"I'd Like to Return to Lebanon"

Though these journal entries are brief and void of emotional nostalgia, they show how Angele carried Lebanese traditions with her throughout her life.

Angele finally receives word she will be able to travel to the United States. She arrives by train to Paris.

Despite the distance, Angele constantly transported herself back to Lebanon through her writing, cooking, faith, and commitment to community and family while building her own legacy away from Lebanon. Throughout her writings and correspondence, Angele shows how she was able to relive her memories with help from her family in Lebanon while committing to creating a rich life and legacy in the United States.

Finally, her journal reveals that Angele was active in the Carthage Women’s Republican Club, kept up with the news, and wrote about contemporary issues affecting diasporic Lebanese communities in Al-Hoda. It was important for her to be informed of world events, which affected her friends and family, and to encourage others to get politically involved and actively work towards the well-being of Lebanese communities across the world.

Angele arrives in New York. Toufic picks her up the couple drives to Toufic's store in Carthage, New York.

Angele departs from Cherbourg on a week-long voyage to New York City.

Pictured: Angele, recognized here as Mrs. Toufee T. Ellis (middle of the second paragraph), in Syracuse's Post Standard about attending the National Women's Republican Club conference in Washington, D. C., October 25, 1969. Found through Newspapers.com.

The Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies is dedicated to research about Lebanese immigrants in the US and throughout the world, and to preserving and sharing that knowledge with the scholarly community and general public.

Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies - NC State

Pictured: A <a href="https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/items/show/45299#?c=0&amp;m=0&amp;s=0&amp;cv=0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">portrait</a> of Angele taken in Marseille, a <a href="https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/items/show/45495#?c=0&amp;m=0&amp;s=0&amp;cv=0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">receipt</a> from a jewelry shop in Marseille, and Angele at the <a href="https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/items/show/45300#?c=0&amp;m=0&amp;s=0&amp;cv=0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Marseille Zoo</a>, with Toufic's sister Emily and her friend Zakia Sukarye Haddad, 1926.

These Lebanese <a href="https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/items/show/44844#?c=0&amp;m=0&amp;s=0&amp;cv=0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">stamps</a> depict a donkey and Byblos, a large city in Mount Lebanon that is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

start

Carthage is a small town in Upstate New York. Historically a paper milling town, Carthage had a sizable Lebanese population, many of whom came from Toufic's hometown, Bqaatouta.

Pictured: Alfred, Rafic, and Delor Ellis behind Angele and Toufic Ellis at their home in Carthage, New York, dated 1974.

Special thanks and deepest gratitude to the invaluable help provided by Dr. Hadia Harb and Lala AlSaeedi for all Arabic to English translations, without which this project would not have been possible. Written by Samantha Aamot.

These Lebanese <a href="https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/items/show/44829#?c=0&amp;m=0&amp;s=0&amp;cv=0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">stamps</a> depict apples, a common export, and tulips.

<a href="https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/items/show/44859#?c=0&amp;m=0&amp;s=0&amp;cv=0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Pictured</a>: Postcard of aerial view over Beirut, Lebanon, 1966.

Angele constantly hosted family and friends in her home, and created a communal space for exchanging Lebanese and Euro-American culture, memories, and traditions. Angele sold a family ring in order to pay for English lessons soon after arriving in New York, and helped translate and write letters for other Lebanese families in the community who received word from home. Angele gathered visitors in her home through cooking, and prepared meals to take to neighbors or donate to the church. In her journal, she recounts making Lebanese dishes, including zalabia, kibbeh, zaatar, ghraybeh, and sambusak in addition to lunches at McDonald’s and the Super Duper grocery store. She often had to substitute Lebanese ingredients for whatever was at the store, but maintained the tradition of preparing and sharing food as a way to connect to Lebanon.

Our final glimpse into Angele’s nostalgia of home comes from her poem I’d Like to Return to Lebanon. The poem consists of sixteen stanzas, each beginning with the titular line. One stanza starts where our story began, with Yousef’s plea for Angele to visit when “the grape is sweet and delicious,” and with Adla’s depiction of mourning on the family’s porch. Angele wrote: “I’d like to return to Lebanon to pass the evening on our vine covered porch, grapes dangling overhead we stay seated, reaching effortlessly, to take, taste and talk endlessly.” With few words, Angele transports the reader to her family's vine-covered porch in the warm Lebanese air, surrounded by friends and family as dusk approaches. Angele returned to Lebanon only a few times after 1926, so she relied heavily on her memories and the images her family provided her throughout their correspondences to write these lines.

