 15, 1928, Grand Rapids Press. 19 Official Proceedings of the Board of Education of Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1919–1920, 467. Official Proceedings of the Board of Education of Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1923–1924, 131, 234. 20 Gualtieri, 85. 18

St. George acting group, mid-1920s: 2nd row: lst person left, John Missad; 3rd person, Joseph Nejem; third row, 3rd person from left, George Karrip, 5th from left, Nicholas Ghareeb, 6th person, Edward Ellis

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They represented many trades but almost all were selfemployed or worked as skilled craftsmen in the furniture trade. Only a few women applied, despite the fact that the nineteenth amendment had been ratified in August 1920. A number of men had filed their first papers in Fort Wayne before coming to reside permanently in Grand Rapids. On the applications where candidates had to “renounce all allegiances,” the term, “the present sovereignty in Syria and Lebanon” appeared for the first time beginning in 1927. 21 Internationally, Syria was the focus of a series of crises during the decade following World War I. The Near East Relief Fund and the International Red Cross sent representatives to cities throughout the United States, including Grand Rapids, to raise money for orphans in Syria and elsewhere in the region. They told harrowing tales of Turkish atrocities during the war, claiming that in some sense the war was not over for “fighting, hatred and massacres continue intermittently.” 22 Politically, conditions were far from stable after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Former military officer Mustafa Kemal headed a Turkish nationalist movement to create the Republic of Turkey. This led to a series of clashes with French and Greek forces and to the creation of many more refugees, before success was achieved in 1923. In Damascus, Arab nationalists had expected to establish their own state to rule over the former Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire. They set up a government there under Amir Faisal, son of the Sharif of Mecca, who had fought alongside the Allies since 1916. The French had, however, been granted a mandate to rule over Syria at the Versailles Peace Conference, and they made clear their intention to remove Faisal, landing more troops at Beirut for that purpose. In July 1920, they marched inland and drove the Arab government out of its capital.

Kent County Naturalization Files, 1860–1929, Record Group 89–28 (Microfilm), Archives of Michigan, Lansing. From 1866 to 1922 women automatically became citizens when their husbands did. 22 January 9, 1924, Grand Rapids Press. 21

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As the French attempted to assert control over Syria, they faced a series of challenges, none more serious than that from the Druze, who carried on a determined campaign of warfare for several years. In 1925, fighting culminated in a fierce battle for control of Rashayya-al-Wadi, half of whose population was Druze. Christian inhabitants fled the town, and Druze forces had almost captured the citadel and overwhelmed its garrison, when a French relief force arrived and drove off the attackers. The town was left in ruins, prompting the Rachayya Benevolent Society and others in the United States to contribute more than $40,000 toward its reconstruction. 23 These developments occasioned yet another round of charitable fund-raising in Grand Rapids. Letters and telegrams from the old country begging for immediate relief triggered this special drive. Elias (Theodore) Attala received a letter from his brother-in-law in Zahle explaining that the city “is swamped with strangers from all towns, and they have no homes or clothing or shelter of any kind.” The Association of Commerce and the Boy Scouts of America, of which there was a Syrian troop in the city, organized Bundle Day to collect used clothing for the destitute in the old country. As the Grand Rapids Press reminded readers, “sufferers in the Damascus district of Syria, which has been the center of the Druse warfare, are in need of everything in the way of clothing.” Fifteen thousand pounds of clothing packed into two hundred bales were shipped off to Near East Relief in New York bound for Syria after disinfecting and sorting. 24 With such difficult conditions in Syria, an appeal went out from the community in Grand Rapids for a temporary relaxation of quota restrictions so that a larger number of Syrians might enter the United States. Michigan Senator Woodbridge N. Ferris (1923– 1928) and Grand Rapids Congressman Carl Mapes (1913–1939) December 24, 1925, Paul Knabenshue to Secretary of State, 890d.00/330, Decimal File, 1910–1929, Record Group (RG) 59, National Archives (NA), Suitland, MD. Kohei Hashimoto, “Lebanese Population Movement 1920–1939: Toward a Study,” 70. In The Lebanese in the World. 24 February 26, 1924, Grand Rapids Press. February 20, 1926, Grand Rapids Press. 23

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promised to do all they could to bring the issue to the attention of the Coolidge administration. 25 The New Syria Party, which included several members from the Grand Rapids community, was formed in Michigan in October 1926 with headquarters in Detroit. The purpose of the party was “to place before the American public . . . the truth of the circumstances following the [second] bombardment” (October 18–20, 1925) of Damascus by French forces. It was rooted in suspicion toward the French mandatory government in Syria. In January 1927, the Detroit branch of the party hosted Amir Shakib Arslan, representative of Sultan Atrash, leader of the Druze insurgency. 26 A month later, Nayf George Bashara, formerly of Grand Rapids, wrote the Secretary of State from his law office in Detroit. He asked the secretary’s support in obtaining permission from the French government for an unbiased committee of Syrians from the United States to travel to Syria, ascertain the truth of conditions there, and make a report to the Syrians in America. It was important, he noted, to obtain the facts, for rumors were circulating that could only “engender a hatred for the French government.” Secretary of State Hughes suggested that Bashara send his request directly to the French Embassy in Washington. 27 It is interesting to compare the Orthodox Bashara’s letter with that of a much longer piece sent to the State Department shortly after the war by the Syrian-Lebanese League of North America, a Maronite organization. This organization embraced the idea of a French mandate for Syria; the Catholic Syrians had maintained close ties with France for centuries. They protested against the Faisal regime then in control of Damascus, lamenting the long history of Christian suffering under Turkish and now Arab rule. Presuming a higher intellectual and cultural order for themselves, they pleaded with the West not to abandon them to the “Arab

January 4, 1926, Grand Rapids Press. October 11, 1926, Grand Rapids Press. Gualtieri, 109. 27 February 1, 1927, Nayf Bashara to Secretary of State, 890D.00/456, RG 59, NA, Suitland, MD. 25 26

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Bedouin.” Clearly, the various Christian sects had different objectives regarding the future of Syria. 28 Members of the Grand Rapids community were directly affected by events in the Syrian mandate. A. Raymond Kalliel, a Grand Rapids lawyer, recalled that both his grandfather and later his father had come to the United States from the Muslim village of Khirbitrouha about halfway between Rashayya and Aita. His father came in 1912. He peddled, then opened a store in Osenbrook, North Dakota, and became a United States citizen. Having saved his money he returned to the village in 1925, married Najla Kadri and built a large stone house there. The outbreak of violence caused him to change his mind about staying, and in 1927 the family returned permanently to the United States, leaving behind their new home. 29 The Nicola family and their relatives, the Abrahams, were also in Syria in the late 1920s. Disturbed conditions most certainly contributed to their separate decisions to leave their homeland permanently. As related earlier, Ferris Nicola left in 1927 for Mexico with two daughters and a son. They were able to enter the United States in 1932, where the rest of the family joined them two years later. The Abrahams left Zahle for Grand Rapids in 1928. By the end of the decade conditions in Syria had settled considerably, so much so that Latife Hattem and her nineteen-yearold son, Moses, were able to return to Rashayya for a six-month visit in 1930. The French mandate government had undertaken to rebuild much of the village, especially the souk or business district with its red roof tiles and cobblestone streets. Edward Ellis also went back to see his parents. He was there in 1929 when the Great Depression began. He stayed about a year and brought his parents back to Grand Rapids with him. They could not adjust to life in the United States, however, and both eventually returned to Syria. Ellis Khouri, destined to become the priest at St. Nicholas in 1943, spent the years, 1931–1934, with his March 30, 1920, M. K. Jureidini to Secretary of State, 890D.01/12, RG 59, NA. 29 Interview with A. Raymond Kalliel, April 22, 2004, Grand Rapids, Michigan. 28

