“A single twig breaks, but a bundle of twigs is strong,” Vasilis Psarakos used to tell his children often as he tried to instill in them the value of family and strength in unity.
Well-known in the Greek community of Melbourne, Vasilis Psarakos and his brothers had founded the continental delicatessen PSARAKOS 49 years ago, famous for its Greek and continental products.
Mr Psarakos would always put his family above all else. He passed away, surrounded by his loved ones, on the night of Good Monday. He took his last breath listening to his favourite psalms, the tsamika he loved, and the familiar voices of his children and grandchildren.
A fulfilling life
Vasilis Psarakos was the eldest brother of ten children from the remote village of Lapanagoi in Kalavryta. He had a difficult childhood and the responsibility from a very young age, to help the growing family of siblings.
He was only 20 when he boarded the ship to Australia, on his own, but then, through the years he brought 8 of his siblings to Melbourne, to live under the same roof with him, until they made a family of their own.
“He didn’t know anyone in Australia when he came,” his daughter, Dorothy (Theodora) Stavros, told Neos Kosmos. He had submitted documents to go to the camps in Bonegilla, but when he disembarked in Port Melbourne, he started to talking with some of the Greeks there, until one of them recognised his surname and insisted that he should not leave for Bonegilla.
“You are one of us and you should come with me,” he said. And so he did.
His family found out about his first years in Australia, only a few months ago, in January, when they surprised him on his 80th birthday with a celebration at the Pier of Port Melbourne, his daughter tells us with emotion.
“Tell us your journey, we asked him, then.”
And so, he talked about his life.
“When my uncle arrived in Australia, they lived together with my dad in one room, until they decided to get a house together. He met my mum in the neighbourhood, and soon asked for permission to marry her from my mum’s older brother. Within three months, they were married in the church of Aghia Triada in Richomnd.”
Childhood memories
Ms Stavros explains that their home was always full of people. “We lived upstairs from the shop, and we all lived together. When my uncles started getting married we moved into our own home, but they continued to work together in the shop. We work there too, and now most of the children are also working in the shop, alongside their studies.”
“He always wanted his people around him, his customers, his compatriots. He created strong bonds,” Ms Stavros said, adding that after so many years, many customers had become friends.
“My dad was very strong, resilient, disciplined, with old fashioned values, very strict -though with his grandkids not so much anymore – and very religious. Everything he did was alongside the church. The only day he didn’t work was Sunday and then he would go to the church from the morning.”
He went twice back to Greece. The first time he returned to his village was 30 years after he arrived to Australia. But he never forgot his homeland. When the brothers opened PSARAKOS in Thronbury in 1972, Vasilis Psarakos insisted that they should keep their Greek name for the business. He was very proud of his heritage and his Greek name.
“His strong faith is what helped him, and us as well, through the loss of my older sister Nikolitsa, who was his first child. And faith is what will help us now with our dad’s passing. We know he is in a better place, in life eternal,” Ms Stavros said, and she believes that it is not a coincidence that he passed on, during Holy Week, as it was always his favourite time of the year.
He was very proud of his grandchildren who all attended St John’s Greek school. And when two of his grandkids created the band “Dio Patrides” he asked them to write a song about their origins, their two homelands, and how they would continue on the same path as their grandparents, and parents.