Celebration for the ages — Campbell style

I have a fan in Campbell’s Caliope Gialousis.

I knew there was one.

But that’s not the reason I turn this Easter space over to her.

We’re a Valley rich in culture and ethnic history.

Caliope shared with me the Greek Easter tradition as it took place in her Campbell neighborhood when she was a child some 60 years ago.

Many of the traditions have faded with the years. But she said a lamb was still in her backyard this weekend as part of her son’s pride in keeping part of the Greek Easter tradition going.

Caliope wrote down the traditions in a letter to her grandchildren. That letter is excerpted below:

“When I was young, we had no Greek Orthodox Church in Campbell. We went to St. Nicholas on Walnut Street in Youngstown. That wonderful church is still there, and I sometimes still go there.

“My father never owned a car. Actually, I don’t think he had ever learned to drive. But he wasn’t unique in that respect. A lot of the Greek men of his generation didn’t drive either. We relied on public transportation — the trolleys and the buses.

“Holy Week was very solemn for all of us. We fasted very strictly to prepare for Holy Communion on Holy Saturday. We went to church every night and sometimes twice a day. You might think it was tiresome going back and forth to Youngstown, riding the bus. But it really wasn’t. It was fun because there were so many of us going at the same time.

“The tradition hardly varied from one year to the next. On Holy Wednesday, all the Greek ladies did their baking — Kolourakia and the delicious Easter breads. My mother made such good cookies and bread. For a while, when I had my own family, I tried her recipes, but somehow my cookies and bread just never came out right.

“On Holy Thursday, between church attendance, we dyed the Easter eggs.

“Still on Holy Thursday, there would be an all-night ‘agripnia’ where people stayed in church all night. If we got tired and sleepy, our mothers would just put on our coats or jackets down on the pews and we would sleep until the next morning.

“For a whole week or more before Easter, the sounds of live lambs could be heard throughout the Greek neighborhoods in Campbell. Almost everyone bought a live lamb. Sometimes we would get two. They were so wonderful and soft to cuddle.

“We usually had the week off before Easter, and when we weren’t in church, we were taking care of our lambs.

“In Campbell, there were huge, abandoned concrete sewer-pipes that were left over from the WPA projects. We called them the ‘barrels.’ We took the lambs to the barrels to graze and eat fresh grass.

“Picture this: a lot of kids walking down the streets leading their lambs with a rope tied around their necks. We did this everyday until Holy Saturday.

“We took lunches with us, too, because we usually stayed at the barrels for hours.

“When we got to the barrels, we tied our lambs to a tree trunk to graze and eat grass. Then we played games or just laid under the trees.

“On Holy Saturday morning, my mother and father would get up very early in the morning to prepare the lamb for roasting. The whole neighborhood smelled of lambs roasting.

“The evening of Holy Saturday, we had to take a nap before we went to church for the midnight services. We would really be hungry by then, and all of us kids would take an Easter Egg so that we could eat after church on the way to the bus stop. We cracked eggs with each other. After all that fasting, a boiled egg never tasted so good.

“Bringing home the holy light from church was really something to see.

“We would get out of church around two o’clock in the morning carrying our lit candles. There were many of us — not just a few. We carried the candles down the hill to the bus stop. As I look back now, I can’t remember a single time that it rained while we were going home. The bus company knew about our tradition and would allow us to bring the lit candles onto the buses. Can you imagine trying to do that today?

“Today, very few Greeks still get live lambs.

“All the other traditions are still pretty much the same except for the fireworks after the ‘Hristos Anesti.’ We never had that until our own Archangel Michael Church was built.

“This is one tradition I really don’t care for. Somehow, the fireworks just don’t seem to fit in with the holiness and joyfulness of Easter.

“I hope all of you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing and going back to such a wonderful time in my life and in the lives of all who were there and shared these times.”

Thanks, Caliope. We did.

(Note: Caliope’s complete letter continues the rich and vivid traditions. Please go to my blog at vindy.com to read Caliope’s full letter to her grandchildren.)