These Lebanese <a href="https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/items/show/44976#?c=0&amp;m=0&amp;s=0&amp;cv=0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">stamps</a> depict the Arab Leader's Conference which was held in Beirut, 1956 and the Temple of Jupiter in Baalbek, Lebanon.

These <a href="https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/items/show/45005#?c=0&amp;m=0&amp;s=0&amp;cv=0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">stamps</a> depict the Chateau de Beaufort near Arnoun, Lebanon and the International Airport in Beirut.

<a href="https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/items/show/45151#?c=0&amp;m=0&amp;s=0&amp;cv=0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Pictured</a>: Letter from Adla to Angele dated July 11, 1927. Because she was illiterate, either Mariam or Yousef wrote Adla's letters. Many of the letters have small notes written by whomever was transcribing for Adla, and reveals how letter writing was a collective, sometimes contentious, family exercise.

Find the entirety of the Ellis family archive, as well as other collections, online on the Khayrallah Center website by clicking the link below.

There are two records in the Ellis collection that represent Angele’s adjustment to life in Carthage in her own words. From 1982 to 1983, Angele kept a journal of her day-to-day activities, and in 1990, at age 86, she published a poem titled I’d Like to Return to Lebanon, a beautiful example of some of her lifelong memories of home. Though vastly different in tone, both are examples of the range and depth of nostalgic memories immigrants carry throughout their lives as they navigate new cultures and environments.

Pictured: Postcards of Paris, <a href="https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/items/show/44801#?c=0&amp;m=0&amp;s=0&amp;cv=0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">1985</a> and <a href="https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/items/show/44800#?c=0&amp;m=0&amp;s=0&amp;cv=0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">1986</a>.

<a href="https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/items/show/45192#?c=0&amp;m=0&amp;s=0&amp;cv=0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Pictured</a>: A prayer card sent to Angele from Lebanon in the 1920's, likely from someone at the Mar Elias Convent in Ghazir.

Throughout the letters, Angele’s family expressed their longing by sharing and recreating memories of home. They often described the pain of daily life in her absence and made plans that depended on her eventual return. On<a href="https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/items/show/45163#?c=0&amp;m=0&amp;s=0&amp;cv=0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> February 4, 1927</a>, Adla lamented from Qattine: “We can no more sit on the porch because every time we sit we shed tears and say, ‘Where is Angele?’” On<a href="https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/items/show/45120#?c=0&amp;m=0&amp;s=0&amp;cv=0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> June 12, 1928</a>, Yousef wrote that he had saved a bottle of water from his travels to the Jordan River (a memento of immense spiritual relevance to a Christian family), but instead of sending it to Angele in the mail he would give it to her whenever she returned. On <a href="https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/items/show/45092#?c=0&amp;m=0&amp;s=0&amp;cv=0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">February 28, 1933</a>, Khalil shared with Angele that he had planted 100 apple trees in the family’s orchard, and that when she returned they would be ripe and ready to enjoy together. These brief anecdotes (underwritten by a great deal of labor) show elements of how her family constructed memories of home in her absence, which allowed them to maintain a sense of craved normalcy across their physical divide.

<a href="https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/items/show/45218#?c=0&amp;m=0&amp;s=0&amp;cv=0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Pictured</a>: Angele and Toufic with sons Alfred, Rafic, and Delor in front of their home in Carthage, New York.

The journal Angele kept from 1982 to 1983 showed a more subtle sense of nostalgia, and added an additional layer to the symbolic and romantic nostalgic imagery presented throughout her poetry. One entry simply reads: “I washed clothes and went to Mass at noon. I made baklava. Sochia came, and Alfreda [her youngest daughter] called.” Over the span of a year, these fragmented, daily errands come together to form a more broad representation of her everyday life.&nbsp;

Memories and Gifts: Longing, Remembering, and Recreating Home

<a href="https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/items/show/45496#?c=0&amp;m=0&amp;s=0&amp;cv=0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Pictured</a>: Angele's French passport, issued May 31, 1926.

The group lands in Alexandria, Egypt. Their passports indicate that they took the opportunity to visit the Sphinx.

