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Home || Ministries & Organizations || Our History || Calendar || Contact Us || Donations Harry Kockos Autobiography - Chapter 2 Kockos Introduction || <--Go to Chapter 1 || -->Go to Chapter 3 As soon as weather permitted we were back on the railroad and working for $1.35 / day. Immediately, I saw the foreman, Mr Kelly, and went over to talk to him. He sympathized with me and gave me two jobs: 1) carrying water to the boys (there were about fifty workers) and 2) waving a red flag to warn oncoming trains that there's men working. The conductor then knew to slow the train down , thereby preventing an accident. The job continued all summer, but as soon as the weather grew cold, we were laid off again. We moved on to Salt Lake City were thousands of our countrymen had also been laid off. Looking through the paper, I noticed that a bakery was looking for a young salesman. I went there immediately, met a big, heavy set woman and asked for the job. When she asked me if I would be able to sell the bread, I replied that there was no doubt I would be able to sell it -- in fact, I wanted to see the oven to determine if it was large enough to bake the bread as fast as I could sell it. And she did show me the oven. Though it was rather small, she assured me that there were other places where they could bake. You see, I knew that the Greeks were eating plenty of bread and my countrymen were willing to help me by giving me all their orders. All in all, they needed about 500 loaves. This volume of business continued for a matter of so many days and the bakery offered me a partnership without any down payment. But being honest with the woman, I told her that the Greeks would find jobs fairly soon and therefore they wouldn't be around very long. Without this market, it wouldn't be profitable to have me as a partner.
Meanwhile, I had had some business cards printed stating htat I was a Greek interpreter and dealt with Greek laborers. A few days after that woman
offered me a partnership, I received a telephone call at the bakery. The gentleman asked me I was Mr. Kockos and if I was dealing with laborers.
I walked up to see him and he told me that he could use the men at anytime. I asked him if tommorrow would be soon enough. With the help of my brother Mike and Mr. Andrew Gofas, I got 200 men ready to go to Stockton, Calif. I got one train ticket for 198 men and one green ticket for myself. After travelling a few miles from Salt Lake, I was still in the boxcar with the men. The conductor came in, asked for Mr. Kockos and suggested that I go to my car. I told him that I certainly would and followed him to the pullman passenger car, thanking him very much. After the conductor left, I went back to the other laborers and met my brother with a big smile, saying, "Mike, you know, the company has a pullman car for me and I'm afraid to stay all alone; you better come with me." Mike took two friends and we all slept in the pullman car, surprised with the special reservations. The railroad foreman was waiting for us when the train stopped a few miles outside of Stockton. Shaking hands, he introduced himself as Mr. Kelly, asked how many men I had and told me to have my men take the tools out of the car. The train moved onto the spare track and Kelly asked me if I knew the railroad business. When I replied that I surely did, he told me that he wanted to raise the track all the way down to Stockton. Even though I had never done such work myself, I observed other foremen before and was positively sure how the job was to be done. I lined up the men and while we raised the track so it would be level we pulled out the rotten wooden tiles and replaced them with brand new ones. After Mr. Kelly watched me work on better than 200 feet of track, he came over, patted me on the back, and said, "Bravo, Kockos, you're doing a very good job. Go right ahead and I'll see you later." Mr. Kelly went back to his car and slept and when he checked up on us two hours later, we had already repaired about a mile of track. He told me that I was doing a wonderfule job, and that only one thing was wrong. "You're doing too much work and I'm afraid I'll lose my job; you did double the work I was doing with the same amount of men. Please slow your men down!" The men certainly did slow down and everything was fine for about two months. The company paid the men $1.35/day, but I received four times that amount. When I showed the check to my brother, Mike, he told me that the company had made a mistake but to go ahead and cash it. But there was no mistake -- that was the foreman's salary! About a week later a passenger car stopped where my men were working. A man got off and asked for Mr. Kockos. This fellow, Mr. Kouluris, told me that he represented the railroad company and that he was the man who had sent me the railroad tickets for Salt Lake City. I thanked him, introduced him to Mr. Kelly, and apologized that because of our location we were unable to treat him to anything. Kouluris told me that he was in the wholesale fish brokerage business. Giving me his card, he told me to see him anytime that I might be in Stockton. I replied, "Mr. Koulouris, thank you very much and I will be by to see you some day. But I'd still like to do something for you and your family. I'll tell you what -- when I get married, I'd like you to be my koumbaros." He accepted as my best man and after a long conversation, we saw another train approaching us. With a red flag, I stopped it for him and he shook my hand, saying, "I'll see you, koumbaros, on your wedding day!" At this time my men were near Fresno and they heard that, because of the 1906 fire, there were many job openings in San Francisco. They asked me to go to the city and get jobs for them. Mr. Kelly said that he'd be able to care of my gang, so I