DANE:

This is Debby Dane, and I'm speaking with Euterpe Dukakis on Thursday, November 21, 1985. We are beginning this interview at 3:30. We are about to interview Euterpe Dukakis about her immigration experience from Greece in 1913. She was nine years old. Mrs. Dukakis, if you could tell me the day you were born and the name of the town in Greece.

DUKAKIS:

I was born on September the 4th, 1903, in the city of Larisa, which is in northern Greece. DANE; Will you describe the type of town it was, the size, what people did for a living?

DUKAKIS:

It is, and it was, one of the largest cities of Greece. It's a military, uh, not exactly a post but, shall I say, a military center. It always has been. Because it is in northern Greece and it is in the city. And the, and, particularly in those days, the borders were not terribly far away from Turkey and the Balkan states. It is now over two hundred thousand. It is one of the, probably about the third city in size. It's still a great military center for Greece. Uh, we were, my father was a bookkeeper in a big market. Ah, we were not rich. We were, in fact, fairly poor. But as far as I was concerned, I was, I had all I needed as a child and it never occurred to me that we weren't. As it was Greece, as it is now and as it was then, uh, the young people, unless they have a great deal, if the family has property and money, the future is not a very bright one. And at that time, everybody was going to America, and so my older brother, I had two brothers and four sisters, my older brother, Nicholas, was eighteen and decided that Greece didn't have very much of a future for him at the time, at any rate, so he decided to go to the United States, to come to the United States. Uh, we had, my father had a, a cousin here who lived in Manchester, New Hampshire, uh, with whom my brother got in contact and he sent the money for him to, to, uh, come to the United States. So he, he left, came here, was on his own, could speak no English, and found a job in a shoe factory. In two years he sent enough money so that my younger brother could join him, my brother Adam. And in another, must have been, four years they sent money for the six of us to come. At that time, in 1912, 1913, the, uh, steamship companies were carrying on a great deal of competition to bring, uh, immigrants to the United States because there was a great need for them in building the railroads out toward the west and our factories, shoe factories, textile factories, steel factories, all that. And so the companies, the steamship companies, proceeded to, uh, entice the, uh, young, young men, particularly from southern and central Europe to come to the United States. And, in fact, the competition was so strong that my brothers got the tickets for us to come and they cost eighty dollars for the six of us.

DANE:

For all six?

DUKAKIS:

All six of us. So we came on a boat that had been a coal ship, coal freighter. Had been very quick, hurriedly dressed, changed to an immigrant boat. And the conditions were very, very bad, so bad that my father protested to the administration of the boat that he would not have his family housed around the hold of the ship. That's where the tiers of bunks were one on top of the other for the men and the quarters for the women were not much better. At any rate we did get better quarters and we did the best we could. The weather was terrible. It was in March, the end of march, the beginning of April. The food was worse. But we managed to get here. And when we arrived in New York, uh, I did not see the Statue of Liberty, incidently. It must have been at night and I never, I didn't know anything about it. I learned about that much later. Uh, we were in quarantine in New York for a day, and then we were allowed to go to Ellis Island and we were herded there like sheep and there we were to be examined, and all very fearful that we might not be found healthy enough and might be sent back. My father referred to the Ellis Island as the Place of Tears, or sighs, because everyone was so fearful. Ah, my youngest sister and I were very, very innocent. We didn't know what was going on. We went wherever we were told. But we didn't like it when the doctor stuck his finger in her eyelid and turned it up for a very bad disease that was communicable and infectious, contagious. So we didn't, uh, we got through all right. And we did find our brother Nick down at the pier looking for us, and my sister Helen remembered him and recognized him and started yelling and calling, "Nick, Nick, Nick, Nico. Nico, Nico." And we did, he received us, and had rooms for a found, uh, I had, uh, uh, reservations for the, us to go on the Fall River Line to Fall River and then to Brockton, and from Brockton by, by train to Haverhill, Massachusetts. Uh, I cannot say that I, I found everything ready for us, a house, furniture, food, my first real meal other than the box which had been given to us on Ellis Island as we left it, a sandwich and a banana, the likes of which we never seen before and didn't know how to eat. But my first real meal in the United States was, uh, lamb chops and French fried potatoes. (She laughs.) Which was, fortunately, kind of indicative of my life in the United States. My brother said that, had all the knocks. I, we were settled in Haverhill, I went through the public schools. I was very fortunate in having wonderful teachers who were interested in me and in my progress. I went through Haverhill High School and then to Bates College. Taught four years in two small towns, one in New Hampshire, and one in, uh, Massachusetts. And then I was married to my husband, to Panos, P-A-N-O-S, Panos, who was a young physician trying to make his way in Boston. We had one child, Stelien [PH] in due time and, uh, then Michael came and that is my life. The United, America has been truly the promised land for me.