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family in Marjayoun, an important center south of the Beqaa Valley. He remarked on the peace and harmony that seemed to reign there after the turbulence of the previous decade. 30 Sam Rukieh, another Syrian immigrant, returned to Khirbitrouha in 1932. While in Syria he became involved in a movement to grant women greater rights. This apparently troubled the French mandate authorities, who did not want any further disturbances. The United States representative in Damascus cautioned him about engaging in such activity, hinting that he might end up in jail. Rukieh returned to West Michigan after a year at home. 31 Even those members of the Grand Rapids community who did not return to Syria maintained frequent contact as long as they had close relatives, parents, siblings, aunts and uncles there. They sent money to help their relatives, although they often faced many demands from their own growing families in Grand Rapids. Records indicate that by the outbreak of World War I, more than 40 percent of the national income of Syria came from remittances from the United States. William Azkoul recalls that every month he would write out checks on behalf of his uncle. “He would send a check or two to one of his brothers or one of his cousins all of his life, and he was not a wealthy man.” Apparently, when Joseph Nejem returned to Lebanon in 1948, he found his family deeply in debt, despite the fact that he had been sending money regularly for years. “He bailed them all out and bought a home for the family in Beirut.” 32 The remittances may have declined somewhat as the decade of the 1930s began and the effects of the Depression became more widespread. Grand Rapids depended heavily on a thriving furniture industry, and by 1934 all of those factories had closed. The many Syrians who had worked in this industry had to find alternative Interview with Edward Ellis, Jr. Interview with Ellis Khouri, November 30, 1980, Naff Collection, Washington, DC. 31 Interview with Layla Rukieh. 32 Charles Issawi, “The Historical Background of Lebanese Emigration, 1800–1914,” 27. In The Lebanese in the World. Interviews with William Azkoul and Edward Ellis, Jr. 30

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employment. Some returned to peddling or became street vendors to tide them over the hard times. Two members of the community took important jobs in local offices of New Deal-related agencies. Joseph Deeb became assistant manager of the Home Owners Loan Corporation in Grand Rapids and James Sherman (Sharma) worked as city food inspector, purchasing several (train) car loads of food for relief and other supplies each week for the city. Community members were able to depend initially on support from their extended families and from their churches as well, but they were thankful to have Franklin D. Roosevelt in the White House. Although in normal times members tended to support the Republican Party, there was a general feeling of admiration for the new Democratic president, who seemed genuinely to care about those suffering the worst effects of the Depression. In a speech to the YMCA’s Men’s Club, Abdo Yared declared that members of the Syrian community “unflinchingly support and promote the progress of the new deal.” 33 Some serious soul searching took place among members of the two Orthodox Church communities as a result of the Depression. According to Alex Assaley, son of Reverend AbouAssaley, “They now feel the pinch of lean days and thoughts of unity are uppermost in the minds of all the Orthodox communicants here as everywhere in the United States.” Habit won out, however, and the churches remained apart. 34 One step that would eventually bring the two Grand Rapids churches together within the same diocese took place in June 1933 in the depths of the Depression. The St. Nicholas congregation decided to repudiate the authority of Archbishop Aftimios Ofiesh of the Russian patriarchate and declare its allegiance to Archbishop Victor Abou-Assaley, representative of the Patriarch of Antioch in New York, who had arrived in 1928. St. George was then in the separate Toledo diocese but also under the Antiochian patriarch. In

33 34

Orfalea, Before the Flames, 100. May 16, 1934, Grand Rapids Press. March 21, 1935, The Syrian World.

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1975 St. George, too, would become part of the Archdiocese of North America. 35 Ofiesh had attempted to establish an American Orthodox Church free of control from either Russia or Antioch. The concept was an interesting one but ahead of its time, for loyalties to ethnicbased churches still ran deeply and strongly in North America. Ofiesh’s movement gradually lost the support it had originally enjoyed. When he became mired in controversy over his decision to marry as a bishop, which was against Orthodox tradition, the experiment was all but dead. 36 Long before the Depression had run its course, war clouds began to gather in Europe and Asia. Bedea Yared remembered her father’s concern as early as 1936 over “that man in Germany.” He was worried that his boys would have to go to war. And of course, they did, three of them, along with more than one hundred and fifty other young Syrian men and women from the Grand Rapids community. Margaret Haggai’s experience was typical of so many others during the war years. She met her future husband, George Haggai, in June 1942. They were engaged in July and married in October. Their first child, Georgia, was born in August 1943, just days before George shipped out for England for two years. Jim Abraham served in the United States Army from 1941 to 1945. His battalion went to the South Pacific, but he had been reassigned and remained behind. Many of them did not survive. Abdou Sickrey, who had arrived in the United States only in 1938, was drafted just before Pearl Harbor. He served throughout the war, mainly in the South Pacific with the 836th Engineers Battalion, constructing runways for American aircraft. One of Maxine Hattem’s brothers, Michael, participated in the Army Specialized Training Program, studying Arabic under Professor Philip Hitti of Princeton University. He was stationed in Egypt. Her future husband, Moses Hattem, joined the Army Air Corps and served in the ChinaBurma-India theatre. When his superiors discovered that he had restaurant experience, they asked him to run an officers club in Serafim, Quest for Orthodox Church Unity in America, 38, Fitzgerald, The Orthodox Church, 47. 36 Serafim, 32–34, 41, Fitzgerald, 49. 35

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India. He met General Joseph Stilwell and Lord Louis Mountbatten during that assignment. Richard Elias also served in the Pacific with the United States Navy. As a dentist in New Guinea, he discovered that the people of the interior, unlike American servicemen, had no cavities because of their sugarless diet. Joe Nicola served in the Army Air Corps. Back in Washington, DC, on VJ Day, he met a naval officer, John Boosahda, at a crowded Middle Eastern restaurant, where they shared a table. They became friends. Joe later married John’s sister, Rose, in Worcester, Massachusetts, on February 3, 1946. The newlyweds settled in Grand Rapids. Joe’s older brother, Nick, served in the United States Army and died in 1944, one of five Grand Rapids servicemen from the Syrian community who lost their lives in the war. As in World War I, the Lebanese community strongly supported the nation’s war effort. 37 Almost a year after the surrender of Japan, the Grand Rapids Syrian community organized one of its most ambitious events, a veterans’ banquet to honor the wartime service of the city’s Syrian soldiers. Held at the Rowe Hotel on Sunday June 30, 1946, this was a major event, perhaps the last of its kind in which the entire community, Orthodox and Catholic alike, came together in remembrance and celebration. The printed honor roll of those who served was separated into three groups, representing St. Nicholas, St. George and the Catholic Syrians. The unity they had known as Americans fighting the Axis enemy was abandoned by the organizers in favor of emphasizing traditional religious affiliation. 38 This, of course, had become a principal characteristic of Syrian settlement in the United States. Newcomers tended to recreate familiar patterns from home. Individuals settled in close proximity to members of their extended families or fellow villagers. They attended churches with people they had known in the old country. If they married, they often married relatives or someone Bedea Yared, Haggai, Abraham, Sickrey, Hattem, Elias, Nicola interviews. The five soldiers who died in the war: William Hoffer, Kalled Vern Kalled, Leo Najjar, Micky Nasser, and Nicholas Nicola. 38 Affiliated Syrian Clubs, Veterans Banquet, June 30,1946 [Program in author’s possession], 37

