Gloria Shamoun Thomas and Charles Shamoun (far right) with their brothers and sisters.

Gloria Shamoun Thomas (b. 1944) and her brother Charles David Shamoun, Jr. (b. 1946) were born in Greenville to Charles David Shamoun (b. 1904) and Rosie Shawa Shamoun (b. 1912). Their mother, Rosie Showah Shamoun, immigrated to America with her mother and father, when she was one year old. Like many others, the Showah family, including Rosie’s aunt and uncle, intended to enter the U.S. through New York’s Ellis Island. Once they arrived, though, Rosie’s uncle was discovered to have an eye infection and was denied entry. “They didn’t know at that time where they went, so she they never saw her again. That always just bothered my grandmother so bad,” remembered Gloria. “I can remember her crying because she never got to see her sister again. They found out later they were in Brazil. Years later they found that out.” The Showahs followed relatives to the Mississippi Delta town of Leland.

When Rosie was six, her grandfather died of influenza in the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. Grandmother remarried another Lebanese man, Joe Shamoun. “When [our mother] grew up they didn’t associate with anybody but Lebanese people. That’s all her mother and daddy knew, you know, was Lebanese people.”

The Shamouns owned a grocery store on Greenville’s Nelson Street, on which a number of Lebanese families—including family friends, the Thomases, owned stores. When Gloria and Charles were both still small children, the family moved to Old Leland Road in Greenville and opened a small store in a shotgun house. Charles remembers working in the store as a boy: “I was three years old and I had my own cash register. I sat on I stood on a milk crate. I had my own cash register, and the penny button and the nickel button were wore out. Candy was a nickel, chips was a nickel, Cokes was a nickel.”

But grocery shopping wasn’t the only activity in the store. Customers could try their luck on slot machines, and there was even a jukebox in the store. “Every Saturday night we’d have people in the neighborhood come play music in there, and we’d have a little dance.” Charles Sr. later closed the small grocery store and opened Shamoun’s Cardinal Food Store nearby.

Gloria and Charles both attended St. Joseph School and St. Joseph Catholic Church in Greenville. Gloria continued her education at Mississippi College for Women in Columbus, and Charles attended the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg. After college, Gloria moved to Atlanta and taught school for four years before returning to the Delta, marrying Robert Thomas, the brother of James George “T” Thomas, and becoming an elementary school teacher there. Charles continued in his father’s footsteps, owning and operating a grocery store, Leland Food Market.

Today, Gloria lives in Leland, and Charles lives in Greenville.

This interview with Gloria Thomas and Charles Shamoun took place in the home of Gloria Thomas in Leland, Mississippi, on November 11, 2017.

Audio clips

Gloria tells the story of her family coming to America and why they stayed

Gloria recalls her grandparents’ Old World customs and her parents’ response

Gloria and Charles remember early days of the family grocery store

Charles tells a story passed down about their grandfather peddling

Gloria recalls experiencing prejudice because of her Catholicism

“Even after we were born my grandmother and granddaddy lived with us. So there were six kids, Mother and Daddy, and Grandmother and Granddaddy, and it was not easy living. I promise you. And they spoke broken English. To each other they spoke Arabic. So I knew it. I couldn't speak it, but I could understand what they were talking about, you know? And my older brother and sister knew more than I did.”

“My grandmother started sewing and making just a little of money. And then every time she accumulated five hundred dollars—I guess that’s all it cost to build a house back then—she would build a house and rent it out and make money. If she had been educated she would have done something, you know. She could do plumbing, she would build like benches and stuff, and she knew a little bit about electricity. She could do anything.”

—Gloria Shamoun Thomas

Photos

Full sized images can be downloaded (see hyperlinks).

The Shamoun family in Syria prior to immigrating to the United States

Rosie Showah Shamoun, circa 1917, with her parents