2022-05-14

Sydney

Angelou, Stefania

Greeks in Australia

Oral history

Lekkas, Sophia

Digitised

Copyright holder : State Library of New South Wales
Please acknowledge : Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales

Interviewer: Sophia Lekkas

Occupation: seamstress, salesperson, Greek teacher
Year of arrival: 1963
Method of transport: Aeroplane

Stefania Angelou was born in the small village of Sykounta, Lesvos in 1939. In part to pave the way for the rest of her siblings, Stefania’s father encouraged her to migrate to Australia. In 1963, she left her village for Athens and was part of the ICEM program, which involved 6 months of learning English and domestic skills. After arriving in Sydney, she rented a room in a house in Marrickville. The woman who owned the house was the aunt of Stefania’s future husband, Vasili Angelou, a Greek from Egypt. They married in Paddington at Agia Sophia church and had 5 daughters. She worked at the David Jones factory in Surry Hills as a seamstress, but when she had her first child, she stopped working. After her husband sustained an injury that prevented him from working, Stefania returned to work, initially as a kitchen hand and then as a cook at Woollahra Eating House. Alongside a series of other jobs, for forty years Stefania worked as a Greek teacher at St George Church in Rose Bay. There, she started the ‘Papakia’ playgroup for pre-kindergarten aged children and mothers, which ran for 12 years.

Interview summary
Stephania discusses her life growing up on Lesvos, and her father’s decision to send her to Australia. She talks about struggling to find a job, then working multiple jobs to support her family after her husband’s accident which left him unable to work for years.

Sound recording

Siobhan Campbell