Remembering Andy Skevos
This photograph was taken at the Little Theater in Toledo, Ohio, where Andy was part of the troupe. The couple had been on a few dates, but each had remained shy in company. Then, a painting on the wall reminded Georgia of a Greek folk song. Spontaneously, she started to sing. The spell of shyness was broken. This photo was taken moments afterward.
Part 1 “There was another side to Andy, or rather several sides. He was a man of many talents.” - Tom Photos
Andreas Skevos was born in Toledo, Ohio, on July 11, 1923. He was the oldest of three children born to Nicholas and Magdi Skevos.
Andy began working early at the family’s St. Louis Restaurant on Superior Street in Toledo, learning how to prepare food, manage inventory, and supervise the staff.
After the war, Andy returned to work at the St. Louis Restaurant. Andy met and began dating the love of his life, Georgia Antjas. They were married on June 19, 1949. Earlier, Georgia’s sister, Voula, had married Andy’s cousin, John Photos. In 1951, the other members of the Antjas family - Riga, Sophia, and children Anthony, Thespina, and Panayotis (Peter) - came to America. The Antjas family was reunited and lived in Marion, Ohio.
Andy worked at several restaurants in Marion, including the Acme Grill, the Ritz, and the Humpty Dumpty. The Acme was a family affair, first owned and operated by Theio Loukas Fousianis. My father, John Photos, worked as a fry cook as a teenager, leaving in 1943 to enlist in service. After the war, John managed the Acme Grill into the early 1950s. Anthony Antjas owned and operated the Acme from 1960 until it closed. Papou Riga and Peter Antjas also worked there.
During the late 1950s and early 1960s, Andy managed Rubino (Beany) Nicolosi's Humpty Dumpty Restaurant and was instrumental in training Rubino’s son, Mike Nicolosi, who became a popular restaurateur.
In 1964, Andy purchased the Burger Chef restaurant.** Read Vaughn Sizemore’s a fond remembrance of Andy and the Burger Chef in Part 2.
In 1972, after he sold the Burger Chef, Andy made plans to open a locally-owned supper club. He chose a home on a fairly private site. The Marion Rezoning Commission approved Andy’s proposal. But the City Council rejected the plan. I don’t remember their rationale.
Andy continued to create meals for family gatherings and events at the Mansfield Greek Orthodox Church.
There is another side, or rather many sides, to Andy. He was a man of many talents.
He truly loved the arts.
After serving in World War II, Andy returned to Toledo’s Little Theatre, acting, working the props, and creating sets - all the aspects of theater work.
During this period, Andy appeared in a low-budget movie filmed in Toledo. As I recall, Andy said he played the “heavy.” Most of the time on screen, he skulked on the streets with his collar turned up and his fedora pulled down. “No one could recognize me,” he said. “That was probably a good thing.”
In the early 1950s, Andy often worked in clubs as a professional magician, with Georgia serving as his assistant. In the 1980s(?) Andy performed his magic act for students at school assemblies.
Andy was also an avid artist and photographer. When I was six years old, Uncle Andy showed me his darkroom in the family home's basement on Windsor Street. Watching a blank page turn into an image was astonishing - Pure Magic. It remains a vivid memory to this day.
Memories Nick, Lou, and I were avid fans of the Detroit Tigers and tried to catch every game coming out of WJR Detroit. The radio signal out of Detroit was faint, sometimes unlistenable. When that happened, you’d hear Uncle Andy say, “Ready to go?” We’d pile into the car, and Andy would drive to the north of town to pick up the signal.
I remember Uncle Andy’s laugh. Big and booming. Any who heard it couldn’t help but join in.
Andy Skevos at the Burger Chef Restaurant
Part 2 “ Andy was a grand teacher. . . I learned much from the wisdom he shared with those who would listen.” - Vaughn Sizemore
I heard through the high school buzz network that part-time jobs could be had at a fast food restaurant called Burger Chef. I was very familiar with the Burger Chef, for I knew a couple of guys who worked there. Further, I walked by the Burger Chef on my way home from junior high each day, and having to inhale the aromas of that flame broiler seemed like torture to a starving young teenager.
One day after school, I put on a coat and tie and knocked on the back door of the Burger Chef restaurant on East Center Street. In a small office area in the back sat Andreas Skevos, or Andy as he preferred to be called. I could not gauge his age. His thick shock of salt and pepper hair and thick mustache seemed to fit his Mediterranean appearance completely.
At first, I was a bit intimidated as he sized me up with those black eyes. I asked for an application, but Andy was only beginning to ask questions. “How old are you? How many hours could I work each week? What subjects was I studying in school? How were my math grades? When could I start should he hire me?”
From the start, I sensed that I would be working for Andy just as soon as I completed my application. I was hired that day but did not realize in addition to commencing my first W-2 job, I would soon commence my life lessons from Andy Skevos.
Andy only appeared gruff. In truth, he was a very affable man who knew many customers and often walked from the back to the front counter to make so much small talk with so many during the day. I was compelled to study Andy. I found him to be compassionate and forgiving. He often managed a rough crew of boys from checkered backgrounds and often found himself managing some personal lives with fatherly advice.
I listened to him.
One Sunday evening in my senior year of high school, I arrived at my 5 PM shift ninety minutes late. I had never been late one single time in my work experience . . . .
When I walked in the back door, Andy was waiting. He had to come in on his day off to cover my absence. His lecture was brief but cutting. He told me that I had let him down and that he had grown to trust me completely, and this was not behavior that he could have ever expected from me.