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with roots in the same village. By reproducing these provincial relationships, they tended to discourage any national movement that might emphasize a broader loyalty. Despite their significant

FDR’s death, April 1945, Rev. Ellis Khouri and choir of St. Nicholas Church. From left, Clara Kaleefy, unknown, Julia Ziton, Maryann Sickery, Josephine Salhaney, Eleanor Bendekgey, Josephine Kaleefy, Jean Bendekgey, Louise Bendekgey, Hazel Ziton, Mary Ziton numbers in the United States, it would be many decades before the Syrians—and other Arabs—organized themselves into effective national organizations. This chronic decentralization continued to plague Lebanon, itself, where citizens were likely to show more loyalty toward family or sect than toward the young nation, which became independent in 1943. What continues to surprise the careful observer is the fact that most first generation Syrians immigrants, and many of their children as well, continued to maintain close contacts with the old country and with Syrians in other parts of the United States, Canada and Latin America well into the interwar period, almost

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fifty years after their first arrival in Grand Rapids. Year by year, they made adjustments, but they did not rush to abandon the old culture. Rather, members of the community blended old with new to produce a hybrid Lebanese-American culture.

VII. FADING MEMORIES With the end of the war, however, the dispersal of the old Syrian community quickened. Even before Pearl Harbor, many of the families that had once found support in the Syrian colony had moved east across Division Street and up the city’s slopes away from the Grand River. They purchased bigger houses in better neighborhoods, realizing rather quickly that essential piece of the American dream. A few families clustered in Ottawa Hills, but generally their next door neighbors were no longer relatives and friends from former villages in the Beqaa, but descendants of immigrants from a host of other lands. Despite the fact that they were rising economically and spreading out geographically, members of the second generation maintained their strong family ties. They continued their frequent visits to each others’ homes and their picnics during the short summer season. And, of course, many continued to attend the same churches as before. There, too, the process of Americanization went forward more rapidly than before the war. English was becoming the preferred language for church services, and youth groups proliferated. Reverend Antony Bashir, Archbishop of New York and Metropolitan of all North America (1936–1966), became a leading advocate of the use of English in liturgical services. Reflecting on the importance of this work in 1957, he explained his perspective: While we must still minister to many who remember the ways and customs of another land, it is our policy to make the Church in the United States an American Church. In my own Archdiocese, under my administration, we have pioneered in the introduction of English in our services and sermons. From the beginning of my ministry, I began printing English service books, and the training of English speaking priests. We are tied

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Fund-raising group for Aita, mid-1950s. Front row (l to r) Charlie Hanna, Sam George, Nicholas Ellis, Saloom Skaff, Edward Ellis, Jr., George Ellis, Mike Skaff; back row, Ferris Cassis, George Missad, Paul Mickel, George Cassis, Salem Ghareeb.

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to no sacred language; we recognize all tongues as the creation of God, and employ them in worship. We have no desire to perpetuate anything but the Gospel of Christ, and that we can do as effectively in English as in any other tongue. 1

The priests in both Orthodox churches would continue to be native Arabic speakers for decades, however. Father John Estephan, the last immigrant priest at St. George, was also the longest-serving priest at either of the churches. His background emphasizes once again the international focus of this community. Born in Mexico in 1918, he grew up in Syria. He returned to Mexico in 1949 and was called to the Grand Rapids church in 1962. He retired in 2002 after forty years of service. The priests continued to be Lebanese even as the make-up of the congregations gradually changed to embrace Orthodox from the Balkans and Ethiopia and converts from many directions. The Lebanese would eventually become a minority of approximately 30 percent in each of the churches. They continued to hold their periodic haflis, their annual picnics and regional conferences of Lebanese-American youth and young adults. They also continued to occupy many of the positions on the various boards, which governed church affairs. As members of the community became more affluent, they were able to finance some important charitable works in Lebanon. The parishioners at St. George, for example, paid to have clean water piped into Aita in the 1950s. Previously, villagers had to go to the well outside the village for water. The geographical location of the two churches gave some indication of the character of each congregation. St. George has occupied its present site since 1925 when the Howard family donated land for a new church structure. The church has undergone two major renovations, one in the early 1950s when in addition to the church itself, the kitchen and hall were remodeled, and the second early in the new century when a young iconographer was brought from Greece to add beautiful icons to

1

Fitzgerald, 82.

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St. Nicholas Ladies Guild, late 1950s. Front row (l to r) Madeleine Kaleefy, Margaret Salhaney, Bernice Azkoul, Louise Bendekgey; second row, Eugenia Dudkin, Fran Dabakey, Lena Audy, Margaret Abraham, Alice Bendekgey, Adel Abraham, Minerva Bishara; third row, Rosemary Maloley, JameelaAyoub, Mary Wawee, Dorothy Salhaney, Laverne Audy, Marie Assaley, Julia Ziton; fourth row, Hazel Salhaney, Mary Henry, Ann Michael, Josephine Orange, unidentified, Maxine Hattem, Rose Nicola, Elizabeth Sarafis (?). the church decoration. Despite the outward movement of much of the congregation, the center of worship has remained close to the site where the community began. St. Nicholas has followed a different pattern, moving several times over the years, partly in response to the migration of population outward. On Cass Street until the 1950s, the church moved further east to Boston Street in 1958. As the city continued to expand, a new and larger center was built on the eastern outskirts of Grand Rapids on East Paris Avenue in the early years of the twenty-first century. Occasionally, there have been suggestions that the two churches join and become one. There would be sound economic

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Board of Trustees of St. Nicholas Church, 1959. Front row (l to r), William Azkoul, Nicholas Salhaney, Theodore Assaley; second row, Edward David, George Zain, James Abraham, George Samra; third row, Leo Henry, Lambert Orange, Victor Ziton. reasons for such a move. Having recently invested heavily in renovations and new buildings at both sites, however, it is unlikely that the two will come together in the foreseeable future. And, of course, some members of the old Lebanese families might still find such a move unappealing. After the 1967 riots in Grand Rapids, which centered around south Division Street, the remaining Lebanese businesses either closed or moved to other parts of the city. South Division Street, which had been a vibrant area in the early decades, was rapidly becoming a blighted zone in the late 1960s. Hattem’s Restaurant, which had been doing business in one form or another at the corner of Wealthy and Division Streets since 1910, closed just after the riots as did John Wawee’s last supermarket at Division and Delaware.