DANE:

I have a few questions for you.

DUKAKIS:

Very well. Shoot.

DANE:

Back in Greece, when your brothers were here, did they write home?

DUKAKIS:

Oh, yes. Very Often.

DANE:

Did they paint a picture of America for you?

DUKAKIS:

Ah, they sent us cards and they also told us that houses could be moved from place to place and I didn't believe such a thing. O course we thought of houses being built, by stone, and you don't move a stone house. And we didn't, there were many things that they would write to us that we couldn't believe because we had no background or knowledge to believe such things. Ah--

DANE:

Was their life hard for them?

DUKAKIS:

My older brother went through a great many knocks because he came in 19, uh, '07, and soon after he arrived here there was the big panic, as they called them. We call them a depression. In those days they called them a panic. And he lived on bake, on boiled beans for quite a while because they were, factories were closed. Uh, he saved some money and had to use that up to live from day to day. Fortunately, that was over and then things straightened out and he was able to work and, uh, gather enough dollars to send for my younger brother.

DANE:

Did he ever consider coming back to Greece, going back to Greece?

DUKAKIS:

I think that when he first started, I remember when, uh, uh, he was about to leave to come to the United States and my mother was, uh, he waited so that my mother could be delivered of our youngest sister. And when he, uh, went to see her after the baby was born, see, there were three of us, three girls already and, uh, she looked up at him and she said, "Oh, Nico, another girl." And he said, "Mother don't you worry I'll stay in the United States another two years for her." What he meant was he was going to the United States and he was going to work hard to make dowry for his sisters so that they could be married. Because in those days, and the custom isn't too far from there today, but not so bad because the girls become, are educated now in Greece and go into careers. Ah, what he meant was that he would gather enough money so that they could be given a dowry to marry. Instead we all came here. (They laugh.) And I was the first one to go back to Greece on a trip. In 1936, yeah, my husband and I and my mother-in-law went to Greece to, the summer of 1936. It was a wonderful return. and I've been there six more times, and I've enjoyed every trip, but I, this is home.

DANE:

Yeah, yeah. Then your older brother went. Was it hard for your mother to let her other son go?

DUKAKIS:

My mother cried all the time. There was, if a letter didn't come when she expected it she cried, too.

DANE:

Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Was she anxious to come here, or did she just wish they'd come home?

DUKAKIS:

She, she, no. She never, in fact, we used to tease her. She never considered, never wanted to come visit the old country. And we used to say to her, "Mother, everybody wants to go to Greece. Don't you want to go and see your sisters?" "Go back to Greece? What for? All that I love, all that I treasure, is here. What do I want to go back to Greece for?" She never did.

DANE:

And your father, was he, did he want to leave when it came time to go?

DUKAKIS:

Oh, yes. He was ready to, yes, yes. The boys were here and they wanted us to come. It was, uh, uniting the family again. My mother wanted it very much. That was it. We got along very well. My brothers did well in the United States. My sisters married by the old custom, into very good marriages, my two sisters. We lived, this was the place for us, and we never wanted to go back to live there.

DANE:

Did you ever hear the stories, probably your brothers blew that balloon as far as, the gold in the streets and opportunity?

