My family, the Abu Ghanims (Farris Mullin, Mike Mullen, Sam Amin and Ollie Amin), came to the United States in the ‘great wave of immigration to the new world.’  Farris Mullin, my father, was married to Nagela Abu Shakra from Ammatour in the Chouf Mountains. My father was from Bmhrine, also in the Chouf.  Mike Mullen, who was a relative from another village, Ramliyyi in the Chouf, was married to Latifie Abu Ghanim, and she was the sister of Sam and Ollie Amin.  They were all from Ramliyyi in the Chouf. Sam Amin married a girl from Kentucky, Judy; and Ollie Amin married a girl from Pennsylvania, Anne.  We were four Abu Ghanim families; however, we were one family in the United States, and we treated each other as such.  Farris Mullin, Mike Mullen and Sam Amin each had four children.  Ollie Amin did not have any children.
The name, Farris Milhem Abu Ghanem, was changed to Farris Mullin apparently when my father entered the United States (circa. 1909). He claims the name "Mullin" rather than "Milhem" was given to him by the presiding officer as he went through the immigration process. Milhem was his father's first name, and apparently, my father gave that name as his last name, which was customary then. Therefore, as the other Abu Ghanem relatives arrived from Lebanon, they assumed the name of "Mullen, as well.  There was just a slight difference in spelling. However, Sam and Ollie Amin (brothers) kept the father's first name to use as their last name, i.e., Amin.   Another apparent, is my father's raising his age four years in order to serve in the United States Army. All four of the Abu Ghanem men joined the United States Army. The four men each served in the United States Army in World War 1.  I found my father’s draft card on the internet.  It is:

	My parents - Farris and Nagela Mullin
First Generation American - Julie Mullin Makarem	Two Generations Americans - Julie's children	Three Generations Americans - the family of Julie Makarem; her children and grandchaildren.	Four Generations (My family - mother and brother and two sisters and me and our children; the baby is my sister's grand daughter.)

My Parents

My Mother
A Druze lady who is deemed in the highest regard in the Midwest part of the United States is my mother, Mrs. Nagela Farris Mullin.  She was born Najela Abu Shakra in the Chouf village of Ammatour.  She married my father, Farris Milhem Abu Ghanim, in Lebanon and came to the United States a year later. Among the first women immigrants, she lived a life of a lady with the true spirit of the Druze social values.    The few women that had come early to America with their husbands joined hands to make a Druze environment for the men who were without their wives or single; my mother was among the pioneers to make life more successful for those first immigrants. Najela Farris Mullin performed her duties well. She was a housewife, a leader in the Druze community, and a benevolent and compassionate friend to the Druze immigrants. She was an outstanding American citizen, proud to be an American as she raised her children single handedly,  all the time telling them to be proud to be Americans, as well. During World War ll, she worked in a war plant building bombers.  She is hailed by the United States Government as one of the “Rosie the Riverter” for her contributions to the War effort during World War ll. Her role as a good American was as important to her just as her role as a dedicated Druze was in the Druze community. My mother was the youngest of the women in the Druze community who had come to America to begin a new life in the early part of the 20th century. She was just 15 years old.

My Father
This story began in 1910, when my father, Farris Milhem Abu Ghanim, at the age of fourteen, left Lebanon to come to America. His mission was to find work and, he hoped, to prepare the ground for the others to join him in the New World. He immediately joined the United States Army by falsifying his age in order to meet the requirements for enlistment. When the First World War ended, he left the Army for civilian life and still very young, he back packed selling notions in the mountains of Kentucky and West Virginia.  Then, he moved to Detroit, Michigan to begin a business.  After success, he went to Lebanon for a wife, and he married my mother.  In America, my mother and father raised four children, Roger, Julie, Mabel and Thelma, until my father’s untimely death.  He was just 51 years old when he had a stroke, and my mother cared for him until he passed away seven years later.  My mother was then the sole provider for the family, and she raised her four very young children single handedly.