family history

In the early 1900’s around 1912 political unrest is in the country of Turkey because of the tension of the Balkan war caused by  the Russian auspices trying to take Macedonia away from Turkey, which was already involved in a war with Italy, the Balkan league of Serbia,Greece and Montenegro combined a force of 750, 000 men and declared war on Turkey October 8th 1912. My great grandfather, Nicholas Saliaris born 1891, thinking about what he was going to do when war broke out in Turkey, when only knowing how to farm and live off the land. He was from a small city that use to be called Triglia now called Bandirma on the sea of Marmara in Turkey, originally Greek nationals for over 500 years ago. His family had lived in Turkey for generations, close to 500 years. When growing up he lived on a farm with the rest of his family where they were very self sustainable. They grew their own food and had many animals they would used to feed themselves. When having extra livestock or vegetables they would sell and collect the money for emergencies around the family. As a child he went to school until about grade 6 where he stopped to work on the family farm where the animals would live outside in the summer around the fields and during the cold months they would live in the bottom of the house, where they would warm the family living upstairs. Not knowing anything about the war and not wanting to be involved in war that would most likely end up with him getting killed he decided he would flee the country to seek a better future for himself.

My great grandmother also from Turkey named Zoe Agapitou born 1892, was a Greek National dating back from when Alexander the great III occupied Turkey. My great grandmother zoe, her sister, her aunts and her cousin fled the country in 1922 escaping with their lives from the threat of oncoming Turkish troops, which were being commanded by Kemal Ataturk expelling all Greek troops and all Greek Nationals from Turkey, after Greek troops had tried to take over Turkey during the Balkan war.

 

My great grandfather Nicholas, when finally deciding to emigrate in 1912 at the age of 21 after war broke out and not wanting to join the army that was quickly approaching if he didn't flee. He started to look at to where the most population of Greeks and Turkish people were immigrating around the world and where he could build a better life from the things he knew growing up on a farm. He found that many were migrating towards the west coast of Canada, Vancouver and Calgary area where the threat of war wasn't big. He could also keep his culture and still practice his tradition with other Greeks and Turkish people. After boarding a ship that took him from Turkey to Ellis Island New York in 1912, then docking he traveled around North and South Dakota for a few months exploring the country, before finally moving to Calgary Canada where he connected with other Greeks and finally establishing his household, where he started working to build a family, after meeting my great grandmother Zoe.

My great grandmother fleeing turkey with her family had to make a quick decision on where they were gonna go, knowing that they had friends living in Canada and knew they would be helped out, she decided to move there. In 1922 my great uncle went to Canada to establish a place to live then went back to Turkey and picked up my great grandmother and the rest of their family, when docking in Canada they moved to Calgary to established their family. Almost immediately after immigrating to Canada my great grandmother met my great grandfather from family friends they knew in calgary, and a year later they got married.

If my great grandfather and great grandmother had not met or had not moved to Canada back in 1912 and 1922 my life as a 17 year old in Turkey would not be much different then my life in canada, except for a lot of the government controlling things. In Turkey they have a mandatory of 12 schooling years divided into 3 sections of 4 years each which is not much different from what we have in Canada, for the option of post secondary schooling. One thing that is very different from Canada to Turkey is their government gives a lot more support to post secondary schooling, there is a lot more scholarship handed out and a lot more financial aid giving to students willing to seek post secondary schooling. In Canada we have some financial aid but a lot of it is just loans with low interest that we still have to payback.  After my post schooling if I would have gone, I would be looking for a job in the work force where only 10.1% of Turkish citizens are unemployed compared to 6.9% here in Canada meaning that it might be a little harder to find a job but I would most likely find a job in my field of schooling. As a full time worker I would be expected to work close to 45 hours a week with maybe a bit of overtime depending on the job I would be working, compared to 40 hours here and maybe a little bit of overtime. I would likely be treated fairly and get an average to over average pay over time which is the same here. If I were to get a part time job as a student or as an adult I would be expected to work hard and long hours compared to full time workers and get payed lower than the average European wage, which shows that they are not treated as fairly as the rest of the European part time workers, here in Canada part time workers probably get minimum wage but still get treated the same as full time workers just with less hours of work.