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Creticos family papers
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Held at: Greek American Heritage Museum [Contact Us]PO BOX 4201, Philadelphia, PA, 19101
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the Greek American Heritage Museum. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.
Overview and metadata sections
John M. Creticos was born circa 1880 in Greece, immigrated to the United States in 1900, and settled in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1910 he married Grace Yiannopoulos and had three daughters, Sophie, Grammar, and Mary. He became a naturalized citizen in 1913 and died on January 14, 1962.
John Creticos's daughter, Mary, was the founder of the Greek American Heritage Society. She was born in August 1918 in Northwest Philadelphia, Pennsylvania into a Greek immigrant family. She served in World War II as a pilot in the Women's Aircorp Service Pilots (WASP) and enjoyed flying so much that she later bought her own small plane. She graduated from Moore College of Art and Design with a degree in Fashion Design and ran a successful Real Estate business in Quakertown, Pennsylvania. She died on August 16, 2015.
Bibliography:
The Morning Call Obituaries. "Mary Creticos." 2015. Accessed June 7, 2016. http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/mcall/obituary.aspx?pid=175534760
Pennsylvania. Philadelphia County. Fourteenth Census of the United States: 1920 Population, Digital Images, ancestry.com June 7, 2016. http:www.ancestry.com
This collection contains materials, circa 1900 to 2004, relating to the Creticos Family. Materials include photocopies of deeds, maps, property and legal records, contracts, financials papers such as invoices and receipts, and business correspondence, circa 1912-1929. There are also genealogical research materials relating to the Creticos family, as well as obituaries, birth certificates, personal letters, audiovisual materials and newspaper clippings.
Also included in this collection are family member biographies, papers of Greek organizations to which the Creticos' belonged, and papers related to Elkins Park Church. Greek history materials compiled by Mary Creticos include audio tapes, printed materials, and photocopies organized into binders by subject. There are travel guides, tour brochures, maps of Greece, and real estate materials such as licenses, property maps and related documents, circa 1970s-1980s. Newspaper clippings relate to Greek Orthodoxy in the United States and Greece.
Summary descriptive information on this collection was compiled in 2014-2016 as part of a project conducted by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania to make better known and more accessible the largely hidden collections of small, primarily volunteer run repositories in the Philadelphia area. The Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories (HCI-PSAR) was funded by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
This is a preliminary finding aid. No physical processing, rehousing, reorganizing, or folder listing was accomplished during the HCI-PSAR project.
In some cases, more detailed inventories or finding aids may be available on-site at the repository where this collection is held; please contact Greek American Heritage Museum directly for more information.
People
Subject
Place
- Publisher
- Greek American Heritage Museum
- Finding Aid Author
- Finding aid prepared by Diane Biunno, Sarah Leu and Anastasia Matijkiw through the Historical Society of Pennsylvania's Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories
- Sponsor
- This preliminary finding aid was created as part of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania's Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories. The HCI-PSAR project was made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
- Access Restrictions
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Contact Greek American Heritage Museum for information about accessing this collection.