Toufic and Angele are married in the Patriarchal Church in Harissa, Lebanon.

<a href="https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/items/show/45490#?c=0&amp;m=0&amp;s=0&amp;cv=0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Pictured</a>: A foreign money order receipt for $25.00 dated May 25, 1942. Angele sent money home to Qattine to help support Yousef and Adla during World War II.

<a href="https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/items/show/45237#?c=0&amp;m=0&amp;s=0&amp;cv=0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Pictured</a>: Angele pictured next to Father Haddad, Yousef and his wife, Nahde during her trip to Lebanon in 1968. The family stands on the Mar Elias convent with the village of Ghazir in the background.

<a href="https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/items/show/45168#?c=0&amp;m=0&amp;s=0&amp;cv=0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Pictured</a>: A Christmas card sent by Yousef to Angele and her family, December 1926.

Angele's Archive: From Qattine to Carthage

Angele and her family exchanged memories and gifts throughout their correspondences, creating a small, informal trade network based around the transfer of nostalgia. Angele’s family sent memories and mementos that linked her back to Lebanon, while she financially supported them and upheld their expectation that she would find success in America. Although her family in Lebanon could not provide reciprocal financial support, Angele requested and received gifts that held immense personal value. These gifts allowed her to directly connect to the community and land she had left. 

In addition to sending memories through letters, Angele’s family sent small gifts that represented her nostalgic associations of Lebanon. Angele used these gifts to connect to memories of Lebanon in sensory ways even while she was distantly removed. On <a href="https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/items/show/45138#?c=0&amp;m=0&amp;s=0&amp;cv=0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">December 18, 1927</a>, Mariam responded to a special request Angele had made: “I sent you maakaroun during the holiday, as you asked for.” Maakaroun was a sweet made during Eid il-Burbara, a Christian holiday celebrated in Lebanon to commemorate the martyr Saint Barbara. It must have been difficult for Angele to be away from family during the holidays, and eating the maakaroun her sister sent allowed her to experience the flavors and memories that reminded her of home.

Collection Highlight: Envelopes &amp; Stamps

On <a href="https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/items/show/44855#?c=0&amp;m=0&amp;s=0&amp;cv=0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">June 23, 1966</a>, Yousef Hobeiche wrote to his younger sister, Angele Ellis, and encouraged her to return to Lebanon. “If you have time,” Yousef wrote, “do not delay your trip later than the beginning of July. During that month the fruits and greenery are the best. In the month of August the grape is sweet and delicious. God knows how much I miss you!” Yousef’s letter was postmarked to Carthage, New York, a small paper milling town in Upstate New York, where Angele had emigrated with her husband, Toufic Ellis, in 1926. Yousef wrote from his home in Qattine, a small, predominantly Maronite Christian village in the Keserwan District, northeast of Lebanon’s capital, Beirut. Yousef’s letter is nostalgic, rich with imagery and longing of a time that no longer existed in reality but was held in memory. The letter reflects how this family, and other immigrant families in the twentieth century, developed ways to adjust to their separation through exchanges of nostalgic love. Over time Angele used these shared memories in her own writing as a way to transport herself back to the home she left behind.

History from across Angele's network is exhibited through the surviving stamps on the letters' envelopes. Scroll through several examples from the collection, and comb through the rest of the online collection to find more.

<a href="https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/items/show/45101#?c=0&amp;m=0&amp;s=0&amp;cv=0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Pictured</a>: A Maronite Mass holy card made in New York circa 1930's.

<a href="https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/items/show/45303#?c=0&amp;m=0&amp;s=0&amp;cv=0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Pictured</a>: Angele and Toufic's wedding portrait, 1926.

This Lebanese <a href="https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/items/show/44915#?c=0&amp;m=0&amp;s=0&amp;cv=0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">stamp</a> shows the Chamoun Electric power plant.

These Chilean <a href="https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/items/show/44832#?c=0&amp;m=0&amp;s=0&amp;cv=0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">stamps</a> celebrate the 80th anniversary of the taking of Easter Island and the Chilean Navy.

n-Da3RA3

n-TBUOW6

n-p35eRC

n-C0JoXl

n-BVVZNz

n-YhgoN9

n-x3PFmZ

n-MtvUJw

<a href="https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/items/show/45304#?c=0&amp;m=0&amp;s=0&amp;cv=0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Pictured</a>: Angele on the RMS Homeric headed to New York.

