Published: December 19, 2008 09:01 pm      

McDowell County family continues holiday tradition brought from Greece

KIMBALL — The workers who formed the culturally diverse melting-pot-workforce that wrest coal from the southern West Virginia mountains brought many traditions with them when they arrived in the United States. While some cultural traditions disappeared as legions of first and second generation Americans left the coalfields for other opportunities, some of the traditions that took root in the early decades of the 20th Century, continue to flourish in the new millennium.

When the late Mary Genadopoulos Balasis was born in 1920 in the Gary No. 6, community, there was already a thriving Greek community living and working in McDowell County. Families communicated in Greek, ate Greek foods and observed Old World traditions that have all but faded in modern times.

Christmas was a special time of the year for newly expatriated Greek immigrants and first-generation Greco-American families, and one custom that was ingrained in Mary Balasis was the tradition of “calanda,” or Greek Christmas, New Years and Epiphany carols.

“When my mother was growing up in No. 6, Jenkinjones and the Anawalt area, carolers used to go from house to house to sing calanda carols,” Matthew Balasis said. “The songs they sang had regular verses, but the calanda carolers would tailor the verses to have a special meaning for the families they were singing for.”

Young Greek children still sing calanda on Christmas, New Year’s and Epiphany eve. The children ask home-owners: “Shall we say them,” and if the answer is “Yes,” the children sing the carols in Greek. Some sources indicate that the carols began in ancient times and have remained essentially unchanged through the years.

“It was a big tradition for my mother, but when I was young, it was something we kept mostly in our families,” Balasis said. “My father was born on an island in Greece, but my mother was born here. Calanda was a tradition for her, but not for my father. It has all but disappeared. We have a fairly large Greek community here in St. Petersburg, Fla., where I live now, but it’s not a major tradition here.”

Mary and her husband, Tommy Balasis, owned and operated the West Virginia Grocery in Kimball from Feb. 7, 1945 until Feb. 7, 2003 when their daughter and son-in-law, Markella and Jimmy Joe Gianato, reopened it on Feb. 7, 2003, as the Ya’Sou Deli. Mary Balasis remained active with the deli until her death.

As a young teenager in the late 1950s, Balasis became fascinated with electronics. A downtown Kimball businessman, K.L. “King” Cruise, who operated an amusement center, was planning to get rid of an old jukebox, but Balasis bought it for $5. Balasis ordered a changer from Lafayette Electronics and a speaker kit from Olson Electronics and assembled the system.

“I put the speakers right above the store,” Balasis, 65, said. “My mother purchased a couple of Christmas records and we started the tradition of playing Christmas music out into the street. She loved it. You could hear the music all the way up Kimball Hill. Each year, people would start asking her around Thanksgiving when the Christmas music was going to start. The first year was 1958.”

Balasis continued the tradition through his high school years, but he got away from the tradition in the early 1960s when he spent his first Christmas away from home, serving in the U.S. Air Force in Southeast Asia. His mother kept putting the Christmas records on the changer and playing them throughout the holiday period. Markella Gianato continued that tradition after her mother’s death in 2006.

“It’s just wonderful,” Dolly Smith said. Smith lives above the deli and looks forward to hearing the Christmas music each year. “I’ve lived here 45 years,” Smith said. “I listen to it from about 8 a.m., when I get up in the morning until 8 p.m., at night. It’s so uplifting. It just goes on and on.”

Faye Wood said she has listened to the Christmas music from the West Virginia Grocery all 50 years. “It’s just one of the things you come to expect,” Wood said. “It has always been there. It has added to the holiday spirit in Kimball.”

Balasis left Kimball in 1962, “but it’s still my home,” he said. He worked as an engineer in satellite communications, but has since retired. “Markella calls me every year when she starts the music,” he said. “This year, she let me listen to it on her cell phone because it is the 50th year.”

Markella Gianato said she plays the music six days a week, 12 hours per day. “Never on Sunday,” she said. She didn’t want the music to compete with the Christmas music a local church plays on its chimes on Sunday.

“People in town look forward to it, and people tell me they listen to the music as they drive through town,” Gianato said. “They seem to enjoy it.”

— Contact Bill Archer at barcher@bdtonline.com