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The Syrians and African Americans had lived as neighbors in the old colony, and although they did not have many interactions, neither did they have a contentious relationship. In July 1912 there was some small incident that triggered a brief controversy, which the Grand Rapids Press immediately dubbed “a race riot,” but that was quickly resolved. The South Division School, which many Syrian children attended, was integrated. Jim Abraham remembered fondly his boyhood friend, Zeen, an African-American schoolmate. One day Abraham had a few pennies for candy, and he tried to get his friend to come into the store with him to make a selection, but he refused. Only later did he find out that “being black he did not go into a white store.” This came as quite a surprise to the young Syrian, whose family had only recently settled in the city. Over the years, the upwardly mobile Syrians left the district while those of the black community who remained were joined by increasing numbers of arrivals from the South. 2 A number of second-generation Lebanese from Grand Rapids have visited the homeland and sometimes the villages of their mothers and fathers as well. Although these trips have been brief, informants remark on how comfortable they felt, at the ease with which they could understand the colloquial Arabic of their youth and even navigate in limited fashion in a language they had not used for decades. Their children and grandchildren seem less likely to return. Perhaps more common than those who have made the pilgrimage to Lebanon are descendants who have little interest in returning. “I have no reason to go back,” is a common refrain. The deaths of close relatives seem to have cut forever their ties with the homeland. Others have expressed an added reason for not returning; they are concerned for their safety. “It wasn’t safe to go anyway unless you had an immediate relative there,” remarked one elderly Lebanese woman. “The way things are now though, I don’t have any desire,” said another. “My cousin went over there to adopt this baby and really they got out in the nick of time.” And perhaps most pointedly of all, one interviewee replied, “Are you

2

July 8, 1912, Grand Rapids Press. Interview with James Abraham.

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St. Nicholas church kidding!” when asked if she or her children wanted to visit Lebanon. 3 Many families in Aita and Rashayya and environs have lost contact with relatives in far-off Grand Rapids. They remember only vaguely their distant cousins there. The Abou-Assaley family, members of which have spent many years in Kuwait, have been surprised to learn of the important role their family played in the early years of the Michigan community. Only an elderly grandmother could recall that she had once had an uncle in Grand Rapids. 4 The villages have changed considerably. Ayn Arab, where the Nicola home still stands and from whence many emigrants set out for the United States, has become a largely Muslim settlement. One local quipped that it has a church but no Christians. Dar al-Ahmar, 3 4

Interviews with Adele Wise, Rosemary Sears and Mary Martin. Interview with Assaley family, Rashayya al-Wadi, May 2006.

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ancestral home of several Grand Rapids Orthodox families, has grown considerably and is today a bustling Druze center. Much of the village population works in Beirut during the week, returning home only on the weekends. Many schoolchildren commute daily to Zahle, where there are better educational opportunities. With each new generation in Grand Rapids—most families are into their fourth—marriages within the community have become less and less common and interest in the old country and in the history of Lebanese immigration into the United States has declined proportionately. One third-generation observer, who has proven an exception to the rule, wrote of disinterest among his peers: “to the American born generation, Aita may as well have been on another planet. It was far away and represented a way of life that was in total contrast to life in the United States.”5 Food has remained one of the few constants among descendants of the Grand Rapids Lebanese community. Whether children and grandchildren still attend the traditional community churches or not, most of them cook and eat Lebanese food, which, of course, has become almost a mainstream cuisine among the American public. All second and third generation offspring grew up regularly eating Lebanese dishes. To keep herself active into her eighties, Margaret Haggai took weekly orders for bread, both plain and cheese, for which she made her own cheese. Salem Ghareeb did most of the Lebanese cooking for his family for years. Every Sunday, children and grandchildren gathered for meat pies, cabbage rolls, stuffed squash and the other dishes served up by Salem and Elaine. This pattern was repeated in many homes of Lebanese ancestry. The Lebanese had become almost completely acculturated by the end of World War II. They might have faded altogether from public view had it not been for the continued existence of their churches with their associated organizations and frequent community dinners. Members of the third generation were as likely to belong to mainstream clubs or associations, the Rotary, VFW, Garden Club as to the Ladies Golden Links, St. Ephraims or St.

5

Interview with Donald Ghareeb.

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President Ford and Bill Azkoul in Grand Rapids during the 1976 election campaign. Nicholas Ladies Guild. Joseph Zainea, whose grandfather, also Joseph, a skilled coppersmith, had accompanied the Hattems to the old country in 1930, served as city manager of Grand Rapids, 1976–1979. He has never visited Lebanon. Neither has Jacqueline Deeb, who became a high school principal, nor Woodrow Yared, a former judge of the Kent County Circuit Court (1978–1987). Members of the community had established friendships with leaders of the Republican party. Edward Ellis had useful ties with Representative Carl Mapes. Others continued similar relationships with his successor, Gerald R. Ford (1948–1974). Moses Hattem attended South High School with Ford and visited the Oval Office with his family when Ford was president. Bill Azkoul first met Ford when he was campaigning for Congress in 1948. Later Ford, then minority leader, sponsored his membership into the Supreme Court Bar, so that he could practice before that court. During the Ford Presidency, Azkoul was in frequent contact regarding developments in the Middle East. They maintained their friendship

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after Ford left the White House, and Azkoul helped to convince the ex-president to speak at the Gulf America conference in Houston in June 1988. This event sought to encourage better understanding between the Arab world and the United States. 6 Only a small number of the Grand Rapids Lebanese have transitioned into the larger Arab-American community. This evolved out of the second wave of Arab immigrants, many of whom came from Palestine as a result of the 1948 and 1967 crises. Joseph Nejem was an early exemplar of those concerned with the cause of Palestinian statehood. There is nothing left of the old Market Street colony. All residences were removed long ago. In the late 1950s, the area was transformed when the highway was constructed, running just east of the river. A walk through the area reveals a mixture of land uses, shelters for the homeless along Division Street, warehouses and industrial concerns along the southern edges and recent upscale redevelopment of trendy restaurants and some condominiums in renovated buildings along Ionia Street. To recapture a glimpse, perhaps, of what used to be, one might attend services at St. George or St. Nicholas, admire the beautiful icons and stained-glass windows and other handsome features of church architecture. Elderly Lebanese women attend the lengthy church services dressed in traditional black. The churches still sponsor wonderful haflis that bring together hundreds from the local community for feasting, catching up on family news and dancing the traditional dabke late into the night.