DUKAKIS:

Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Of course. Yes. Those stories were but we knew it wasn't so because my brothers told us of the difficulties they had. They didn't complain, they were just simply stating facts.

DANE:

Uh-huh. Uh-huh. And on Ellis Island, can you remember as if you were a television camera, what it looked like? Were there lots of people there in 1913?

DUKAKIS:

It was crowded because it was, our's was not the only immigrant ship that had docked and was being processed. Many, there were several at the same time. I think it's very difficult for people to understand what was happening in those days. People were coming to the United States in droves from everywhere, even from the West Coast where the oriental people. the Chinese, particularly, and the Japanese. Because this was the promised land. This was the land that was advertised and also that we heard about that this, this were opportunities that we didn't have in the old countries.

DANE:

Uh-huh. When you came to Haverhill and brought with you your Greek culture, did you maintain certain holidays and customs?

DUKAKIS:

Oh, yes. We always have.

DANE:

What are some of those?

DUKAKIS:

Well, we have, of course, we have Christmas and we have easter, although Christmas is not the, it is now for us, because we are here, we are Americans. We, in Greece, Christmas is a religious holiday, not a folk holiday. Uh, Easter is the, rather, the New Year is the time of exchanging gifts and, uh, celebrating parties and that sort of thing. Uh, Easter is the very, the holiest time of the year. It starts forty days before Easter and the fasting of the days and the preparing the house and the, uh, preparing for Easter the last week with all the wonderful, uh, celebrating, shall we call it, of the, uh, Passion during, the week before Easter and then the, going to church constantly of that week and then, finally, the, uh, uh, Good Friday, which is very sad, because it's the re-enactment of the Passion of Jesus, and then, uh, the Saturday midnight mass when everyone goes and has a candle. There is the joyous declaration of "Christ Is Risen," you know. And then the next day when families get together out of doors and they roast lambs out of doors and the dyeing of red eggs and the, it's, it's a very festive time. It was then and I suspect it still is. It was very nice, and we do as much of that as we can. I used to, in the, in the, uh, when the boys were very young we, the calendar, in the Greek church, was still the Julian calendar whereas we go by the Georgian now, as you know. And so we have two Christmases, two Easters. We still have two easters occasionally. I used to say to the boys, "See how lucky we are." You know, "We have two Christmases and we have two Easters." And we still do, of course, occasionally, every four years, I think, we have the same date, but usually-- So we celebrate both.

DANE:

Uh-huh. And food? How about food? Did your mother bring over--

DUKAKIS:

Oh, well, we always know she didn't bring over food, they had regular food here. (Voices garbled.) Yes, but there were, of course, all the traditional dishes that we have like lamb for Easter and, uh, there was no particular food for Christmas but, of course, we'd have, uh, turkey or chicken mostly. In those days, when we were young, there weren't very many turkeys being raised and it wasn't advertised the way it is now. And turkey was very expensive, incidentally, then, because there weren't so many. Now, of course, everybody has turkey and we, when we gather for Thanksgiving and Christmas we're about twenty-five now. (She laughs.) Not with my own family, because now I, see, I got with my Kitty and Michael, and wherever they go I go, too. And it's Kitty's family that we get together, we have a very large family with all the different ones involved.

DANE:

Uh-huh. When you first came, of course, you spoke Greek, because you were a Greek girl. How do, did you learn English? I know you went to school when you got here.

DUKAKIS:

Well, as you know, my family didn't speak English. My brother spoke English, but it was very, a broken kind of ordinary street English. Um, my father and mother couldn't speak, my mother never spoke English. She was at home all the time. If she ever went out, we took her out ourselves, we girls took her into town and we did all the talking for her. And, uh, her life was, of course, among Greek, some Greek neighbors and the church and the family. So that I heard English almost only at, at school. And I learned my English from teachers, mostly. Uh, at first, I couldn't speak it at all and my sister who is, uh, three years younger than I, uh, couldn't either. Could hardly say more than yes or no and hello and how do you do. And my younger brother was very cross and he said to my mother, "What's the matter with these girls? Are they stupid? Why can't they, here they've been all these months and they haven't, they don't know how to speak English yet." Well, at six months, and it happened to me, it happened to Eftie, it was like the coming down of the Holy Spirit to the, apostles and the disciples of Jesus, we spoke English, just like that.

