1

Girgulis, Cleo
1947
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

2

Zeytinbagi (formerly Triglia) in Turkey.
2000
Zeytinbagi, Turkey

3

Cleo's grandfather left his home in the Peloponnesus, Greece, and around 1850 settled in a small town in Asia Minor, called Triglia. This village, today called Zeytinbagi, was then primarily a fishing community.

4

Barootes, Anastasia and Anastasios
1915
Zeytinbagi, Turkey

5

Cleo's mother Anastasia and her father Anastasios were both born in Triglia. Her father worked as a fisherman and also tended olive groves and her mother worked in the silk mills in nearby Bursa. They were married in the village and Anastasia gave birth to two children there, the second of these was Cleo.

6

Anastasia and Cleo
1922
Greece

7

In 1922 Cleo and family were forced to flee Asia Minor as refugees. Cleo's uncle, Basilios Barootes, who was living in Canada, applied to the government to have Cleo and her family brought to live in Canada. They finally reached Halifax in the ship Ascania on January 25th, 1926.

Transcription of sound-clip:
Cleo - "On the night of August the 21st, 1922, we were awakened by a friend of my fathers and we fled Triglia in a small boat. My mother, my brother of two and a half years, a cousin of ten years, and I was an eight-month old baby. We landed on the island of Rethistoa, then on to another island of Tenedos, in the Marmara area. My father had been hiding as the Turks were placing Greek men in their army. By coincidence we landed on the same island. Later, we were rescued by French boats and taken to Greece and Rafina, where the refugee camps had been set-up by the Greek government, for three years with many of the others from Asia Minor. My mother related these details to me of course.
My Uncle Basil Barootes had left Triglia for Canada as a young man and returned and married in 1913 in Triglia, then brought his bride back to live in Winnipeg. Then he moved to Saskatoon after World War I was over in 1919. He applied for our family and many more relatives from Asia Minor, who were in the refugee camps, to come to Saskatoon. We arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia on the ship Ascania, January 25th, 1926. After a short visit to see my mothers married sister in Montreal, we boarded the train for Saskatoon."

8

Cleo (front) with her Uncle Nick, and two servers in front of his café in Edmonton.
1927
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

9

While Cleo and family were in the refugee camp her uncles Basilios, Christos and Nickolas Barootes had come to Canada and opened restaurants in Saskatoon and Edmonton. Cleo's family, once having reached Canada, came to Saskatoon for six months and then to Edmonton where her father quickly began to practice his restaurant cooking skills, later specializing in pastries. The Barootes restaurants were known as chocolate-candy stores, making them a "first" in Western Canada.

10

Edmonton Greek School. Cleo: first from left, back row.
1933
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

11

In 1929 the Barootes bought their first home, in the Rose Flats area of Edmonton; today this is the district of Rosedale. While in Edmonton Cleo attended Donald Ross Public School and Strathcona High School. In grades eleven and twelve Cleo moved to Commercial High School to take special secretarial courses. During her school years Cleo also kept up her Greek by attending classes at a Greek school in the city. This school was established and financed by AHEPA.

Transcription of sound-clip:
Cleo - "The Greek school was organized by the Order of AHEPA and sponsored by the Order of AHEPA. There were 26 children that registered and we had our classes on Saturday at the Catholic School which was near downtown. Actually the first teacher was a Mrs. Helen Lingus who was a graduate from McGill. She taught us for a couple of years and then she started her family. So, we then had a girl who came from Greece, her name was Arrioro Procopis, and she taught Greek school for about three years before she was married."

12

Cleo while working for Canadian Airways Ltd.
1941
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

13

In 1940, during World War II, Cleo moved to Montreal for a year to seek employment. In 1941 she returned home to Edmonton and was hired by Canadian Airways Ltd., an air observer school which was at that time training aircraft navigators at Edmonton Airport. The Company was managed by the famous northern pilot and World War I hero "WOP" May.

Transcription of Sound-clip:
Cleo - "I took this first job at Canadian Airways, I say, which was a navigators school and the chief engineer was from Australia. Mr. Len Doben was his name. Of course there was an accent to his English, and I had to record everything by short hand and then I would have to check with him a second time because of the accent, I couldn't understand a little bit. He was the engineer who looked after the airplanes, whatever they needed. So there were a lot of technical words, you know. And, I was there first woman on the station in that time and I had all these engineers and navigators and whatever, all teasing, of course, this business because I had to do these over again. These minutes."

14

Cleo in Canadian Airways outfit
1941
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada