Happy day at 90

Press, 16 April 1984, Page 1

Happy day at 90

Mrs Eftihia Kerdemelidis, known to the local Greek community as “the Grandmother,” celebrated her nintieth birthday yestei-day with a big family dinner. Her four sons and two daughters were there with their husbands and wives, 19 of her 21 grandchildren, and enough great-grandchildren to bring the guest list to 45. Most of the conversation round the table was in Greek; the language that Mrs Kerdemelidis is happiest with, although she also speaks English. She emigrated to Christchurch in 1951 but before that her life was unsettled and often difficult. She was tossed about by political change. Eftihia, her Christian

name, means “happiness” in Greek and there must have been times when she wondered if it was not a cruel misnomer. Her son, Dr Basil Kerdemelidis, told the story: Mrs Kerdemelidis was born in Asia Minor and went to Sebastapol in the Crimea at the turn of the century, where she married. In Russia she experienced the upheaval of the Bolshevik Revolution and endured two periods of starvation before, in 1938, two of her sons and her husband were sent to Siberia for “political activities.” They were to remain there for the duration of World War II while Mrs Kerdemelidis fought to have them freed and worked day and night in the fields to

feed them and the rest of her children. Towards the end she caught malaria but still walked Bkm each day to visit them in; prison. Then, whetrj the Soviet Union was liberated after the German Occupation in 1944, she was deported to Kokand in Uzhberkistan. Two years later, she managed to get in touch with her sons and husband and they reached Greece which was, at the time, torn by civil war. From there, they eventually came to New Zealand. The family in New Zealand now stretches over four generations and boasts two physicians and eight university graduates, two of whom have doctorates and two, masterates.