DANE:

That's wonderful. Amazing.

DUKAKIS:

That's why I don't understand this bilingual thing, this English as a second language. But things are different now. There weren't any Greek children in school, so that I was forced to speak, for me to speak, uh, Greek with. And there weren't any children in my neighborhood. I had one other little Greek girl with whom I was friends and still am. Uh, so that Id learn my English from, in school. Of course that's a different story. You take all the children here who are Hispanic, and the whole school is full of Hispanic children. How are they going to learn to speak English? The teacher isn't enough. So maybe it is useful. Maybe it's as it should be.

DANE:

You started to speak English and then in school you started to learn how to read English also.

DUKAKIS:

It was no problem because I could read Greek, and all I had to do was to learn the pronunciation of syllables and the letters, and that's all it was. It was no problem. Mathema-, uh, arithmetic was, I knew arithmetic from the Greek school. I had gone two years, full years, in Greece, and part of one year into the third grade. There was no problem at all in that way. As long as I just learned the pronunciation there was no problem.

DANE:

And your principal, he was very helpful to you?

DUKAKIS:

Oh, he was wonderful to me. I was one of the few immigrant children and I happened to have one very, very thick, long braid of black hair down my back. And that was very unusual and it was noticeable. So from that he made it. He was so wonderfully helpful. He was like a second father to me. He was sort of an intellectual father. And he was, he made a great deal of the American life available to me which I would not have had and I had very fine American teachers, Yankee, shall I say, who, uh, invited my sister and me to their homes. And we had wonderful taste of the real American life, which was very, it was really, I was very fortunate.

DANE:

As far as education goes, I mean, you went off to college. Was that unusual for, I mean, coming from Greece, didn't women stay in the home?

DUKAKIS:

It was very unusual. In fact my, the Greek people of Haverhill thought my parents were out of their mind when they let me go, not only to college, which no other Greek girl had done in Haverhill, a community of three thousand Greeks, but that I went away to school one hundred sixty miles away and co-educational also. (She laughs.) It was really quite a shock.

DANE:

Was it your idea? Did you want to?

DUKAKIS:

Oh, yes. Yes. And I have a feeling that if, if we had stayed in Greece that my brothers would have seen to it that there were enough funds in the family so I could have gone on to more than just the common, the, uh, the elementary school. And that I should go to the, uh, (?), it was called and probably have graduated so I could teach in Greece. So I worked. Oh, I worked summers, I worked Friday afternoon and Saturday, all through high school and saved my money. I knew that I would have to do that and show that I really wanted to go to college. My brothers helped me, but I worked every summer. I worked in the shoe factory and earned, uh, enough for my tuition, at least. And, uh, I had a very small scholarship in college, every year, which wasn't very much but it was helpful. And, uh-- DANE; Were they supportive, your parents?

DUKAKIS:

Oh, yes. Very, very supportive.

DANE:

When you first came in school and you were the only Greek, one of the only Greek girls there, did you ever feel like an outsider in the first years that you were here?

DUKAKIS:

I was too young to be an outsider, to feel an outsider. My life was very busy. You know, I was, I didn't feel an outsider because, uh, I had everything. I had my family, I had my school. I played games outside, my sister and I were, played together, and I had a very good friend, Felksi, who is still my friend, and we see each other every year. When I go back to Lewiston, Maine, she still, the college. She lives in Auburn, which is just across the river. Um, I didn't feel an outsider at all.

DANE:

And what was your maiden name? What did you come over?

DUKAKIS:

Boukis. Euterpe Boukis, B-O-U-K-I-S.

DANE:

How did you meet your husband?

