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I was born in the 1950s Yeni Hayat Mahallesi in the old citadel Kale of
Ankara. I am the son of Hakkı Ekim from Kastamonu and Namiye Akdur from
Nevşehir, Cappadocia.
Our family tree of father’s side from Eskioğlu village near the town of Taşköprü located east of Kastamonu city near Black Sea:
Memiş and Alime (N.A.), Ahmet and Nazike (1838-1910), Ismail and Zeynep
(1868-1916) had two sons Abdullah and Ahmet. Abdullah was born in 1899 and
married to Sehra. They had a son Mehmet in 1921. Then father Abdullah joined
the army but was martyred during the war of
Independence so never returned home. When Sehra became a widow with her baby, the family married her to Ahmet, 17-year old- brother of the late Abdullah.
Uncle Mehmet moved to Istanbul after primary school when he was 15 and stayed with relatives there. He worked in a pastry shop Haci Bekir and studied at a health care school. He then worked decades at a pharmaceutical laboratory, Biofarma in Bayazıt until he retired. Mehmet married a Balkan immigrant bride Fatma and they have three sons: Ismail Hakkı, Sedat, and Vedat!
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Uncle Niyazi was an officer in the Navy. He liked me so much and invited me to his navy ship at Beykoz, Bosporus, where he told me about memories of his visit to US. He was handsome with blue eyes and often had pretty girlfriends... Later, he married a pharmacist lady “Servet hanım” and they have a daughter Emel. I visited them several times in their home in Fatih with and without my parents in the sixties and played with my cousin Emel who was a pretty girl. Uncle Niyazi divorced some years later and unfortunately, I lost my ties with my dear cousin Emel!
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Uncle Nazmi was an officer at the Air Forces. He worked at air bases in Diyarbakır, Bandırma, Şile and moved to Ankara when retired. He was married to Fatma and They have four children: Bilal, Zeynep, Hatice and Elif. Uncle Nazmi died in 1994 in a car accident. I had close relations with him. He visited us often in Ankara and I visited him and stayed a week at his home on the Black Sea coast town of Şile in the late sixties. There I had a nice time on the sandy beaches of Kumbaba, drove his moped and met famous artists like Zeki Müren...
Aunt Nimet was married to an immigrant truck driver from Balkans. He visited us when he came to Ankara for delivery. He was a friendly handsome man but died too early as a result of heavy smoking. He left 3 kids behind: Saliha, Tarık, and Volkan. Nimet had to raise children alone. My mother Namiye helped her by buying a flat in Avcilar and let Nimet and her youngest son live there for years without rent until she died. After Nimet’s death in 2007, her daughter Saliha bought this flat from my mother at a reasonable (half) price.
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When 2.World War started my grandpa Ahmet moved to Istanbul and got a job as a carpenter at City Ferry Lines. Teenager Hakkı stayed in the village to complete his school year. When he was 15, his uncle gave him travel money and sent him to Inebolu which is a seaside town on the Black Sea. He stayed there a week with relatives and waited for a steamship to Istanbul.
My late father Hakki once told me: The ship came from Trabzon via Samsun and Sinop, anchored a mile from the seaside of the town. As there was no pier, passengers were taken to the ship by boats. The steamship arrived at Istanbul Sirkeci pier on the European side of the Bosphorus after two nights and one day of travel.
Teenager Hakkı was astonished when he looked from the deck of the steamship at the magnificent skyline of Istanbul on the Strait of Bosporus. On the pier, he was amazed when he saw so many people on the streets walking uphill to the famous Grand Bazaar!
Hakkı found the Pastry Shop where his big brother Mehmet worked. They
stayed the first night downstairs of the shop and in the morning went to
Paşabahçe (Asian side of the city) where their father Ahmet and our
relatives settled. Hakkı stayed at his father's home and went to a vocational school in Ortaköy (European side) where he had to take a city ferry daily.
He told me he met a couple of times on board famous writer Necip Fazil K. and discussed life and philosophy.
After school, he studied at Technical High School after he got a two-year state scholarship and graduated as a tchnical planner. After military service, he started to work at State Aviation
Authority at Etimesgut Airport of Ankara where he was destined to meet Miss Namiye Akdur, my mother.
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FAMILY TREE MOTHER'S SIDE
My late mother Namiye Akdur was born in 1926 in the central Anatolian city of Nevşehir. Her mother was Nazmiye Fatma and her father Hasan Akdur both from Nevşehir-Cappadocia. They moved to the town of Kırşehir when Namiye was 5 years old and little sister Samiye (born in 1930) one year old. My grandpa started a textile store there. After a few years family moved to Yeni Hayat Mahallesi, Ankara across from the famous Ulucanlar prison. My mother's youngest sister Yurdagül was born in 1939 in Ankara.
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Namiye graduated from Ankara Commercial Scool and started to work as a
secretary in the Management Department of the State Aviation Agency at Etimesgut Airport.
After a couple of years working there, she met there Hakkı Ekim. They were engaged in 1949 and married the same year!
