Thankful to live in America

Much Thanksgiving lore is built around stories of newcomers like the Pilgrims, who hundred of years ago were gratified with the opportunity to settle in the "new world."

Numerous modern-day Newburyport-area residents also left their original homelands and were themselves newcomers to this region. They have memories of their decision to come to a different country and feelings about making a new life here.

The following area residents agreed to be interviewed about their lives in the U.S. and, during Thanksgiving week, offered their thoughts on settling in a country far away from their original homes. All have been successful as merchants and businesspeople and have developed active family and community lives here.

'Great community'

Like many newcomers in America, Leonel Espinal joined family already here when he arrived from Honduras in 1985. Today, he is assistant branch manager at the Eastern Bank on Storey Avenue in Newburyport.

He first joined his sister in Lynn, graduating from Lynn English High School. He then went into the gas-station business in Beverly with a brother-in-law but learned that he had to try a new field.

"There wasn't enough money to be made in that field," he said. "I decided to get more education."

He attended Northern Essex Community College in the late '90s, studying computer science. He joined Eastern Bank as a teller in 2000 and has worked in branches in Peabody, Danvers and Lynn. "The computer science background has helped me, because so much of a bank's business now involves computer systems," Espinal, a 43-year-old resident of Amesbury, said.

Espinal said he came to America at the urging of his mother, who was concerned about the political climate in Central America. "At that time, there was a lot of fighting in Nicaragua and El Salvador, nearby countries," he said. "You couldn't tell whether it would spill over, so she thought there would be more safety in the U.S.

"If I hadn't come here, I probably would have gone into my father's business, which was trucking. That would have been harder and in a political climate where you couldn't be sure of the future."

The banker said that his children, born in this country, are pleased to be living here and don't have thoughts of relocating to the old country. Espinal sees family members throughout the North Shore and is able to travel to visit relatives in Honduras at least once a year.

Espinal said, "This is a great community to live in, and my wife, who is an administrator at a local college, and I both have found a place here. We do give thanks at this time of year."

Lucky 7

If seven is a lucky number, Greta Reineke was a lucky young woman when she migrated from Austria. "We came on 7-7-77," Reineke said recently. "July 7, 1977. I will always remember that."

Reineke is the owner of Greta's Great Grains, a popular bakery and pastry shop on Pleasant Street. She is a fixture in the community today, but it has been a long vocational journey that actually started with her being one of the first physical-fitness mentors in this area.

"My husband, John, was from Germany, and I was from the Kitzbuhl area in Austria," Reineke said, whose age she ascribed to be "of retirement age."

"We had been children during the war, and when we started a family, we were still concerned about the security of the area, since the Soviet Union was so near and the Cold War was very much on people's minds. We wanted our children to be safe."

John was able to land a job on the North Shore, and Greta started her life in this area as a housewife taking care of the children. She soon was giving exercise classes at The Tannery. As a hobby, she did baking at a shop close by in the complex.

"My fitness students smelled my bread and pastries and started buying them," Greta said with a smile. "Soon, I started looking for space to open a store. But I didn't want to do wholesale. I wanted to meet and talk with customers. There was a storefront on Pleasant Street that was empty; I rented it, just about 16 years ago, and I started the business of selling breads, pastries and pies. No sugar, no fat. Just basic foods."

Greta was a tennis player in those days, and one of here teammates lightheartedly made her an apron that said Greta's Great Grains. "She gave it to me as a surprise, and I ended up using it as the name of the shop."

The store, which employs five, has been a major success, even as competitors move in each year. On one wall is a large framed photo taken years ago of a woman baking bread in a huge outdoor oven in Austria.

"I love that photo because it reminds me of my old country and the people there. My mother ran a small country store and worked all the time. If I wanted to visit with her, I'd go to the store. So, I grew up behind a counter. Now, with Thanksgiving, this is a very busy time of year for me.

"I'm pleased we came to America — my children did well, and we were able to make good lives here. I have warm memories of both places — my early life in Europe and then settling here, starting the store and raising a family. But I do go back to Austria regularly to see family and friends. I want to keep ties there."

'Didn't want to go back'

Elaine Devereaux was a barber in Belfast, Ireland, when she took a vacation to Florida in 1995 and met a man whom she eventually married. After living in Ireland for a brief time, they moved to New England in 1997, and Elaine began her career here as a barber.