DUKAKIS:

Uh, let's see, how did I meet Panos. Uh, my sister, my older sister, married Tom Nucas who was, uh, was to be, he wasn't then, who was to be a lawyer in Lowell, Massachusetts. And, uh, they, uh, were friends with the Dukakis'. And I met my husband just because the, the two families were friends. Then my husband went to Bates for a year. He went to Boston University for a year, uh, but didn't like it, because he wanted some campus life. He had done his college preparatory work at the American International College in, uh, Springfield. It was then a, uh, a school, a preparatory school, particularly for foreign born and they stressed this because the teaching of English. And he was very happy there. He, too, was taken under his wing, under the wing of one of the professors there who encouraged him a great deal and invited him to their home and would invite him for Thanksgiving, for instance, at their home, and that sort of thing. Uh, and, uh, he liked the campus life, you see, and so when he went to Boston University, granted that he, it was very cheap and he could live very cheaply, uh, in the city, still he wanted some campus life. And so he transferred to Bates and, uh, was very happy there and did a great deal of work, extra work there. And, uh, was, uh, ready to go, in those days the, uh, um, graduate and undergraduate degree was not, was not, uh (a telephone rings.)

DANE:

This is the end of side one, Euterpe Dukakis, Interview Number 91, I don't know what time it is. END OF SIDE ONE BEGINNING OF SIDE TWO

DANE:

This is the beginning of side two, Euterpe Dukakis, Interview Number 91, it's 4:05.

DUKAKIS:

Where were we?

DANE:

We were, you were talking about, um, your husband, and he was at Bates.

DUKAKIS:

Yes, he went there. In fact, he graduated, he left Bates, and was accepted at Harvard Medical School. And, in those days, they did not require an undergraduate degree. But he had, he really had about three years of college, preparatory, medical, uh, what they call it, medical, pre-medical courses. And he had enough of it. Anyway, he was accepted at Harvard Medical. He graduated in 1924.

DANE:

And you married--

DUKAKIS:

1929. He'd had a great deal of, uh, hospital training, so he was able, in those days it wasn't quite as specialized as it is now and he was able to, he had good gynecological and obstetrical preparation at the hospital, at the Lying In Hospital, that was, also, he trained at the Providence City Hospital, was very good for pediatrics. And, uh, he was, his first, um, internship and residence was at the, uh, Boston City Hospital in surgery. And so he, really did, and he was very good. He was one of the early, first, one of the very early Greek doctors in, uh, in, uh, Boston. And, uh, had a very good reputation among non-Greek people. And, in fact, Michael used to say he won his first term for Governor because everybody been, had either been operated on by his father or somebody in the family or, had been, because he was very well known, you see.

DANE:

And for you to marry another Greek, he had come from Greece, I take it, or--

DUKAKIS:

Yes, he was an immigrant too. He came when he was sixteen. DANE; Uh-huh. Did you think you'd grow up and marry a Greek when you were here?

DUKAKIS:

Oh, yes. I never was interested in any-- It was early, then. You see, we were brought up in a Greek environment. And it was right because I think that I would have, uh, uh, my generation, perhaps, of girls anyway, because the Greek young men did marry non-Greeks. But, uh, in my generation I, I think it was the best thing.

DANE:

You lived in a Greek community in Haverhill.

DUKAKIS:

Yes.

DANE:

Was it a very tight community, or--

DUKAKIS:

Well, we, we had the friends. You see, we knew what other people (a telephone rings.) (Break in tape.)

DANE:

We were just talking about, um, the Greek community in Haverhill. Was it a very tight community? Did people know each other--

DUKAKIS:

Oh, yes. We knew each other. Of course, the church was a center, a religious as well as a social center. We had other friends as well. Once I graduated from high school I didn't go back, I went back home only for vacation. I taught away from home and then, on, after four years of teaching I was married, lived in Boston and then in Brookline, so we're, I really didn't go back to Haverhill very much and I don't know, occasionally. Although I have two sisters there, but they come here more than I go there. So, I really-- And here my connections are with the whole community. I mean, the larger community as well as with the Greek community. Our church, of course, is a Greek church, and then I belong to Greek organizations, but I belong to American organizations, woman's club, junior league, I mean League of Woman Voters, uh, what else. All sorts of things.