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They lived in a small flat next to Namiye's family and her aunt Nimet and her husband Süleyman Aral in the Yeni Hayat Mahallesi, old citadel of Ankara. My mother Namiye started to work in Yapı Kredi Bank when I was three years old. When she worked I stayed home with grandma Nazmiye. My father Hakkı changed his job from Etimesgut Airport to a technical maintanence unit close to city centrum.
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Aunt Samiye studied economics and graduated from the University of Ankara. She worked for Emlakbank over 30 years as a supervisor and branch manager until her retirement. Since her best friend German immigrant Mari Bremer's family lived in a villa in garden suburb Keçiören, she bought land there and built a two-storey house there in 1956.
Samiye moved tto her two stored house with a large garden with her parents and elder sister Namiye, her husband, and 5 years old son Erdinç (me). After her father Hasan Akdur died of a heart attack tragically in 1960 she married Gürsel Kocaova and they have two sons: Yalçın and Yavuz.
My mother's youngest sister Yurdagül was born in 1939. Aunt Yurdagül also studied economics and worked for the Post office. She was engaged and married to Kazım Varol in 1960 when they were in the early twenties. They rented a part of Samiye's house and lived there next to eldest sister Namiye's family.
Two years later Yurdagül and Kazım built their own house with a garden, 2 km away from Samiye's and moved there. Their daughter Dilek, a graduate of Hacettepe University met Scott, a young American gentleman in Ankara and they got married. After living a few years in Ankara, they moved to Arizona, USA. They have a son Hakan Aaron, MD at Tampa Hospital in Florida and Ece Melissa, graduating soon nurse in Phoenix Arizona. They are our little cousins in the USA.
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CHILDHOOD
I remember following highlights from Yenihayat Mahallesi: We had a white furry dog, and often walked to Çıkrıkçılar Yokuşu and Samanpazarı for shopping. I remember weddings of my mother’s cousins Hacı and Nimet and Bekir and Yüksel Büyüközdemir. Then I remember we walked from Samanpazarı through Anafartalar to Ulus where we took bus or dolmuş minibus to Keçiören when we went to see the new building on Samiye’s land.
Then we moved to aunt Samiye’s brand new two-storey large house with a beautiful garden at Duvardibi in 1956. Keçiören district was located 7 km north of the centrum and pretty different from the crowded city. Green lands, gardens, almond, cherry and apricote trees... Families were coming here to have a picnic in the shadow of the trees near the creek.
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I remember when we had moved to Keçiören we visited often my mother's aunt and her husband Süleyman's home. They have two sons and a daughter. Oldest son Halil always studied hard when he was in secondary school and at Middle East Technical University. I was concluded that he was going to be a professor!
Halil married to a dutch lady Marianne in Netherlands. After living a couple of years in Ankara, they moved to Melbourne, Australia where Halil continued his academic carrier at the University. Halil and Marianne have two sons Topaz and Jasper. Topaz is managing an IT-security company together with his wife Melody. Younger son Jasper is studying in the university in Melbourne.
Halil's younger brother Yılmaz ağabey, a young man, handsome as famous French actor Alain Delon had limited time for me little cousin, as he usually had beautiful girlfriends around him. We all family were shocked when he suddenly died at his early thirties, unfortunately.
We were good friends with my cousin Gönül even though she was playing girls' games and I was playing boys' games. Gönül became a succssful secondary school teacher, but she died just a couple of years after she retired.
Sometimes after the school I dropped by at Uncle Süleyman's textil boutique with his partner Fahri Mor and talked with him if he didn't have a customer. He liked me very much and we had good relations with him.
On Bayram Holidays we visited my mother's Uncle Ahmet and Elmas Özügür, aunts Nimet and Süleyman Aral; Dilber and Osman Ayhan and other relatives such as Aunt Sedakat and Uncle Hacı; Uncle Fuat Akdur, Emine and their son Ümit Akdur, Latife and Halit Akdoğan and their children Sururi, Suzan and Rezzan...
When we come home at night after Bayram visits I enjoyed putting on the table all the candies and the money given to me and admiring them. Most generous uncles were: Uncle Süleyman, Uncle Fuat and Uncle Osman!
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The parents of Kazım Varol, the husband of my aunt Yurdagül, were a distinguished people. We visited them several times in their two-storey house in Keçiören. Kazım's father Ismail, and mother Mrs Nadide, natives from a village west of Ankara called Bitik village. We visited Kazım's older brother Turhan and his beautiful wife Yüksel, their daughter Nesrin and son Salih.
Kazım's younger brother Tarık attended the same secondary school Hüseyin Güllüoğlu with me. Although, he was grade 7 when I was grade 6, we were good friends. Some people said their father Uncle Ismail was known as a tough guy! But I personally find him likeable and even a philosopher and gentleman! I had a good relationship with him.
I have one unforgettable memory about Varol family. In one of our visits with my grandpa Hasan, their little dog bit us both in front of their house. My grandpa and I had to go to the Hifzısıhha Vaccination Institute daily for two weeks to get vaccinated for rabies.
"To be continued" . . .
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