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Eternal Be Their Memory!
- University Press of Mississippi
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154 ‘’ ‘’ Eternal Be Their Memory! stavros k. frangos aMong the Many docUMented cUstoMs Modern greeks continUe to practice, as they have since classical times, are those related to observances for the dead.1 Yet in all the academic accounts written about Greeks in North America, none mention, let alone describe in detail, the cemeteries established or sought out by the early pioneers and how they have been maintained by their descendants.2 One especially noteworthy gathering of artifacts is found in the Cycadia Cemetery of Tarpon Springs, Florida. Named after the cycadia palms first planted to mark the cemetery grounds, this community institution was founded in 1886—one year before the city of Tarpon Springs was incorporated. At that time, two early pioneer women, Liola Keeney Beekman and Amilia Meres, began to care for the small gathering of graves. The earliest burial was C. L. Webster, 1872, prior to the formal establishment of the cemetery. It is recalled that Beekman and Meres brought plants and trees to the cemetery in a mule-drawn wagon. In 1887, Beekman donated the land to be dedicated as the cemetery. In November 1904, the women established the Cycadia Cemetery Association. As the cemetery grew, the management became too much for the local women. Consequently, in 1946 the cemetery was deeded to the city of Tarpon Springs, which continues to manage it today. The Cycadia Cemetery is located just east of U.S. Highway 19 at 1021 East Tarpon Avenue. In 1905, sponge industry entrepreneur John Cocoris and his brothers brought some 500 Greek spongers from the Saronic Gulf and Dodecanese Islands to the western coast of Florida. Others soon followed. Sadly, the inherent dangers in diving more than ten fathoms (sixty feet) for the best deepwater sponges soon resulted in deaths. As befits those daring sponge divers, 155 Eternal Be Their Memory! their gravestones, mausoleums, and large family plots are unique and artistically distinctive. The overall Greek presence at the Cycadia Cemetery is in direct measure to their demographic standing along the Gulf Coast of Florida . In 1940, there were well over 1,000 men actively engaged in the sponge industry. These men and their families constituted roughly 2,500 Greeks in a town of 3,402. By the late 1970s, an estimated one-third of the residents were Greek or of Greek descent in a town that then numbered some 13,000 individuals. In the twenty-first century, the total number of Greeks along the western coast of Florida has unexpectedly grown. Retired Greeks and Greek Americans from around the country have flocked to towns all along the western Gulf Coast to the north, south, and east of Tarpon Springs as both permanent and seasonal residents. No reliable statistics are available on the seasonal residents. However, the vast majority own homes or condominiums in the region. One way to document the increase of seasonal residents is the growth of Greek churches in Pasco, Pinellas, Hillsborough, Manatee, Sarasota , and Polk Counties. On October 10, 1909, in Tarpon Springs the St. Nicholas foundation stone was laid, making it the first Greek Orthodox parish in western Florida. Since the 1970s, there are now an additional eight parishes : St. George (New Port Richey); Sts. Raphael, Nicholas, and Irene (Palm Harbor); Holy Trinity (Clearwater); St. Stephanos (St. Petersburg); St. John the Baptist (Tampa); St. Barbara (Sarasota); and St. Sophia (Winter Haven). While a number of these churches today may claim to be of long historical standing, none of them would have reached the current size or stature now enjoyed without the presence of the seasonal parishioners. In addition to these officially recognized churches, there has been phenomenal growth in small Eastern Orthodox parishes, chapels, shrines, and even monasteries scattered across these very same counties. As in large cities across the country, the appearance of this complex of churches/chapels/ shrines/monasteries is similar to their organization in Greek communities throughout the world. Parishioners in these various places of worship encompass a wide social range in terms of immigration, theological beliefs, village or region of origin, economic standing, and other components of Greek identity. Greek graves and cemeteries in the United States have always differed from those in the villages from which the majority of immigrants arrived from 1880 to 1920. In Greece prior to the period beginning in the 1970s, bodies were exhumed and the bones were washed and placed in ossuaries—then common to all cemeteries. In the rural villages, individual gravesites were family owned with each...