Elpida Hatziandreou passed away, aged 102.
Born during the Spanish flu pandemic, she lived through to the coronavirus pandemic.
The mother of Cathy Alexopoulos, president of the Greek-Australian Cultural League, was born in Vourla, Asia Minor, the same village as Greek poet George Seferis, in December 1919. As a young girl, she lived through the population exchange, becoming a refugee. Following the death of her father, her mother worked hard to raise her and her sister and moved to Lyon, France, before the family came to Australia.
Three adoring generations surrounded Ms Hatziandreou at her 101st birthday last year, celebrating the years of love and care she has shared with them.
Her great-grandson, Lucas, had recited a short heartwarming message in French, a language spoken by the great-grandmother who had grown up there. Her other great-grandchildren – Zoe, Isla, Sebastian and Julian – played music for her to show their love.
READ MORE: 101-year-old Elpida celebrates Mother’s Day with three generations
Neos Kosmos journalist Vivian Morris wrote about Ms Hatziandreou in Neos Kosmos, describing her life to a “fairy tale”.
“When her mother announced that they need to return to Greece, the new situation found them unprepared but they were determined to accept the new challenges,” Ms Morris wrote. “Their landing in Nea Philadelphia was irregular in the first years and became tragic a few years later with the German Occupation and death of her older sister from tuberculosis. In the post-war years with her husband Nikos Hatziandreou they tried to stand on their feet in a country destroyed by the German Occupation and the civil war. They realised, however, that no matter how hard they tried, their efforts could not bear fruit. All their efforts were in vain. There was no present nor future there. The country was emptying and everyone had their gazes abroad.”
Ms Hatziandreou had told Neos Kosmos, “Australia was for us, as for many others, the only solution.”
The couple settled at St Albans in 1957, where they first came to a house with two bedrooms, no windows, no water and no electricity, on a piece of barren land.
“We were not afraid of hard work in a foreign environment, with difficulties at every step, particularly during the first time,” she said.
A two-time cancer survivor, Ms Hatziandreou, throughout her life proved that she was a woman of fortitude.
