On Christmas Day many years ago, Diane received a present from her father Augustine, and Pat, a very close family friend, and lady friend of Gus, It was a book, and in it a book-marker that read:

Diane,

I hope you enjoy this small part of your family history. It is a wonderful, happy, sad, and delightful story.

Love Pat

Christmas 1998

Diane is named after her grandmother, Acrivi Artemis.

Artemis the Greek Goddess, was also Diana, the Roman goddess of the hunt. For as long as I have known her, Diane’s nickname has always been Arty. It was given to her by one of her high school English teachers. I think you can see the connection.

The book, a copy of which was given to all of Gus’s kids is named The Four Green Walls. It is a hard bound collection of Acrivi’s personal journals. It is a very special book, full of her thoughts, memories, and history of her family.

I have decided to edit the book, turn it from a collection of journals into one story. I want us to take this story, this journey one chapter at a time, and travel thru Acrivi’s life. Her very own words, with as few changes from me as possible, will be our guide.

Let us begin, with the foreword so to speak.

The Four Green Walls by Acrivi Artemis Koutavas Anninos Georgelos

Green has always been my favorite color because it was the color of trees, of the earth, of spring, when at the end of winter all turns green again. The walls of my house were always painted green and the floors were always covered with green carpets so that they might remind me of spring.

I came to this great country, this America, from a far corner of Europe, from beautiful Greece, the land that bore gods and semi-gods. Greece was the land that gave birth to giants who fought for liberty and sang the immortal song:

“Better one hour of Life Free than forty years of prison and slavery!”

Greece is the land where democracy sprang out of the depths of the blood stained earth.

Many years have passed since I was born. It was spring another March. The trees were abloom in our garden. My parents were overjoyed at my birth, because I was their first child.

The third day of my life, my grandmother said to my mother,

“I saw the Fates by the bed of the little one, I heard them whispering…..”

“Were you perhaps dreaming Mother?”

“No, my child. I heard them with my own ears pronounce our child’s fate. The First one said that she will live very far away. The Second, that she will shed many tears in her life. The Third said she will be very happy in the end. “

Many years have passed. What my Grandmother heard the Fates say that night, has proved to be true. Now it is another March and I am at home. I look out of my window and I think… I remember and like a motion picture, my life passes before my eyes as I sit here alone within my four green walls.

The Four Green Walls, Part 1, Odessa