He said words that I carried forward from that evening. He said he had expected more; more importantly, I had let myself down. He was right. The words stung but challenged me at the same time. Andy was a grand teacher. He cared for the young men in his employ. I learned much from the wisdom he shared with those who would listen.
After I was grown, several others and I brought Andy to a local tavern to buy him a beer and tell him what he meant to us. We made him teary-eyed, so we stopped praising him and spent the rest of the evening sharing stories. Those of us who worked for him still speak of him today. He was the best boss a young man could ever have.
The Skevos family in 1969. Julie, Georgia, Nick, Andy
Part 3 “He was always there offering his guidance. This was no small thing to me, and I’ll always be grateful.” - Lou Photos
August 7, 1997
Dear Nick,
I always respected and looked up to Uncle Andy. In the days of our youth, treading through the vicissitudes of life in Marion, he provided valid answers to our uncultivated queries. I remember the early morning paper routes when he got us up at 4 a.m., fried the eggs, and took up around, the rides to school and his laughter at our jokes, the summer stints at Burger Chef with Dave Runkel et al. and your Dad’s blank stare when Me What’s-his-name put in a cooking order for twelve fish sandwiches in the middle of a sleepy afternoon.
I always felt I could rely on his sober advice. He was always there offering his guidance. This was no small thing to me, and I’ll always be grateful.
It’s a strange universe when one day, things are on the straight and normal, and the next, all turns to hostile chaos. My prime gripe about the universe is that it takes years, a huge effort to build, and only seconds to tear it down. If this were all there was, I’d say let it all go to hell.
However, I know one thing, while bodies die, spirits do not. It is the spirit that is the personality and character of man, not the body and a mass of blood and brain cells. Andy Skevos is a spirit, strong and alive. We grieve because we cannot readily contact and communicate with him, but this does not alter the facts. Of this, I could not be more certain.
I remember something he told us once, many years ago. He believed that Einstein was put here by beings from another planet to help Earth “catch up.” Einstein then propounded his theories, which led to a higher level of technology for this planet. That was interesting and not the sort of viewpoint you would expect to run into in Marion, Ohio. He was also a skilled magician and violin player. Andy knew there was more to life than meat, dirt, and stone. Now he’s off to his next work so let us wish him the best.
You will find enclosed a copy of a letter you sent me in 1981. I have intended to send it to you for several months, but it seems it took this shock to wake me from inertia. The letter is a masterpiece, and you should have a copy. Sometimes, when deep gloom gets the better of me and nothing else will cheer me up; I pull it out for a deep chuckle.
I invite you to write when you feel so inclined. Please give my best to your Mom and Julie and the family. I am writing them separately.
Lou
Memory A while back, I asked Brother Lou how he got started on guitar. “Uncle Andy had a couple of old guitars and a mandolin lying around (the house) Reed Avenue... One of the guitars held a sort of fascination for me. During visits, I would pick it up and play around. Not long afterward, the Beatles were on The Ed Sullivan Show, and that did it; I absconded with the guitar and played it all the time. I gave it back after I was well-equipped with newer gear.”
Standing are Andy Skevos, 11 -12 years old, and his brother, Alex. Seated are unknown and Andy’s sister, Cleopatra.
Part 4 “I admired him because he was a painter at heart but, like my dad, also worked hard to provide for his family all the things they needed, as well as the stuff they probably could’ve done without, just like my parents did.” - Richard Straw
What I most remember about Andy Skevos is how friendly he was to me at first and how he continued to be friendly the whole time I knew him. In 1968, when we first met, I was just some high school kid who hung out perhaps too much at his house and seemed to be a bad influence on his son and his two nephews. (I think I was the one who got you guys to smoke cigarettes the first time, wasn’t I?)
Andy always was friendly, smiling and listening to whatever was being said. He seemed to understand what we were going through back then.
One of my early poems was written in Andy’s and Georgia’s home on Reed Avenue. I don’t know if I ever shared the poem with them, but their having come from Greece and my having watched “Zorba the Greek” and “Never on Sunday” on their TV several times probably had some influence on what I wrote then.
Andy bravely hired me to cook hamburgers at his Burger Chef store in the winter of 1968, even though I had no restaurant experience. I was a friend of his son and his nephews, so that was good enough of a reference for him.
My fondest memories of Andy were of those many hours spent in his and Georgia’s living room, first on Reed Avenue, then at his and Georgia’s next home on Summit Street. He would relax in his armchair after working at the old McDaniel’s car dealership on South Main Street next to the Trinity Baptist Church. Nick, Tom, Lou, and I would be splayed out on the floor in front of him. We’d watch Detroit Tiger baseball games and old movies together, including those on Flippo’s Early Show, Chiller Theater, and Houlihan and Big Chuck. He’d laugh, especially whenever Charlie Chaplin, the Marx Brothers, and the Mack Sennett shorts were being shown. I think the Laurel and Hardy movies, especially their piano movers’ sketch, might have been his favorites.
Andy would often come home tired though and fall asleep in his armchair, even when Georgia was passing out snacks to all of us. One time, although the story may be apocryphal, Andy fell asleep while waiting for Georgia to toss him an ice cream bar. She tossed it finally, right on his chest.
Photographs
The Skevos and Photos family. Nicholas and Magdi Skevos are the parents at the left, and Stavroula and Thomas Photos are to the right. Andy stands directly in front of Magdi.
The Great Andreas, Marion Star, December 29, 1962
Memory. Andy was a talented magician. Julie and Nick remember when their father performed his magic act at Marion’s Palace, before a full house - 1433 delighted patrons. “That’s our father!” Julie and Nick told the children around them. To no avail. No one believed them.
Baptism of Andrew Wigton