DANE:

Were there Greek clubs? I understand, um, who was I just talking with the other day, German, a German woman who came, and they were in Baltimore, and they had lots of German clubs and they, was it the same with the Greek community?

DUKAKIS:

Yes. We had some. I belonged to the, I still do belong to the Greek college club, University Club. That was one of the first organizations I joined when I was married in Haverhill. We didn't have anything like that. But, uh, in Boston it was a very thriving club. It still is. I can't attend meetings any more because they meet at night and I can't go out at night, of course. When my husband was living I, we went to, we went together to all the meetings. There is a Hellenic Medical Society, and there is also the Norfolk Medical Society, to which my husband and I would go. And, uh, we did, and it's just, again, you cannot, if you drop everything of your own kind it's like cutting off part of you. You may be able to do without your arm, but is it the best thing for you to do? You need both arms, both hands. There are people who just, they feel they are Americans and want to be, but it isn't. My son, Michael, he, he brings up his Greek background all the time. He speaks Greek, he reads Greek and, uh, he speaks Spanish, he reads Italian speech before Italians. He's really a wonderful guy. Don't you think so, Dean? I say that objectively. In fact, I've always been able to look at my children objectively.

DANE:

Like every mother. (They laugh.) Um, let's talk about that just for a few more minutes about, um, well, first we'll go in though your citizenship. Did you have, you came at nine, did you have to go through getting papers and everything?

DUKAKIS:

Yes. I went to apply for my citizenship papers, uh early. I applied when I was eighteen or nineteen, I think. Uh, I had, of course, plenty of years here, so I could. But I would not have been able to get, uh, to get them, or at least I wouldn't have been able to afford. How was that, why did I wait till after, uh, something about the laws then which have changed, on citizenship. At any rate, I went to, uh, signed up, when I was about eighteen or nineteen at the county courthouse. And the officer there, the clerk, said, "Why do you do this? You're going to marry an American anyway, so what's the sense of this?" I said, "I want to get my own citizenship for myself." As it happened, when I did get my citizenship, ready to get my citizenship, uh, the law had changed so that women could get it, uh, would not have their own citizenship if they married somebody. They have to go through the process themselves. Anyway, I became, uh, they, uh, on this, I was more than twenty-one because my, uh, it was my first year teaching and I had to come back from Nashua, New Hampshire to go and get my papers. And that was all right. I got my citizenship, voted as soon as I could. I've never failed to vote.

DANE:

Was that a happy day to become an American?

DUKAKIS:

Oh, yes. Very much so. Very proud.

DANE:

Uh-huh. Did your parents get citizenship?

DUKAKIS:

My parents did not. But all, my sisters and brothers did. We all did, became citizens.

DANE:

And then a little discussion about that, about being an American of Greek heritage. You were born in Greece and became an American citizen. Two questions. One is when did you feel like an American?

DUKAKIS:

Well, of course, when I was young, those things didn't really matter when I was very young, didn't come up. Uh, afterwards , well, I, it's hard, how do you acquire these things, it's hard to say. But I know one thing now, I'm an American in America, in the United States, where there's everything that has to do with life in the United States. And when something is Greek, the Greek comes out in me. I speak Greek with those who speak Greek to me. In the church it's Greek. We have certain things, certain customs which we celebrate. And that is, I feel Greek then. So that I'm really part of both lives. I, should I throw away my Greek-ism? When I marry, do I forsake my family? I don't. All that my family has meant to me continues to mean to me, but I take on a husband and his family also, and I expect that he has his family. And it's part of our lives, it's part of my roots. Otherwise, I couldn't be a whole person. Michael and I have discussed this and he himself, he feels that Greek in him, his Hellenism. He feels it very strongly. And he's, uh, it adds, it has added and it is a big dimension in his life. And it should be that way. How about Michael's children? Even they have a little feeling and knowledge. Of course, I have tried to give them as much as of a background because I feel it's a strength to know your background, it's a strength to know your roots. It gives you that, a sense of, uh, uh, security, shall we say, which, the past is part of you. None of us are born suddenly. We're born with what has come before, in back of us. I don't know.

