Generation 4 · born in Greece

Harry Lambros

Anastasios Georgios Lambros · known as Papou Harry

Founder of the Diana Restaurant, Oneonta

Born: 1 Jan 1888, Zoupena, Greece
Died: 11 Apr 1956, Oneonta, NY

The eldest of eleven, named for his grandfather. At fifteen he landed in New York on 22 April 1903 aboard the SS Grosser Kurfürst, with his cousin John D. (opens in a new tab)’s Jamestown address pinned to the lapel of his jacket.

He worked his way along the Tsintzinian network: Jamestown; Wooster, Ohio, where the 1910 census finds him selling candy for his relatives Peter and Gust Benekos; Cortland, New York, where he opened the Community Grill; and in 1914 Oneonta, New York, where his sister Contillo (opens in a new tab) lived. There he opened a billiard parlor with his brother-in-law Bill Georgeson and soon turned it into a confectionery making ice cream and candy.

At thirty he enlisted, on 27 May 1918. A private in the Pioneer Infantry, he shipped to France that August, served through the Meuse-Argonne offensive, and came home in April 1919 with a discharge marked “excellent”.

He married Mary Zaharis in 1922 and they raised four children at 12 Roosevelt Avenue. In 1923, hearing his mother was gravely ill, he sailed for Greece for the first time in twenty years, delayed by the birth of his daughter Helen (opens in a new tab), and arrived too late. He returned on the SS Byron on 16 March 1924.

In 1927 the confectionery became the Diana Restaurant, with the candy maker Arthur Giftakis as his partner. Not long after, he was arrested for bootlegging: the liquor was hidden under the risers of the back staircase. The judge read his war record, told him he was a husband and father with a legitimate business and should clean up his act, and dropped the charges. A $7,000 loan from Jim Nickles carried the Diana through the Depression, and the whole family worked there.

Outgoing and friendly, an avid bowler and sports fan, Harry sat on the Tsintzina Society’s board from 1937. He made a last trip to Greece in 1952 and died of heart disease four years later, aged 68. The Diana outlived him by thirty-five years: his children George (opens in a new tab) and Helen (opens in a new tab) ran it until 1991.

Marriage

Mary N. Zaharis (1896–1980)
- Also known as Marigo, Yaya Mary
- Married 28 Sep 1922, Syracuse, NY
- Daughter of Nicholas Zaharis and Angeliki Tseleki
- Born 10 Oct 1896, Goritsa, Greece
- Died 18 Apr 1980, Oneonta, NY
Mary was the sixth of seven children. Her father had peddled fruit in Philadelphia before returning to Goritsa; in 1898, when she was a small child, he was killed in his fields after catching a man stealing his animals. Her widowed mother was left impoverished, and Mary’s only brother, Pete, emigrated at seventeen to support the family.
At eleven Mary was sent to Alexandria, Egypt, to work in the household of the Grigoris family. Her son Nick (opens in a new tab) remembers her cooking in the kitchen, singing French songs she had learned there.
In 1920 Pete came back and took his sisters to America. Mary sailed from Patras on the Megali Hellas on 4 October 1920, aged 24, and married Harry two years later.
She was never really happy in America, isolated in a small town while Harry worked seven days a week. On a visit to Greece around 1949 her papers were not in order and she was refused re-entry for more than a year; it took a congressman’s help to bring her home. She suffered a breakdown in Athens and severe depression through the early 1950s, with hospital stays in Albany and Binghamton. Once, her daughter Helen (opens in a new tab) came home at lunchtime just in time to save her life. She recovered enough to travel to Greece again from 1958.
She died of complications of scleroderma and is buried beside Harry.

Children (4)

On record

Arrived: 22 Apr 1903, SS Grosser Kurfürst, from Cherbourg
Military: Private, Pioneer Infantry; France, Aug 1918 to Apr 1919
Described as: 5′5″, brown eyes, black hair (discharge papers)
Business: Diana Restaurant, Main Street, Oneonta (a restaurant from 1927; sold in 1991)
Home: 12 Roosevelt Ave., Oneonta
Buried: Plains Cemetery, Oneonta

Where the records disagree

Census and ship records estimate his birth year as 1887 or 1889; his draft card and the family give 1 January 1888.
The family history says the confectionery became the Diana Restaurant in 1927. The obituaries of his sons George (opens in a new tab) and Nick (opens in a new tab) say he opened the Diana on Main Street in 1921, and his daughter Helen (opens in a new tab)’s calls it an Oneonta eatery for 70 years. They may be counting from the sweet shop that came before it.