Maria Karlaganis from Melbourne, is proof that age is just a number as she celebrated her 100th birthday last Friday in good health, surrounded by family and friends.
“She is a very sweet lady, who takes such good care of me,” her friend and neighbour in East Burwood, Irini Koumanidu, told Neos Kosmos about the energetic centenarian from Mytilene, who despite her years, looks after her and advises her as if she were in her care.
“Apart from my children and grandchildren, the rest of my family is in Greece, so she has taken me under her wing,” Irini added.
After spending her first fifty years in Ambeliko, a picturesque village on the hills of Mytilene, Mrs Karlaganis, née Ververis, arrived in Melbourne in the 1970s with her husband, following their son, Panagiotis, and their daughters, Eleni and Marianthi, who decided to settle as young adults in Australia.
“In the beginning she had a little difficulty with the language but she found other Greeks, made friends and adapted quickly. She also loved to work,” her son, Panagiotis, told Neos Kosmos.
She has always been incredibly active, her son explained. She worked tirelessly in the fields in Mytilene, producing olives and retsina, and then in Melbourne in a carpet factory in Hawthorn, where she insisted to continue working beyond the age of retirement and until she could no longer.
Until recently she used to walk every morning, around the neighbourhood with her daughter-in-law. But lately, she’s been finding it hard to stand, her son explains, so she moved a few weeks ago to the Brimlea nursing home, which is home to several Greek Australians, where hopefully she will adapt and find good company.
The secret to her good health and longevity? Her diet, her work, tending her garden, and drinking only water throughout her life, Panagiotis believes.
