Efstathios paxinos, Kalatzis/Liris

STATHIS Paxinos (aka Kalantzis) “Liris” (1881-1978) was born in Rahi, a very old district of Anoghi, Ithaca, which is situated high up on Mount Niriton.

He was the first surviving child of Nicoletta Venturas “Vorvos” from Rahi and Dimitri Paxinos “Kalantzis”/ “Liris”, originally from Lefki.

Stathis had two siblings, Athanasios who died quite young and Kimon.

The boys grew up in Rahi surrounded by their maternal relatives who lived close by.

They attended the local primary school and when they were old enough, they helped their parents manage their property, which consisted of many olive groves, fields and vineyards.

In the early 1900s, aged over 20, Stathis left to find work in South Africa.

The reasons for his going there are not known but it could have been financial necessity, the lure of “streets paved with gold” stories or it could have been that his younger brother, Kimon, was already there and had asked him to join him.

Whatever the reasons, Stathis ended up in Johannesburg where lots of his compatriots also lived and worked. According to the only document which remains of his early days (issued in July 1910 by the Royal Greek Consulate in Jo’burg), Stathis was a miner and lived in South Africa.

Family members have passed on stories about Stathis being a manager in a diamond mine and having trouble with the miners who stole diamonds by swallowing them.

Giving them Castor oil was one solution to getting these diamonds back!

Another story is that Stathi injured one eye at work and was so well compensated that he later resigned and left to go back home. We shall never know what happened exactly but around late 1910 or early 1911, Stathis was back in Rahi with enough money to buy a plot of land in Anoghi (a few metres below his parents’ house), build a house on it and find a bride. In that order.

When the house was built, in modern style with floorboards and many windows, he then found an Anoisana bride, Diamantina Syrmis “Boulalas” and they became engaged.

Diamantina’s father, Dionysios, came from an old respected Anoghi family and her mother, Chrysoula Paxinos, was from the “Paros” clan which was famed for its well brought up daughters who were sought after as brides.

The dowry was going to be 2,000 drachma (or 2,500 or 3,000) and the usual glory box stuffed with household items (sheets, pillow cases, mats and towels), clothes for the bride (dresses, underwear) and clothes for the groom (shirts, vests).

But it seems that Diamantina had second thoughts about Stathis and broke off the engagement. Unfortunately (or fortunately) for her, it got around that Stathis had kissed her and therefore, to save her reputation, the wedding had to take place!

So in 1913 the couple married and they started their new life together in the house that Stathis had built: a most unlikely pairing, as ever was, but one that lasted over 60 years.

Their first child was Dimitris (1914, named after Stathi’s father), then came Nicoletta (1916, named after her paternal grandmother), then Trisevgeni (1919, named after her paternal great grandmother), Menelaos (1922) and Spyros (1926).

During the years when his children were growing up, Stathis worked in the family property and also took on the job of agrarian policeman for a time. It is not known how long he held this job but by the middle 1920s, Stathis must have been “asset rich but cash poor” and needed money to build a large cistern and to cover the needs of his four children. It was at this time that he must have decided to go back to Africa to work with his brother, Kimon, who was based in Nyonga, Belgian Congo.

The large amount of red tape that was needed to get permission to leave Ithaca and work overseas, did not put him off and in March 1926, armed with all his documents (see photo section) he made his way to Piraeus where he boarded a ship whose first port of call was Port Said and then Dar-es-Salaam. From there he travelled overland to Albertville (by train?, ferry?, bus ?, ?) where he arrived on the 13th of April. The journey from Ithaki to the southern tip of the Belgian Congo took just over one month.

The shop he was going to manage (with a trading licence) was in the town of Likasi.

It was a general store that sold goods to the “native” population: salted fish was one such item and that was supplied by his brother Kimon who worked in his own general store in nearby Nyonga.

There is a photo (lost at the moment) of Stathis standing outside his shop in Likasi, wearing a blue (?) apron and surrounded by his smiling staff who were all Congolese.

During his approximately four year stay at Likasi, Stathi wrote letters, dabbled in poetry and story writing, learnt Swahili and sent cheques to his wife Diamantina to deposit in the Bank at Vathi. It could not have been easy for him, or other men in the same situation, having to leave their wives and children to become economic migrants in these far away places.

But Stathis survived his stay in Likasi and left to go back home to Anoghi with enough money to build his sterna (cistern). He also went halves (?) with his brother Kimon when they bought a clinic in Athens which was turned into a profitable hotel later.

Stathi then settled down to the routine of village life in Anoghi. In the winter he and Diamantina (who did most of the work!) picked the olives from their olive groves in Lefki, Anoghi, Misorahi and others, tilled their fields and planted garlic, lentils (that were the tastiest in Ithaca), wheat, linen and other vegetables; in late summer they harvested their grapes and made wine. There was more than enough food for the family and the surplus was sold or given to others. The income from the hotel also helped.

In his spare time Stathis enjoyed reading books and writing poems which have been published in a booklet, courtesy of his granddaughter’s mother-in-law, Olga Couanis-Kangis. Some of the titles are: “The bird”, “The Sailor”, “Youth” and “The Old Man”.

The risqué ones were left out by the Catholic monks in Athens who undertook the printing and binding of the books.

Stathis had his ups and downs; his sons emigrated to the USA and Australia, his daughters married away from the village. He and Diamantina lived through WW2 better than others and the1953 earthquake did not cause much damage to the house.

Luckily for Stathis, his first born son Dimitris, returned from Australia in 1969 to live permanently with his parents who were now on their own and becoming more and more frail. Dimitris and his wife, Kiki Psichoghiou, looked after them and nursed them in their old age.

Stathis was an intelligent, eccentric man, tall and well built with large, bulging, blue/green eyes. He resembled his father, Dimitris, physically but not in temperament as Stathis, unlike his placid father, tended to be short tempered and quarrelsome.

At the end of his life which spanned two centuries, alert, bed-ridden and doubly incontinent, he used to say that he preferred to be alive, even in that condition, than be dead, as he did not know what he would find on the “other side”.

Lying in bed, he sang songs to while away the time!

Stathis died at home in February 1978, aged 97. His life long companion, Diamantina, died two years before him.

May they both rest in peace.

E.K.

2008.