Aina & Jordan Cladopulos

1128 Fanwood Avenue

Aina Nickola, from Finland, and Jordan Cladopulos, from Greece, married in 1922 and moved to Fanwood Avenue.

1128 FANWOOD AVENUE

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The white house in the background was the home of Aina and Jordon Cladopulos at 1128 Fanwood Avenue.

Aina Nickola arrived in New York City from Finland in 1904.  Jordan Cladopulos arrived from Greece to New York in 1915.  They married in 1922 and purchased two lots on Fanwood Avenue in Turkey Swamp.

They had a house built and had a son, John Jordan, in 1923.

Jordan found work in various jobs as a painter, candymaker, peanut peddlar, and eventually found steady work as a laborer in a Foundry. John only completed 8th grade in his education; he left home sometime after 1940. 

Not much is known about the Cladopulos family.  What is documented is an unexplained group of individual land purchases by Jordan Cladopulos, Moses Hines, and Hunter Bullock, all residents of Turkey Swamp, in 1929.  What is consistent about the purchases is that they all occurred in the same year, were all for multiple lots, all bought from one seller, and the lots were in the swampy area of the neighborhood.  I suspect that the three men may have planned to raise farm livestock there, as Hunter Bullock would be arrested a few years later by Westfield police for keeping and raising pigs.   

Jordan and Aina both died in 1962 before the acquisition plans by the Town were confirmed.  John Cladopulos, their son, sold the property to the Town of Westfield in 1965. 

If you walk along Fanwood Avenue today in the Park, you can see the remnant of the masonry wall Jordan built along the western edge of his home.