As a teenager, Tulla Bertsias dressed in a Grecian gown and was borne through downtown streets atop a float decorated with Ionic columns. It was 1949, and young Tulla was part of Everett’s Fourth of July parade.
At the time, the float representing people of Greek heritage was the closest she’d ever been to her ancestral homeland.
Today, as the eyes of the world focus on Athens and the Olympic Games, she speaks of Greece with firsthand experience.
“My first impression was how beautifully blue-green the sea was, how you could look down into the clear water,” said the now Tulla Mallory, who first visited Greece in 1970.
What she found there was everything in the world history books and more. When Mallory thinks of the Parthenon, the Doric-style temple of Athena built on the Acropolis in Athens in the fifth century B.C., only one word will do: “Beauty.”
The Everett woman has been to Greece nine times, to stay with relatives in Athens and to visit islands in the Aegean Sea. Her half-brother, Nicholas Bertsias, works for the Hyatt hotel chain at a casino there.
Mallory, 70, is a member of the Daughters of Penelope, the women’s group associated with the American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association. Once made up only of women of Greek ancestry, the Daughters of Penelope now includes those who simply share an interest in Greek history and culture.
The women’s group started in San Francisco in 1929. Mallory’s chapter has about 25 members and meets at the Knights of Columbus hall in Everett. For conventions, she has traveled as far as Athens.
“It was meant to help Greek immigrant ladies adjust to life in America,” said Mallory, who considers herself American Greek rather than Greek American. “I was born here. I am first an American.”
Like so many, Mallory tells an immigrant’s story.
Her father, George Bertsias, came from Greece by way of Canada in 1912, walking across the U.S. border at night on railroad tracks. He attended Everett High School and ran George’s Shoe Repair in downtown Everett. The family lived above the store.
He belonged to the American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association, a men’s organization.
“When the Daughters of Penelope were going to start in Everett, my dad signed me up, my mother and me. We were charter members. I was 14,” she said.
A mother of four, Mallory said it’s family that draws her back to Greece over and over again.
“In Greek culture, family comes first,” she said as she pored over photos of cousins and distant relatives she has met on her travels.
She has worshipped at St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church in Seattle and at St. Andrew Orthodox Christian Church in Arlington, and remembers as a child staring at the beautiful icons and the chandelier in Seattle’s old St. Demetrios church.
Her home is decorated with small statues and other art of Greek style. “There’s Athena, goddess of wisdom,” she said, pointing to a small figure by her living room window.
The gorgeous sights of Greece still beckon, although Mallory said “there’s no place like the Pacific Northwest.”
She coaxed me to stay and watch a videotape of the PBS show “Smart Travels” with Rudy Maxa. The armchair tour of the major attractions of Greece had me ready to call the airlines.
But the Olympics?
“You bet I’ll be watching. But I wouldn’t want to be there this week,” she said.
You won’t catch Mallory in Athens in August – it’s too hot. “I’ll never go in the summer,” she said, offering a tip to travelers. “Go in April or May.”
Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlsteinjulie@heraldnet.com.
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