“The soft-spoken person in the chocolate-smudged white jacket.” That’s how Enquirer reporter Chuck Martin referred to James T. Aglamesis, otherwise known as Mr. A, in a short profile he wrote about the owner of the Aglamesis Brothers ice cream parlor in 1997.
But Jim, who died Saturday of complications of pneumonia at the age of 93, was much more than that. If Cincinnati had a culinary hall of fame, he would be among the first inductees. Not only did he own one of the city’s most beloved ice cream parlors, he was a testament to the role that Greek culture played in this city, a gracious, but oftentimes stern boss, a paternal figure to dozens of Cincinnati teenagers and, long before the days of dating sites, perhaps, even a matchmaker.
“He was almost fatherly,” said Mary Eiser Luria, who worked for Jim throughout her high school and college years, from 1979 to 1987. “He was protective of us, but he could also be strict," she recalls. "He would discipline us if he caught us sampling the ice cream by saying, ‘You’re eating all my profits!’ But he always had a smirk on his face when he said it, since he was kind of a softie, too.”
One thing's for sure. Jim was as hard a workers as they come, especially around Christmas and Easter, when hundreds of customers would come in for his famous chocolates, candies and opera creams. "He worried and worked hard enough to give most people the hives or hypertension,” wrote The Enquirer’s Ira Brock in 1975.
Jim grew up working at the Oakley parlor, which was founded by his father, Thomas, and his uncle, Nicholas, in 1913 after they relocated from the Norwood ice cream parlor they opened in 1908. The brothers grew up working on a farm in Sparta, Greece, that always seemed to be struggling, so they knew the value of hard work, even when it didn’t necessarily reap the anticipated rewards.
The Aglamesis family lived on the second floor of the parlor, where Jim was born and raised. Back then, believe it or not, the family procured the milk for their ice cream from a dairy farm located just across the street, where the 20th Century Theater stands now.
While Jim never planned on taking over the family business, Nicholas died just before Jim received his marketing diploma from UC in 1950. Jim, a dutiful son who grew worried seeing his father working to keep the business alive, jumped in and started working there full-time.
"I didn't have much of a chance then," Jim told The Enquirer in 1975. "I grew up in the store, and even before Uncle Nicholas died, my father was working himself silly." Jim ultimately took over the business in 1952 when his father suffered a stroke. (Thomas passed away in 1963.)
The business is now owned by his daughter, Dianne Lytle, and his son, Randy Young. To Luria, the ice cream parlor will always be a reminder not just of Jim, but the times in which he lived and the historical fabric of Oakley itself. Luria grew up in the neighborhood, and she wasn’t the only member of her family to work for Aglamesis. Her sister, did, too; as well as two of her uncles back when Tom and Nicholas ran the place. “Mr. A would say to my uncles, ‘Go in the back and help Jimmie with his homework!,’ ” Luria said.
“Mr. A came to my wedding,” she said. “And the priest who performed the ceremony grew up [in Oakley], too.
Jim opened a second Aglamesis Brothers location, in Montgomery, in 1970. And that is where Pam Dickert started working as a teenager in 1977. Like Luria, Pam’s family had a long history with Aglamesis. Her grandfather, who was born in the early 1900s, worked for Thomas and Nicholas, which makes the fact that she met her husband, Dan, there seem almost determined by fate. “We started dating there in 1978 and were married in 1983, said Pam. And just like for the Lurias, Jim came to the wedding.
“He was like family to us,” Pam said.
The officiant, Father Putka, mentioned the magic of Aglamesis throughout the ceremony, Pam said. So much so that Jim sent him a note afterward, thanking him for all the free advertising.
Two of the Dickerts' three daughters also worked at the Montgomery location. And the family keeps a few of the parlor’s old bistro chairs in their kitchen, just for nostalgia’s sake.
"Other than my parents and my in-laws, he was probably the most influential person in my life," Dan said. "I admired the respect he commanded; the way he always smiled; and the fact that he treated everyone the same way, whether it was a good friend who came in to visit, or the person who cleaned the machines, they were all treated exactly the same.”
According to his former employees, Jim also made sure his employees were aware that working at Aglamesis could be much more than just a high school job. Luria mentions a woman she met when she worked their in the '70s. "She was 15 when she started, and she's still working there at 57!" she said.
Dan Dickert mentions the confused reaction Jim gave him when, after graduating from UC, he told him he'd taken a job offer with an accounting firm. “So you won’t be working here anymore?” he asked, sounding almost shocked.
While Aglamesis Brothers never reached the kind of national fame of the city's equally beloved Graeter's, Dan said he was probably fine with it. “He was concerned that if he grew the business too much, he couldn’t control the quality,” he said.
Whether or not the two ice cream heavyweights were competitors never mattered much. When asked to comment on Jim’s passing on Monday, Graeter's president and CEO Richard Graeter called him “a wonderful man with an intense dedication to quality and family.”
That dedication to his family extended to his employees, who might as well have been family anyway. Luria mentioned how much faith Jim placed in his employees, even if they were teenagers with no experience to speak of. “He expected a lot of us," she said. “He would leave at five and expect us to close up on our own. If you worked there, you were given a lot of responsibility. But he knew he could trust us.”
While Jim was lucky enough to live to the age of 93, it didn’t soften the blow for those who knew him best. “My heart just sank when I found out,” said Pam. “Dan and I started working for him when we were 17, and he’s been a part of our lives ever since.”
“It was sad, because it brought back so many memories,” Luria adds. “It motivated me to call people I haven’t talked to in a while,” she said, “especially the people I knew when I worked there.”
“He lived a great life,” said Dan. “You can’t be sad about that."
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