Born in 1897 to a family of impoverished farmers in central Greece, Condas' three older brothers fled to America leaving their mother, he said, to die of a broken heart. Every day, his father worked the land with a hoe, and for dinner set out a bowl of vinegar, garlic and "dried corn bread so hard," Condas said, "you couldn't put a bullet through it. That's the kind of life it was."

In 1916, father and son sold off what they could to buy passage to America and reunite with the three brothers who lived in lower Bingham where uncut mountain wildflowers bloomed freely and roses were scarce.

In 1900, three Greek-owned shops opened on Ogden's 25th Street and Washington Boulevard. In downtown Salt Lake City, 1905, the kaffenio (coffee house) at the Athenian Bachelors Club welcomed immigrants into the southwest area called "Greek Town." Soon, 100 Greek-owned establishments were contributing to the economic growth of Utah; by 1916 that number would triple.

In 1910, Utah's mining and railroad expansion culled 4,000 Greek immigrants as laborers. Young, male and unmarried, they worked on railroad-track gangs throughout the Intermountain West, in the coal camps of Carbon County, the copper fields of Bingham Canyon, and the mill-smelter towns of Magna, Garfield, Murray, Midvale and Tooele.

Separated from American workers, historian Helen Papanikolas said they were "given the poorest accommodations," and, to keep their jobs, "forced to pay bribes, not only to their own padrones, but also to the bosses."

Working 10-hour days, six to seven days a week for $1.50 a day, they were challenged by poverty, prejudice, isolation - and loneliness. There were only 12 Greek women living in Utah at the time.

The way I see it, when one of them asked John Speropoulos to deliver a present to her sister in Greece, there was more to it than the wrapping.

John Speropoulos was 16 when he arrived in America to work with his countrymen in Bingham Canyon's copper mines. When Greece declared war on Bulgaria in 1913, he felt it his duty to go back and serve his country. A year later, he delivered the gift to the home of Petros Apostolopoulous, and met their daughter Efstathia. Smitten, they courted, and, to her sister's delight, married and returned to Utah.

"I guess you could say I was started in Greece and completed in America," their son, the restaurateur Ted Speros, has said.

From 1905 to 1920, thousands of Greek women came to this country as picture brides in arranged marriages made popular because they didn't require dowries. Alien and isolated, they reached out to one another to build homes, families, and a strong Greek community. They resurrected Greek cuisine; placed icons, saints and holy light in their homes; entered children's name saints into little books; cured pain with herbs and taught Greek school and religion.

Some buried their husbands (the Castle Gate Number 2 Mine Explosion of 1924 left 10 widows, seven of them Greek) and keened laments over open caskets; others raised boys without mothers. They observed fasts, celebrated feast days and renewed customs that had fallen away.

Years passed. Company houses became their own, number three tubs gave way to bathtubs, outdoor plumbing came inside, and their children, Greek American youths, went on to make their mark.

Theodore John Speros was born in Bingham Canyon in 1914, George C. Furgis in 1924. Greek leaders in commerce and community, both men died last month, two of the valley's wildflowers lost to us this spring.