Michael Saba, “President Gerald Ford Was a Listener and a Healer,” December 29, 2006, Arab News. 6

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Early in this project, I received grants from the Grand Rapids Historical Commission and the Michigan Humanities Council, which assisted the collection and transcribing of interviews. More recently, financial assistance from Grand Valley State University’s Center for Scholarly and Creative Excellence, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Padnos International Center has facilitated further research and the writing of this study. I greatly appreciate this essential support. I would like to thank librarians and archivists at the following institutions, who have graciously assisted my research for this book: Grand Rapids Public Library, Local History Department (especially Rebecca Mayne); Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of American History, Archives Center; Immigration History Research Center, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; Bentley Library and the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. The City Archivist of Grand Rapids, Bill Cunningham, deserves special thanks. He has provided continuing support for this project, willingly sharing his extensive knowledge with me and my students from the beginning. Gordon Olson, former City Historian of Grand Rapids, introduced us to the many resources available for doing local history. Later, he read and commented on the manuscript. I have been fortunate to have him as a colleague and a friend. Amaney Jamal kindly provided feedback on an earlier draft. None of this study would have been possible without the support of many members of the Lebanese community. I would like to mention in particular assistance received from the Hattem family, who allowed me to access photos and written materials in their possession. Donald Ghareeb has also been a stalwart supporter, sharing his astute observations on the community in which he grew up and allowing me to use a number of 145

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photographs from his collection. Bill and Bernice Azkoul have opened their home to me on several occasions, sharing memories, images, and much good conversation. Shortly after I arrived in West Michigan in 1986, I met Karen Henry. She was an activist without parallel. We often worked together on various outreach projects, and along the way she introduced me to the old Lebanese community of which she and her family were members. This acquaintance piqued my interest, and I decided that one day I would write a history of this unstudied, yet important, immigrant community. Now, more than a quarter century after our first meeting, the project has finally come to completion. Thank you, Karen, for pointing me in this direction.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY UNPUBLISHED PRIMARY SOURCES Interviews (Grand Rapids) Ahmed and Helen Abbassee George Abou-Assaley and family (Rashayya al-Wadi) Jad Abou-Maarouf James Abraham William Azkoul Eddie, George and Josephine Cassis Ayse Chamelly Jacqueline Deeb Richard Elias Edward Ellis, Jr. Father John Estephan Maurice Farhat Donald Ghareeb Ghassan Ghareeb Salem and Elaine Ghareeb Bertha, Sam and David George Margaret Haggai Moses, Maxine, Donna Hattem Karen and Mary Henry A. Raymond Kalliel Mary Martin Joseph Nicola Selma Obermeyer Clarence Poel Layla Rukieh (Toledo) Rosemary Sears Abdou Sickrey Mike Wawee Adele Wise

147

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Bedea, Woodrow, and Wilson Yared (videos courtesy of Yared family) Archives of Michigan, Lansing Kent County Naturalization Files, 1860–1929 (microfilm) Bentley Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Karoub Family Papers City Archive, Grand Rapids City Assessor files City Commissioner Proceedings Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Ford Congressional papers Grand Rapids Public Library, Local History Department Grand Rapids Unit Records. Women’s Committee of the Council on National Defense. Collection 174. Haseebie Gantos interview Immigration History Research Center, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis Arab-American Collection Philip Hitti papers Kent County Circuit Court, Grand Rapids Superior Court Law Case No. S–3336 Memoirs and Other Writings Thomas George. An Autobiography of Tanoos Faris George AbouAssalley. [in the author’s possession] Donald Ghareeb. Notes To A Better Understanding of My Roots and Family Tree. [in the author’s possession] Joseph Nejem. Where is the Frontier? [in the author’s possession]

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National Archives, Suitland, MD Decimal File, 1910–1929, Record Group 59 (microfilm) Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of American History, Archives Center Faris and Yamna Naff Collection (interviews): Alice Abraham Elizabeth Bashara Joseph David Mike Haddy Father Ellis Khouri

PUBLISHED PRIMARY SOURCES Hanna v. Malick. 223 Michigan Reports (1923). Official Proceedings of the Board of Education of the City of Grand Rapids, Michigan, May 6, 1907–May 4, 1908. Official Proceedings of the Board of Education of the City of Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1919–1920. Official Proceedings of the Board of Education of the City of Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1923–1924. U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor. Bureau of the Census. Thirteenth Census of the United States, 1910. U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor. Bureau of the Census. Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920. U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor. Bureau of the Census. Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930. Newspapers Arab News Grand Haven Tribune Grand Rapids Herald Grand Rapids Press The Syrian World

SECONDARY SOURCES Akarli, Engin Deniz. “Ottoman Attitudes Towards Lebanese Emigration, 1885–1910.” In The Lebanese in the World: A Century of Emigration, ed. Albert Hourani and Nadim Shehadi, 109–138. London: I. B. Tauris, 2002.

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Albrecht, Charlotte Karem. “Peddling Encounters: Sex, Gender, and Racial Formation in the Border Spaces of Early Arab American History.” Paper presented at the Middle East Studies Conference, San Diego, 2010. Berg, Erin, et al. “From the Bekaa to the Grand: The Lebanese Community of Grand Rapids, 1890—1940.” Grand River Valley History, 20 (2004): 12–22. Elias, Leila Salloum. “The Impact of the Sinking of the Titanic on the New York Syrian Community of 1912: The Syrians Respond.” Arab Studies Quarterly, 27, nos. 1–2 (Winter/Spring 2005): 75–87. Fisher, Ernest B. ed. Grand Rapids and Kent County Michigan: Historical Account of Their Progress from First Settlement to the Present Time. Chicago: Robert O. Law, 1918. Fitzgerald, Thomas E. The Orthodox Church. Denominations in America, 7. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1995. Gantos-Inc-Company-History. Company-histories. www.Funding Universe.com. Gualtieri, Sarah M. A. Between Arab and White: Race and Ethnicity in the Early Syrian American Diaspora. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2009. Halaby, Raouf J. “Dr. Michael Shadid and the Debate over Identity in the Syrian World.” In Crossing the Waters: Arabic-Speaking Immigrants to the United States Before 1940. ed. Eric J. Hooglund, 55–65. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1987. Hashimoto, Kohei. “Lebanese Population Movement 1920–1939: Toward A Study.” In The Lebanese in the World: A Century of Emigration, ed. Albert Hourani and Nadim Shehadi, 65–107. London: I. B. Tauris, 2002. Hooglund, Eric J. “From the Near East to Down East: Ethnic Arabs in Waterville, Maine.” In Crossing the Waters: ArabicSpeaking Immigrants to the United States Before 1940. ed. Eric J. Hooglund, 85–103. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1987. Houghton, Louise Seymour. “Syrians in the United States.” Parts 1–4. Survey 26 (July, August, September, 1911): 481–495, 647– 665, 787–803; 27 (October 1911): 957–968. Issawi, Charles. “The Historical Background of Lebanese Emigration, 1800–1914.” In The Lebanese in the World:

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A Century of Emigration, ed. Albert Hourani and Nadim Shehadi, 13–31. London: I. B. Tauris, 2002. Jelks, Randal Maurice. African Americans in the Furniture City: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Grand Rapids. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2006. Kayal, Joseph M. and Philip M. Kayal. The Syrian-Lebanese in America: A Study in Religion and Assimilation. Boston: Twayne, 1975. Khater, Akram Fouad. Inventing Home: Emigration, Gender, and the Middle Class in Lebanon. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001. Labaki, Boutros. “Lebanese Emigration During the War (1975– 1989).” In The Lebanese in the World: A Century of Emigration, ed. Albert Hourani and Nadim Shehadi, 605–626. London: I. B. Tauris, 2002. Lydens, Z. Z. ed. The Story of Grand Rapids. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1966. Mokarzel, Salloum A. and H. F. Otash. Syrian Business Directory, 1908–1909. New York: al-Hoda Press, 1908. Naff, Alixa. Becoming American: The Early Arab Immigrant Experience. Carbondale, Ill.: Southern Illinois University Press, 1985. ________. “Lebanese Immigration into the United States: 1880 to the Present.” In The Lebanese in the World: A Century of Emigration, ed. Albert Hourani and Nadim Shehadi, 139–165. London: I. B. Tauris, 2002. Orfalea, Gregory. Before the Flames: A Quest for the History of Arab Americans. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1988. Owen, Roger. “Lebanese Migration in the Context of World Population Movements.” In The Lebanese in the World: A Century of Emigration, ed. Albert Hourani and Nadim Shehadi, 33–39. London: I. B. Tauris, 2002. Riggs, Lynn. Green Grow the Lilacs. Norwalk, Conn.: The Heritage Press, 1959. Samuelson, Linda, Andrew Schrier, et al. Heart and Soul: The Story of Grand Rapids Neighborhoods. Grand Rapids Area Council for the Humanities, 2003. Serafim, Archimandrite. The Quest for Orthodox Church Unity in America: A History of the Orthodox Church in North American in the Twentieth Century. New York: Saints Boris and Gleb Press, 1973.