took the train and went to San Francisco. There I met a Mr. Peter Vareles who had several candy stores. I told him my position and my purpose in San Francisco and he shook hands with me, telling me that he represented the street car line, The United Railroad. And after telling him that I had approximately 300 men, he gave me a railroad ticket that was good for my entire gang. Besides being a good businessman, Mr. Varelas was also a wonderful person; for example, he called up his wife and told her that he would have a guest for dinner tonight. Later on that afternoon, I met Mr. Varelas at his candy store on Market, and together we went to his home. I certainly enjoyed the interesting business conversations after dinner. I came from a business-minded family and I do love business myself. When I returned to Stockton, Mr. Kelly told me that my men were on strike and had left for Fresno. When I asked him what happened, he said, "I don't know myself -- but I do know one thing, they nearly chocked me." I was very sorry about what happened. I went to a Greek cafe in Fresno and found half a dozen of my men there and they told me that a large group of men were at the home of Mrs. Papageorge. Taking a carriage there, I found my gang barbecuing two lambs and dancing outside in the garden. Mrs. Papageorge was a wonderful woman; her husband had passed away, leaving six girls and his wife. I became very friendly with her and we are still friends to this day. The next day, I took the men to San Francisco, where Mr. Varelas and Mr. White were waiting for us. Mr. White, a superintendant of the United Railroad Company, was a very nice, white-haired gentleman, about sixty-five years of age. Giving me the authority to hire more foremen, it seems like he took me as man of good humor. And with six foremen under me, I started work at Geary and Market. Since I had such a difficult time finding a place to sleep, I asked Mr. White where my men and I could find sleeping accomodations. He told me to go to the street car barn. There we were given some blankets. At this time I took my brother Asimakis, and about fifteen men, and built a home in the Portrero. Because of the 1906 fire, many property owners were looking for laborers; for this reason, I was losing most of my men. Meanwhile, though, I had met a fellow in the Portrero district, Chris Anton, who asked me if I would like to go into the grocery business with him. I told him that I had only $100. A few days ago I had sent a thousand dollars to Greece so that my brother, Andrew, could come to America. However, Chris had $1,500 in the bank and he asked me if that amount of money would be enough. I replied, "Chris, I'm going to check out the grocery business in question. At the same time, I'll look around and try to find a good location. I'll let you know within a week." I found a corner lot on Buchanan and Chestnut. Across the street were thousands of tents in the city park -- in what is now the Marina. Within a week I had talked to Chris again and told him that I had found a location were we could build a market -- provided that, "You let me handle the whole proposition and that we'll take minor chances." He agreed and we shook hands; we were in business. I took him down to Buchanan and Chestnut and told him that not owning the lot was a small chance we'd have to take; he left the entire matter to me. The next day I gave my resignation to Mr. White and he was very sorry to lose me. We found a carpenter and told him what we wanted; because of the fire, we needed neither a permit nor an inspection and building was easy. Within fifteen days, the carpenter, men from the gang, and about a dozen others, had built a grocery store and meat market. In the rear was a room where Chris and I could sleep. At the same time I purchased $3000 worth of merchandise from J.H. Newbar and Co., located on Pacific and Davis. Because we owned our own building, they sent the merchandise on credit. And as soon as we received the merchandise we stocked our shelves and were ready for business. A few days thereafter, we sent out pamphlets announcing our grand opening and when we first opened our doors in November, 1906, a line of people was waiting outside. My partner and I knew nothing about the grocery and meat business, but the people helped themselves and we got a few hundred dollars/day. And the second day we had two Spanish gals to help us (Most of our customers were Spanish). I was surprised and happy with the success of "Anton and Kockos." Meanwhile, J.H. Newbar and Co. hadn't attempted to collect our $8000 bill, but one day, J.H. Newbar himself came into the store. As soon as I shook hands with him and laughing, told him I would be happy to pay the full amount of the bill. At the time we had a few thousand dollars in the bank, so I told Mr. Newbar that business was so good that we might be competitors some day. He was laughing when he took the check. Within a short time, both Mr. Anton and myself had gotten our original investiment back and within a year or so we had made quite a lot of money. We were very pleased with the progress we had made. One day, while we were figuring out the books, Chris told me that he knew a way to find easy money -- file a petition for bankruptcy. I said, "I'm extremely sorry to hear that from you. Tomorrow, we're seperating from our business." When I gave him the amount at which either one of us could buy the other partner out, he told me that he had only been joking. I replied, "Chris, I'm very sorry, but this is an order." The next day he had told my brother, Mike, that he had only been kidding; he also brought his attorney and Father Chapralis to talk to me -- but I had firmly decided that there would be no deal. Finally, Mr. Anton accepted the idea of selling his interest. Kockos Introduction || <--Go to Chapter 1 || -->Go to Chapter 3 |