Through her journal, we see that Angele was deeply involved in her community, especially through her strong ties to the Catholic Church in the United States and Lebanon. She attended Mass services daily at St. James Catholic Church, which was just down the street from the family's home. Angele collected money to send to churches and orphanages in Lebanon and provided baked goods and tabouli for church fundraisers and the annual church fair. Though there was no Maronite church in Carthage, Maronite priest Boulous Sfeir traveled to perform Maronite Mass at St. James, bringing Maronite traditions to Carthage's Lebanese and non-Lebanese Catholics. Angele <a href="https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/items/show/45042#?c=0&amp;m=0&amp;s=0&amp;cv=0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">wrote about</a> these Maronite Masses for <a href="https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/collections/show/58" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Al-Hoda</a>, one of the most widely circulated Arabic-language newspapers in North America. She helped bring traditions from Lebanon into Carthage's Catholic community.

Angele's Correspondence: Letters from Around the World

<a href="https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/items/show/45499#?c=0&amp;m=0&amp;s=0&amp;cv=0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Pictured</a>: Toufic's passport, indicating travel to Alexandria and Naples, Italy.

Angele Ellis emigrated from Lebanon to Carthage, New York in the summer of 1926. Born to Adla el Khazen and Namtallah Hobeiche in 1904, Angele grew up in Qattine with her siblings Yousef, Mariam, and Khalil. She married her husband, Toufic Kmeid Ellis, on May 16, 1926.

Angele, Toufic, and Emily, Toufic's sister, arrive in Marseille, France. After facing reluctance from the American Embassy to grant Angele a Visa to the United States, Toufic decides to embark alone in the hopes that he can better secure her passage from the United States. Angele and Emily spend several weeks in Marseille.

The Voyage: Angele and Toufic's Journey to the United States

These Lebanese <a href="https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/items/show/44828#?c=0&amp;m=0&amp;s=0&amp;cv=0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">stamps</a> depict traditional Lebanese crafts including embroidery and making ceramics.

In one of Yousef’s first letters to Angele, written on <a href="https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/items/show/45181#?c=0&amp;m=0&amp;s=0&amp;cv=0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">September 6, 1926</a>, he mentions sending a book of prayers from St. Theresa, one of Angele's favorite saints, and for whom Angele named her first child, Theresa. Yousef mentioned the same prayer book in a letter written in the<a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/trk5b03hqvlbssz/KEllis2018-171.pdf?dl=1" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> </a><a href="https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/items/show/45019#?c=0&amp;m=0&amp;s=0&amp;cv=0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">fall of 1947</a>, over twenty years later. He tells Angele he is sending a replacement book, but was delayed trying to find the right Arabic translation and edition she had asked for, showing that her attachment to this specific book from Lebanon could not be replaced by one from the United States. These gifts eased Angele’s transition to living in Carthage, and helped her find the strength to remain in the United States while bearing the hardship of being away from Lebanon.

We are privileged to witness this process unfold through the extensive archive Angele’s family generously donated to the Khayrallah Center. Amongst other things, this collection contains over 300 letters penned between 1925 and 1993 from friends and family members. Angele received the bulk of letters from Yousef, her mother Adla, her older sister Mariam, and her younger brother Khalil. Though Angele’s own voice is largely missing from the collection, it contains a <a href="https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/items/show/44806#?c=0&amp;m=0&amp;s=0&amp;cv=0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">journal</a> she kept in the 1980’s and a poem she published in Al-Hoda, the Arabic-language newspaper published in New York, on March 15, 1991 titled<a href="https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/items/show/44797#?c=0&amp;m=0&amp;s=0&amp;cv=0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> I’d Like to Return to Lebanon</a>. These writings provide a glimpse into her own thoughts, experiences, and memories after emigrating to the United States. Collectively, these letters and records create a landscape representative of many twentieth century immigrant families for whom nostalgia and memory preserved connections to a natal home, even as they constantly adapted to a new home, with parts of both identities carried throughout.

Toufic, Angele, and Emily, Toufic's sister, embark on their journey to the United States from the Port of Beirut.

This Lebanese <a href="https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/items/show/44955#?c=0&amp;m=0&amp;s=0&amp;cv=0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">stamp</a> shows a cedar tree, the zodiac symbols, and a bird and ship.