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Siebold, Dave H. Grand Haven in the Path of Destiny: A History of Grand Haven, Spring Lake, Ferrysburg and Adjoining Townships. Grand Haven: Tri-Cities Historical Museum, 2007. Wagstaff, J. M. “A Note on Some Nineteenth-Century Population Statistics for Lebanon.” British Journal of Middle East Studies 13, no. 1 (1986): 27–35.

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INDEX Abbassee (Ash), Helen, 104 Abbassee (Waldron), Elsie, 102, 104 Abbassee family, 104, 105 Abbassee, “Charlie” Hussein, 102 Abbassee, Ahmed, 104 Abbassee, Muhammad Said, 102, 104, 108, 109 Abdo, Tanous, 123 Abdul Hamid II (Sultan), 9, 99 Aboosamra, Michael, 116 Abou-Assaley family, 141 Abou-Assaley, Alexander, 113, 130 Abou-Assaley, Archbishop Victor, 130 Abou-Assaley, Rev. Fadlo (Philip), 58–59, 60, 61, 64, 73, 110 Abou-Assaley, Yamna, 31 Abou-Maarouf, Eli, 3 Abou-Maarouf, Jad, 78 Abou-Maarouf, Josephine, 3 Abraham (Maloley), Zahia, 24, 25 Abraham family, 24, 56, 77, 89, 128 Abraham, Alice, 21, 27

Abraham, James, 86, 88, 131, 140 Abraham, Muhammad, 102 Abraham, Sleyman, 24, 25, 43, 78 Ada, 96 Affiliated Syrian Clubs of Grand Rapids, 5 African Americans, 38, 39, 140 Ahmed, Milhelm, 102 Air Dome Open Air Theater, 108 Aita al-Foukhar: description of, 13–15, 70–71, 137; church in, 59; families from, 28, 54, 61, 64, 106, 109 Aithi, 15, 23, 26 Alexandria, 19, 22 Alger School, 87 Ali Hakim, 39 Alley, Ahmed, 108, 109 American Committee for Syrian and Armenian Relief, 119 American Organization of Syrians (AM-O-SY), 74 American Red Cross, 125 American University of Beirut, 64

154

A HISTORY OF THE SYRIAN COMMUNITY

Americanization, 2, 88, 97, 122, 123, 135 Anti-Lebanon Mountains, 12 Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese, 67 Antiochian Orthodox, 1, 12, 57, 71, 74 Arab Americans, 4, 110, 144 Arabic: and schoolchildren, 87–89; in church services, 58, 59, 67, 68, 137; in early community, 38, 40, 72, 92, 117, 123. See also “Syrian” Arabs, 9, 125, 127 Arafat, Badoui, 30, 101 Arbeely, Najib, 40 Archbishop Germanos (of Zahle), 64 Archdiocese of North America, 131 Armenians, 119 Army Specialized Training Program, 131 Arslan, Amir Shakib, 127 Ash, Alec (Ali), 104 assimilation, 1 Assyrians, 1 Attala, Elias (Theodore), 126 Awad, John, 78 Ayn Arab: community in Cedar Rapids, 29; immigrants from, 12– 13, 18, 23, 27, 43, 141 Ayoub, Albert, 116 Azkoul (Nimmer), Della, 81 Azkoul family, 81 Azkoul, Michael, 45

Azkoul, Neuman, 45, 49, 80, 81 Azkoul, William, 91, 129, 143, 144 Baalbek, 15, 59 Balish family, 74, 77 Balkans, 9, 71, 137 Barhoum, Deeb, 3 Bashara, Elizabeth, 31, 41 Bashara, George, 64, 115, 119 Bashara, Nayf George, 91, 92, 127 Bashara, Salem, 40, 60, 91 Bashir, Rev. Antony, 135 al-Bayan, 113 Beirut, 15, 18, 26, 108, 125, 142 Beqaa Valley: immigration from, 12, 40, 102, 129; in late Ottoman period, 8, 27, 30; visit to, 3 Birds of Passage, 30, 31, 33 Birmingham (Alabama), 4, 122 Bismarck (North Dakota), 24 Boosahda, John, 132 Boy Scouts of America, 123, 126 Brazil, 22 Brooklyn (New York), 58 Brown, Alex, 101 Burton Junior High School, 90 business, 42, 45, 49, 56, 106, 108 Cairo, 111 Canada, 2, 8, 22, 23, 104, 133 Cassis, 3 Cassis, Edward, 93

INDEX Cassis, Josephine, 51 Catholic Central High School, 97 Catholic Church, 57, 73, 74 Catholic Syrians, 127, 132 Cedar Rapids (Iowa), 27, 29 census, 10, 36 Central High School, 51, 84 chain migration, 18 chain stores, 52, 54 Chamelly, Ayse, 30, 101 Chamelly, Said, 31, 101 Charleston (West Virginia), 29, 51 Cherbourg, 21 Chinese, 116 Christians, 10, 13, 105, 109 Christmas, 96 Cobalt (Canada), 45 Congress, 23, 41, 121 Coolidge, President Calvin, 121 Crookston (Minnesota), 45 culture, 92, 134 Cyprus, 18 Dabakey (Missad), Fuda, 26 Dabakey family, 93 Dabakey, Assad, 26, 47, 48, 51 Dabakey, Hannah, 51 Dabakey, Nebeia, 51 Dahrooge, Joseph, 58 Dahrooge, Michael, 106 Damascus, 61, 117, 125, 127 Dar al-Ahmar, 12, 24, 141 David, Fadwa, 27 David, Joseph, 22, 26, 45, 58, 64 David, Rev. Samuel, 64 Decatur (Illinois), 41