DANE:

I think that's wonderful.

DUKAKIS:

How do the rest of your prospects feel about this? Have you had any, have you had any other interviews?

DANE:

Yes, some say, uh, mostly, people that came because of persecution don't look back. Most of them that I've talked to--

DUKAKIS:

They can't. If they do it's bitterness, it's horrible, it's misery. DANE; So they started here. But they bring, and most of these, of course, they're Jewish people. They bring their religion, they bring their culture, that, as we know, is all over the world. And that's what gives them strength. Um, and it's their heritage in the word, um, but not tied to a country any more at all.

DUKAKIS:

No, it isn't a country. It's an idea. It's a feeling. It's an emotion. You take that with you always.

DANE:

But this German woman, I'm trying to think of, without the religious, she, um, she pretty much left Germany behind except, except for some-- But she, I think because of World War Two and the cultural reasons there, she wasn't as outspoken about how, what she was tied to her country.

DUKAKIS:

I, of course, I was very young but whatever I, the life I had in Greece was a very happy one. I was very sorry to leave my grandmother. She wouldn't come with us. She was eighty years old and she said she was too old to change her life. So she went back to the village in the mountains of Epirus. Fortunately she had a daughter there who took care of her until she died when she was ninety-five. But, uh, it was very, I had a happy childhood. I had a happy childhood here.

DANE:

This is one thing, I mean, people will know this, but for the future generations, you represent, really, I'm sure everyone's told you this and it's paved some campaign trails, the American dream from, from another culture. Went to college here, which you might not have done, raised two sons. And one of them has grown up to be an American citizen who is now the governor of the state of Massachusetts. Do you feel like you represent--

DUKAKIS:

It was really a, uh, it was, if it was a dream I did not, I always said to myself I must not dream the dreams for my children, for my sons. They were to do the dreaming themselves. They should make their own dreams. Uh, but, uh, it, it couldn't have been a happier life. We've had our sorrows, we lost a son grown up who was struck by a hit and run driver and left a vegetable, lived for about four and half months between life and death. Uh, it's, it's a constant pain, a sad memory. But everybody has to, if you live long enough you go, everybody will have sorrow, will have some misery, some, perhaps some people have more than others. But I, I for myself, I feel that I have been, uh, whatever you want to call it, God or luck or whatever, I have, living, coming to the United States and living here has really been a, a, uh, reality of the promised land.

DANE:

I think that's great.

DUKAKIS:

I was very fortunate and I think our, all my family have been fortunate in having come to the United States. DANE; Would you do me a favor, because my voice will be taken away, when, in the future on the tape, if you could say your full name, first name, maiden name, last name, married name, and then say your son's name and say what year he was elected governor, and say that he is the governor of Massachusetts.

DUKAKIS:

I thought we said that.

DANE:

But they won't hear that on my side.

DUKAKIS:

Oh, I see, you didn't say that. Oh, I was born Euterpe Boukis, and I'm now Euterpe Boukis Dukakis. I, uh--

DANE:

Had Michael.

DUKAKIS:

I've married Panos Steelan Dukakis who was a physician, a very well-respected physician. We had two children. We have only one now. Our older boy was, unfortunately, hit by a, struck by a hit-and-run driver and was left very, very ill and died. I have one son now, and he's the governor of Massachusetts. The United States has been to me a very wonderful country.

DANE:

Thank you. Thank you.

DUKAKIS:

Okay? I hope you'll edit that.

DANE:

This is the end of side two with Mrs. Euterpe Dukakis, Interview Number 91. It's 4:21.