The Greekish Life
Genealogy
The Drum Still Remembers
How My Grandfather's Heirloom Carried His Story from Asia Minor to America
It sits quietly now in a sturdy cardboard box, protected in a thick nest of bubble wrap. It's a little battered, a little faded, some of it's paper decoration peeling off, but still singing when called upon. A clay drum - a doumbek, or doumbeleki, as we called it - hand-decorated with pieces cut and glued from old magazines and other sources, brought from Asia Minor by a refugee with a rhythmic soul - my maternal grandfather.
I am it's careful guardian now, and hold it safely until I pass it on to my niece, who - as luck or genetics would have it - also has a talent for percussion.
The story of the drum spans continents and wars, forced exile from the Mediterranean to dance floors in Massachusetts. It’s just a drum. But it’s not just a drum at all.
A Refugee and His Rhythm
My grandfather Theodoros was a young man when he fled Alatsata (modern-day Alaçatı, Turkey), as Anatolian Greek men at that time were being forced into conscription (see a bit more about it here). He escaped just ahead of the Turkish army’s arrival — through the front door of a neighbor’s house, out the back, and into the uncertain future. That neighbor, Despina, would later become my paternal grandmother, with her son marrying Theodoros' daughter, my mother. Because the Fates, apparently, enjoy a bit of of a wink.
He left with almost nothing. A few articles of clothing. And this drum.
It was a piece of him — not just a possession, but something that connected him to joy, to rhythm, to identity. He had learned to dance and drum in the homes of his Turkish neighbors as a little boy. Music, like childhood friendship, didn’t care who was Greek and who was Turk. Despite the outrages of the Ottoman government a the time, little Christians and Muslims seemed to have had no problem getting along, at least in his neighborhood.
That same drum made the journey with him across the Atlantic. The still-taut goat skin head requires rubbing at first to warm it up and keep the drum from sounding sour, but over 110 years later, it still sounds great. It still holds a beat. It still holds a story.
The Drum and the Dancers
In America, Theodoros - or Teddy, as he was called here - became known for his dancing, especially dancing with my mother, whom he taught. They’d shimmy and sway through the immigrant community events in our hometown, in the spirited living rooms of the Brickbottom neighborhood where the carpet had been rolled up and trays of soutzoukakia and finikia were passed above laughing and chattering people's heads, to the "Greek picnics" - the outdoor festivals the local church would put on during the summer. Their tsiftetelli was the real thing - deeply felt, handed down. Not performance, but expression and soul.
Look at him at a party on the island of Samos - eyes closed, feeling it.
And my mom on the church stage, playing zils (finger cymbals) and looking gorgeous...
There was a Middle-Eastern-style nightclub in Boston at the time called Club Zara, and the neighborhood Greek church made up a play-on-words with their own "Club Psara" in the church function hall.
Again - eyes closed, deeply in the moment...
Despite my grandfather's exile, he always had a deep longing for his Anatolian homeland - so much so that my grandmother created beautiful Turkish-style costumes - complete with "coins" sewn on, for their children. Here is my mother in one as a little girl. Note the drawn-on monobrow - a now-puzzling but valid-at-the-time symbol of beauty in that culture. I spent many a dress-up afternoon wearing those colorful satins as a kid, and I still have pieces of the outfit in a closet.
What Belonging Sounds Like
I’d been told by someone once: “You’ll hear your grandfather every time you play it. That’s precious. That’s immortality.”
I believe that. But more than that, I think the drum reminds me what belonging really means.
It’s not always a place. It’s not always a passport, or even a community. Sometimes, it’s a rhythm — something you carry, something you keep, something that holds you when everything else falls away.
Starting when I was 3 years old, my mother passed on the tradition and began teaching me to dance, as her father had taught her, and as he had learned from the Turkish women of Alatsata. I had mastered the shoulder shimmy before I could tie my shoes. She taught me at an early age to play the zils, tambourine, and eventually, the drum itself.
When my niece was old enough, I started teaching her how to play it.
That drum didn’t just survive a nearly 5000 mile migration. It outlived the 20th century itself. And it still speaks, even now, through a fourth generation of rhythmic hands. Not just of what was lost, but of what was kept - culture, creativity, family, a sense of self that couldn't be stripped away by borders or exile.
And so I keep it. Not on display for others, but close. Quietly powerful. Like a heartbeat. Like deep roots. Like memory.
Like belonging.
Do you want more Greek genealogy and family history? Take a look at our page here!
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