155 Deeb (Balish), Rosemary, 77, 83 Deeb family, 74, 92 Deeb, Jacqueline, 143 Deeb, Joseph, 130 Deeb, Michael George, 77 Detroit, 4 diaspora, 7, 112 Diocese of Toledo and Dependencies, 64, 65, 130 discrimination, 41, 90, 91, 105, 122 Division Street: as eastern boundary, 36, 135; Syrian businesses along, 49, 52, 56, 139, 144 Dow vs the United States, 121 Druze: location and origin of, 10, 12, 142; newspaper of, 113; rebellion of, 126, 127; religion of, 71 Dutch, 3, 35, 38, 90, 91 East Grand Rapids, 36, 55 Easter Services, 60, 96 education, 91, 92, 105, 115, 123 Elias (Kazma), Karima, 23, 27, 43, 83 Elias, Dr. Richard, 83, 90, 92, 108, 132 Elias, Joseph, 23, 27, 43 Ellis family, 3, 54, 56 Ellis Island, 40 Ellis, Bedelia, 82 Ellis, Dr. Michael, 68 Ellis, Edward: and Joseph Nejem, 106, 109; as community leader, 54–

156

A HISTORY OF THE SYRIAN COMMUNITY

55, 64, 66, 92, 143; visits Aita, 128 Ellis, Edward, Jr., 86, 89, 93, 108, 109, 110 Ellis, George, 54, 77 Ellis, John, 54, 82 Ellis, Joseph, 77, 80, 81, 82 Ellis, Josephine, 108 Ellis, Mayor George E., 114, 115 Ellis, Samuel, 54 Ellsworth Avenue, 51, 54 Episcopal Church, 57, 58, 61 Estephan, Rev. John, 68, 137 Ethiopia, 137 ethnicity, 90, 131 Faisal I (King of Iraq), 110, 125, 127 family, 28, 37, 77, 78, 85, 135 Farhat, Maurice, 30 Farhat, Said, 30 Farhat, William, 30 Ferris, Senator Woodbridge N., 126 Flint (Michigan), 110 food, 72, 93, 96, 97, 110, 142 Ford Motor Company, 30 Ford, President Gerald R., 52, 111, 143, 144 Fort Wayne (Indiana), 26, 27, 29, 40, 41, 57 Fraam, Domina, 80 Fraam, Nick, 80 French Mandate, 2, 15, 25, 125, 127–128, 129 Fuller, Fred N., 115 Fulton Street, 47 furniture industry, 35, 48, 77, 114, 125, 129

Gantos Department Store, 83 Gantos family, 3 Gantos, Haseebie, 47 Gantos, Theodore, 45, 47 Geldhof, Abe, 116 George (Dabakey), Bertha, 51, 80, 86 George, Ferris, 22 George, Saidie, 22 George, Thomas (Tanoos Faris George Abouasalley), 22 Germans, 36 Ghareeb (Howard), Mariam, 71 Ghareeb family, 3, 71 Ghareeb, Archimandrite Salem, 60, 64, 65, 71, 117, 119 Ghareeb, Donald, 88 Ghareeb, Elaine, 84, 90, 142 Ghareeb, Frieda (Faridi), 82 Ghareeb, Ghassan, 78 Ghareeb, Salem, 29, 96, 142 Gharib, 3 Ghassis, 3 Gorley, Salih Abdo, 101 Grand Haven, 35, 36, 106, 108 Grand Rapids Public Library, 1n Grand Rapids: changes in, 114, 129, 139; description of, 35; Syrian population of, 10, 12, 29, 42 Grand River, 35, 36, 106 Grandville Avenue, 48, 51

INDEX Great Depression, 47, 48, 54–55, 56, 77, 113, 129– 131 Greek, 1, 9, 59, 67 Greek Orthodox, 58, 74 Greeks, 1, 9, 116, 125 Green Grow the Lilacs, 41 grocers, 39, 51, 52, 82, 101, 115 Gulf America Conference, 144 Habeeb, Rt. Rev., 22 Haddy, Mike, 12, 18 haflis, 72, 137, 144 Haggai (Ellis), Margaret: as adult, 131, 142; childhood of, 82–83, 87, 88, 90, 93; on Joseph Nejem, 110 Haggai, George, 131 Haggai, Georgia, 131 Halifax (Nova Scotia), 22, 23 Hamod, Sam, 3 Hanna v. Malick, 66 Hanna, George, 64, 106, 119 Hasroun (Lebanon), 31 Hattem family, 77, 139 Hattem, Deeb, 25, 27, 52, 80, 116 Hattem, Latife, 25, 27, 31, 52, 128 Hattem, Maxine, 52, 131 Hattem, Michael, 131 Hattem, Moses, 52, 86, 87, 128, 131 Hawaweeny, Bishop Raphael, 58, 60, 61, 64 Henry, Karen, 83, 85 Henry, Mary, 85 Heritage Hill, 36

157 Hitti, Professor Philip, 111, 131 al-Hoda, 113 Holland (Michigan), 48 Holy Trinity, 75 Home Owners Loan Corporation, 130 homes, 33, 37, 39, 43 Hoopeston (Illinois), 41 Howard family, 137 Howard, Joseph, 15, 16 Howard, Michael, 64, 117 Hughes, Secretary of State Charles Evans, 121, 127 Hussein (King of Jordan), 111 Ibn Abd al-Aziz, King Saud, 111 Institute of Arab American Affairs, 111 Islam, 100, 102 Islamic Society of Western Michigan, 104 Israel, 12, 15, 111 Istanbul, 26 Italians, 1, 9, 22, 38 Jaffa (Yaffa), 26 Japanese, 116 Jebel al-Sheikh (Mt. Hermon), 12 Jews, 10, 26 Kalamazoo, 35 Kaleefey, Assad, 116 Kalliel, A. Raymond, 30, 128 Kalliel, Alex Albert, 43 Kallil, Sam, 82 Kansas, 24, 43 Karoub, Imam Hussein, 104, 111 Karrip, 3

158

A HISTORY OF THE SYRIAN COMMUNITY

kashshi, 42, 45 Katip, Abdo, 102 Kemal, Mustafa, 125 Kfar Mishki, 21 Khater, Akram Fouad, 30, 31 Khiara, 102 Khirbitrouha, 43, 101, 128, 129 Khouri, Rev. Ellis, 66, 122, 128 Khouri, Rev. Gabriel, 73 Ku Klux Klan, 121 La Savoie, 26 Ladies Golden Link Society, 72, 142 Lafayette School, 87 LaHam, Joseph, 80 LaHam, Mary, 31, 41 LaHam, Wadie, 49 LaHam, Selene, 31, 41 Lansing, 35 Le Harve, 19 Lebanese Civil War, 7 Lebanese Consul-General, 92 Lebanese, 2, 7–8, 71, 137, 142 Lebanon: new nation, 5, 15, 133; visits to, 25, 26, 33, 111, 140; recent emigrants from, 7, 78 “Little Syria,” 38 Liverpool, 22 local history, 4 Lowell (Massachusetts), 29 Luce Furniture, 66 Mahiethy, 12, 22, 23, 29 Majdel Anjar, 104 Malick, Alex K., 49, 54 Maloley, Michael, 116 Maloley, Peter, 27