"I hadn't planned to live in America, but when we realized that there wasn't much financial opportunity in Ireland, my (ex) husband and I made the decision to come here," said Devereaux, 45, who is a barber at the Inn Street Barber Shop in Newburyport. "The first months were difficult, especially since I couldn't cut hair because I didn't have a license. My daughter was 11 then, and she was very homesick. But I had a trade, I felt I could get a job and decided we would stick with it.

"I did get my license, and I was able to join the shop on Inn Street. Since then it's been great, with all the people you meet and talk to in a day. I can't tell you how many jokes — both here and in Ireland — I've heard from customers telling me to make them look beautiful or saying they don't want a hair cut ... they want all of them cut."

Devereaux remembers that living in Northern Ireland could be a scary experience. "Back then, there was violence all the time," she said. "I've seen several people killed. We used to go to a skating place, and there was so much conflict that the owners had to separate the two groups. They made a rule that the Protestants could skate Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and the Catholics would come Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

"After I came to America, I knew I didn't want to go back to that. I'm thankful to be here; it is safer and much more free. I wouldn't want to go back to the closed-mindedness of some of the people in the small villages and towns."

Devereaux does go back to the old country every Christmas to visit. Her daughter returned to live permanently five years ago, so she sees her grandchildren, as well as friends and extended family.

Friendlier here

Jenny and Tom Ko own Port Plaza Cleaners in Newburyport, but after leaving Korea, they first lived in both New York and New Jersey. They appear thankful that they migrated to the North Shore in 1997, in large part because they say the people are much kinder here.

"There is a big difference between people we worked with in New York and those in the Newburyport area," Tom said. "The people here are friendlier, gentler."

Jenny said, without bitterness, "We would be cursed out almost every day when we worked in New York."

The Kos came to America in 1980 from Seoul, in large part to find a more benign political climate.

Tom said, "It's better now, but in those days, the government wanted to control the young people. You couldn't make decisions on your future; the government would even tell you how long you could grow your hair."

Tom was educated as a chemical engineer, which has some application to his work today in the clothes-cleaning business. But the lives of both have been marked by a need to constantly work to serve their customers. They rise at about 4 a.m., and at least one of them is in the store when it opens at 6:30 a.m. They close most days at 7 p.m.

"Many customers are commuters, and they might need something before going into work," Tom said. "We want to be open to meet their schedules."

Both came from prosperous families, they said. Jenny recently returned to Korea for a family wedding. But vacations are few, and they take off only one day per week.

One of their sources of pride is their son, who is a college student in Florida studying screenwriting and cinematography. They are active in their church, which is one of the activities they are free to pursue on their only day off. This is a good area in which to raise a family, they said.

In their early days in America, they were involved in the food business. Then, Tom took courses to improve his English so he could work in chemical engineering, but he left his studies to work to support the family. They said their decision to enter the cleaning business in Newburyport was the right choice.

Tom said, "I don't know exactly how life would have been had we stayed; things likely would have worked out. But we are thankful to be in this country."

Tom added, with a twinkle in his eye, "You can say this about me — I wanted to be a magician."

'Good people'

Taso Vasiliadis left Greece in 1982 in search of economic opportunity and initially settled in Boston. He learned the pizza business there and moved to Newburyport in 1990. He owns the Pizza Factory on Pleasant Street in Newburyport.

In addition, he and his wife own an ice-cream shop in Amherst. For a onetime newcomer hoping for a chance to succeed, Vasiliadis is making his mark.

"Looking back, I am pleased with the way things worked out," said Vasiliadis, 46. "We were able to raise a family here, we had chances to develop a business, and the lifestyle has been a good one.

"Family members have come here; we go back to Greece when we can. Things have worked out well."

For the past five years, Vasiliadis leased out the restaurant. He recently took over management again. On the day he was interviewed, he was having major electrical problems in the ceiling of the store. In fact, he had been up much of the night before trying to rectify the situation.

"This is right before Thanksgiving," the merchant said, who lives in both Newburyport and Amherst. "It's a big time for us, so I have to have the store ready."

In the past few years, several pizza restaurants have moved into town, but he shrugged off the threat of competition. "It's what happens," he said. "Stores come and go in Newburyport. They bring different styles, different prices.

"There are good people in this town; we have our customers. It's the nature of business that things change, but I am happy we are doing business here."

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