Date of Death Cemetery

PULASKI - For 43 years, Haridemos John Gianopoulos was a presence at the Hercules Cafe.

Everyone in downtown Pulaski knew him by his nickname, "Mike."

New customers, noticing Gianopoulos' classic Greek looks and his lilting accent, inevitably asked, "Where are you from?"

And Gianopoulos inevitably smiled his beaming smile before answering " Hunting-

ton, West Virginia."

He was born Aug. 12, 1926, in Greece, but it was in the West Virginia town with the mountainous terrain of his homeland that he received his United States citizenship on Nov. 21, 1957.

Soula Gianopoulos, 75, remembers the day she and her husband became Americans.

"It was a little bit hard," she said. "I had to know all the states of the 50 states, who's the governor of West Virginia, who's the president of the United [States]."

Greece was in turmoil when Soula Avgeris and Mike Gianopoulos were children. The German Wehrmacht had invaded in 1941, leading to years of brutality and a civil war that split the country. During the occupation, schooling was in limbo. The school year of 1941-42 lasted only three months and that of 1942-43 only 20 days.

"Dad never really finished high school," noted John Gianopoulos, the eldest of the couple's three sons. (Their only daughter, Patricia, died of leukemia at the age of 1.)

The only son and oldest offspring of a father who worked security at an Athens bank and a mother who was raising the family's four children, Mike Gianopoulos was 14 when his 35-year-old father died of kidney failure. He began working to support the family, and in 1947 left for Athens where he took a job in a bakery, making bread for Greece's armed forces.

On Aug. 5, 1951, Gianopoulos and one of his three sisters got on a ship, traveled 13 days across the Atlantic and stepped into a new life on Long Island, N.Y.

"Looking back," said John Gianopoulos, "when he and his sister came over, that had to be a huge sacrifice. To leave his mother and his sisters behind and his homeland took a lot of courage."

"There was war," recalled Soula Gianopoulos. "We had nothing. The house fall. Businesses fall. We got no food. At that time, President Truman invited us to come here."

Soula had boarded the Queen Frederika for New York two months earlier than her future husband, arriving in this country after a 17-day voyage. Her sister, Stella Pappas, was already an American citizen, living in the growing Southwest Virginia town of Pulaski.

Jimmy and Phillip Gianopoulos, the Gianopoulos' younger sons, said the Greek immigrants wanted to live in familiar places when they relocated. Those who had lived on the Mediterranean coast headed for coastal areas in the United States. Those who hailed from central Greece and its mountains sought the Appalachian highlands.

"The mountains of West Virginia and Virginia reminded Dad of his old hometown," Jimmy Gianopoulos said.

After a year in New York, Mike Gianopoulos went to Huntington to live with his uncle. A bachelor in his mid-20s, word soon spread among Greek families that Gianopoulos was ready to marry. The Greek grapevine stretched across state lines.

Gianopoulos heard of a young beauty named Soula in Pulaski, drove out to meet her and fell in love.

That was Sept. 2, 1955. On Jan. 15, 1956, the couple married.

They lived in West Virginia for a while, but returned to Pulaski when Soula's brother-in-law, George Pappas, died.

Because Stella Pappas could not handle the family restaurant all alone, Gianopoulos decided to help and ended up helping run the Hercules Cafe for the rest of his working life.

"Mike came to work real early, worked real hard and was a good, honest person," remembered Rudolph Farmer, a lifelong Pulaski resident.

The Hercules Cafe started on East Main and later moved to West Main Street. Known for its hot dogs, hamburgers, hearty breakfasts, plate lunches and cold beer, it attracted customers from all walks of life.

Gianopoulos worked six days a week, from early morning to late night.

"But Sunday," Jimmy Gianopoulos said, "was a special day. We ate together, read the newspaper together, sat down as a family together."

"The biggest thing I learned from my Dad was the work ethic," said John Gianopoulos. "Dad never really had any hobbies. I was concerned about what he would do when he retired."

The people of Pulaski saw Gianopoulos every day, even after he sold his last hot dog. He became an avid walker, strolling the streets of the town and greeting his fellow citizens with a warm smile and a first-name salutation. To them, he was as Judge Dow Owens said, "a very gracious, low key, pleasant, engaging man."

To his family, he was the American dream.

"Dad measured success by being able to be here in the states," said Jimmy Gianopoulos, "to have a family and to make life the best he could for his family and his wife."

Surviving are two special granddaughters, Pam Hensley of Pulaski, Sandra

Funeral services will be held Saturday at 2 p.m. from the Stevens Funeral