Maloley, Sam, 52 Mapes, Congressman Carl, 55, 126, 143 Maris, Mariam, 27, 28 Marjayoun, 129 Market Street, 36, 37, 39, 49, 54, 114 Maronites, 10, 12, 57, 73, 92, 127 marriages, 27–29, 58, 78, 86, 87, 102 Marseilles, 19, 21, 22 McDonald, Supreme Court Judge John S., 92 Melkites, 12, 57, 73 Meraat al-Gharb, 113 Merzo, Al, 108 Mexico, 2, 24, 128, 137 Middle East, 5, 110, 111, 143 Midwest, 1, 10, 21, 40, 45, 56 Minnesota, 26 Missad, John, 89 Missionary Union, 115 Montreal, 23, 29, 47 Mount Lebanon, 10, 30 Mt. Khidher, 15 Muskegon, 35, 108 Muslim Sunrise, 104 Muslims, 10, 13, 48, 71, 99– 112 Naff, Alixa, 3, 29, 43, 101, 113 Najjar family, 74 naturalization, 116 Near East Relief Fund, 125 Nejem, Yusef (Joseph) Ahmed, 105–112, 129, 144 Nemer, Muhammad, 101 New England, 10

INDEX new immigrants, 9, 23 New Syria Party, 127 New York City, 4, 21, 26 Nicola (Boosahda), Rose, 132 Nicola family, 24, 51, 72, 75, 128, 141 Nicola, Ferris, 23, 24, 42, 117, 128 Nicola, Joseph, 42, 51, 80, 110, 132 Nicola, Nick, 110, 132 North Dakota, 80 Oakhill Cemetery, 67 Obermeyer (Abbassee), Selma, 102, 105 Ofiesh, Archbishop Aftimios, 67, 130, 131 Oklahoma, 39, 41 Oklahoma, 41 oral history, 3, 93 Orthodox church, 4, 61, 86 Osenbrook (North Dakota), 45, 128 Ottawa Hills High School, 90 Ottawa Hills, 135 Ottoman Empire, 2, 8, 9, 22, 117–119, 123 Ottoman Porte, 18 Palestine, 15, 26, 30, 111, 112, 144 Palestinians, 71, 112 Patriarch of Antioch, 58, 60– 61, 64, 66, 67, 130 patriarchy, 78–79 peddlers: depression and, 47, 130; elite of, 45; in Canada, 23, 104; in Oklahoma, 39, 41; networks of, 24,

159 40, 42, 43, 57, 108; regulation of, 56, 114; women as, 26–27, 31, 40–41 Pineapple Café, 108 Plains States, 10 Poles, 1, 9, 30, 36 Port Said, 19 pottery, 13 Powers Theater, 119 Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, 119 press, 99, 113, 140 Progressive era, 113, 115 Providence, 82 Qaraoun, 104 Rachayya Benevolent Society, 126 railroads, 26, 35, 37, 47–48, 99, 102 Rashayya al-Wadi: and Druze rebellion, 126; and St. Nicholas, 58, 61, 64, 70; centers in U.S., 24; description of, 12–13, 15; emigration from, 18, 26, 27, 29, 45, 116 Reed, Senator David, 122 refugees, 125 Retailers Association of Grocers, 115 Rev. Boris, 68 Riyyashni, 15, 29 Roosevelt, Colonel Theodore, 119 Roosevelt, President Franklin D., 130 Rotary Club (Grand Haven), 109, 110 Rowe Hotel, 91, 132

160

A HISTORY OF THE SYRIAN COMMUNITY

Rukieh, Hussein (Sam), 108, 129 Russian Orthodox Missionary School (Aita), 93 Russians, 9, 22, 59, 60, 61 Sacred Heart Society, 74 sahras, 92, 93 Salamy, Moses, 15, 16, 38, 39, 114 Sarkees family, 74 Sauers, Helen, 115 Sayfee, Damas, 27, 28 Sayfi, Fadi, 3 Sayfi, Lilliana, 3 Sears (Abou-Assaley), Rosemary, 84, 88 Shadid, Dr. Michael, 41 Shantytown, 38 Shaunavon (Saskatchewan), 104 Sherman (Sharma), James, 130 Sickrey family, 78 Sickrey, Abdou, 30, 131 silk industry, 8 Sioux City (Iowa), 23, 42 Skaff family, 54 Skar family, 74 Sligh Furniture Company, 37, 48, 59, 66 Sligh, Charles R., 48 Sligh, Charles R., Jr, 48 Smiley, Ahmad, 102 Smith, Senator William Alden, 92 social life, 92, 93, 144 South America, 2, 7, 8 South Division Street School, 87, 91, 115, 140

South High School, 51, 84, 90, 143 South, 10, 140 Spring Valley (Illinois), 24, 29, 43, 57 St. Andrews, 57, 58, 73 St. Ephraims, 74, 88, 142 St. George: as center of community, 71–72; character of, 66, 68, 70, 137–138; in Aita, 15, 59, 64 St. Marks, 57 St. Nicholas Ladies Guild, 143 St. Nicholas: and separation, 66, 130; as center of community, 72; character of, 122, 138; in Rashayya, 64, 70 steamship companies, 21 Suez Canal, 8 Sultan Atrash, 127 Sydney (Nova Scotia), 23 Syria, 5, 8–9, 24, 30, 117– 119, 125 Syrian Apostles of Peace Society, 116, 119 Syrian Colony, 4, 35, 37–39, 99, 135, 144 Syrian community, 97, 130, 132 Syrian World, 85, 89, 113 Syrian-American Confraternity, 122 Syrian-Lebanese League of North America, 127 “Syrian,” 120 Syrians, 18, 21, 86, 92, 122, 140

INDEX Taft, President William H., 116 Tesseine family, 74 Tesseine, Albert, 27 Tesseine, Dr. Arthur, 92 Tesseine, Frederick, 113 Titanic, 19, 21 Toledo (Ohio), 28, 29, 57 Townsend Park, 73 Turkey, Republic of, 125 Turks, 1, 9, 100, 117, 125 Umm Kulthum, 93 Union Station, 35, 37 United Nations, 111, 112 University of Michigan, 91, 92 Versailles Peace Conference, 125 Walsh, Senator David, 121, 122 Wawee, John, 52, 139 Wawee, Michael, 84, 91 Wealthy Street, 48, 52 Wehby, Rev. Naseeb, 68 West Coast, 45 Western Michigan University, 92 Western Michigan, 35 Whalen, Michael, 39 Wholesome Café, 52 Williams Street, 37, 58, 64 Wilson, President Woodrow, 119 Windsor (Ontario), 47, 104 Wise (Najjar), Adele, 74, 84, 88, 90 women: and family role, 79, 80–86, 96, 120, 125; as emigrants, 26, 101 Woodlawn Cemetery, 67

161 Worcester (Massachusetts), 4, 23, 29, 132 World War I, 5, 22, 26, 101, 120 World War II, 83, 92, 131– 132 Wyoming (Michigan), 37 Yared (LaHam), Mary, 52, 79 Yared family, 52, 72, 97, 119 Yared, Abdo, 31, 89, 113, 117, 119, 130 Yared, Alexander, 31, 52, 72, 80 Yared, Bedea, 84, 131 Yared, Elias, 21 Yared, Jamelah, 21 Yared, Sam, 31, 86, 92 Yared, Wilson, 72, 119 Yared, Woodrow, 73, 119, 143 Yeggie, Muhammad, 101 Young Syrian American Society, 116 Young Turks, 9, 10, 99 Zaha’s hotel, 22 Zahle, 13, 30, 25, 126, 128, 142 Zainea family, 74 Zainea, Joseph, 143 Zehra, Said, 100