Pitsinιanika

My mother is Panayotisa Cassimatis Father Peter Cassimatis and mother was Maria (Zane). My father was Paul (Pavlos Moulou) Moulos from Logothetianika. Father Theodore and Mother Theodora (Lahana) Moulos Nickname "Goutso". Cassimatis nickname "Fig Eater" . Some years back we renovated the old family Kamari in Pitsinianika and love our visits back to the Island. Mary wife Mary (Fronis) is from Rhodes but loves Kythera as well.

Biography of Emanuel Casimatis

To view / download a version of this article in Greek, as a .pdf:

Emanuel Casimatis article.pdf

Born in Pitsinianika, Kythera in April 1919, Emanuel Casimatis was the tenth child of Gerasimos and Anizina Casimatis. He came from a big family of five brothers and six sisters, and the villagers would call the many kids ‘Gerasimakia’. There was a 28-year difference between the eldest and youngest of the ‘Gerasimakia’ children. By the time Emanuel was born some of his brothers had already left for Australia, which meant he had not yet met them. He made it his goal to travel to Australia and become acquainted with his siblings.

Emanuel was a very smart child. He was dux at his school and was offered a future there in Kythera. The high school teacher even came to his house and told his father that he wanted him to continue his studies, offering him all the books for free as an incentive. When his father asked him, he told him that he wanted to migrate to Australia as he had his heart set on joining his brothers in Australia whom he had not yet met.

At the age of 17, Emanuel travelled to Australia on the ‘Orama’ on a 28-day voyage via the Suez Canal and Cocos Islands, eventually reaching Sydney where he had an entourage of people waiting for him, including brothers that he was able to meet for the first time. From here he went to Temora, where the close bond he was able to forge between himself and his brothers was a key factor in their success in Australia. Emanuel once recounted, “We were a very close family, keeping in mind we had 5 brothers living here together, and
in all our lives we never had one single fight”.

When he was 23 he was drafted into the army. He worked for 3 years in an ammunition depot, to load up the trains that went to New Guinea. Though Emanuel didn't like the idea of conscription it turned out to be a good thing as he made many lifelong friends, including many Kytherians and other Greeks. Over the years, he would regularly meet up with 30-40 ex-army buddies every Wednesday at the Hellenic House. Their numbers slowly dwindled until there were only 2 left. Two days before his passing, Emanuel made his regular Wednesday visit to Hellenic House, and this would be his last.

Emanuel was very proud of the business ventures he started with his brothers in Temora (White Horse Café), Young (Monterey Café), Ariah Park, the Chatswood Oasis Milk Bar with friend Peter Coroneos, and then later Crows Nest (Peter Pan Cake Shop). His last venture was the Elite Shoe Salon in Kingsgrove with his wife Matina, which he ran for over 35 years until his retirement in the mid 1980’s.

Emanuel was equally proud of his involvement with the Kytherian Brotherhood, serving as President during a financially tumultuous time. Under his leadership and with a strong team behind him, the fortunes of the Kytherian Brotherhood were turned around, and Kythera House was saved. The Kytherian Brotherhood remained an integral part of his and his family’s life.

Emanuel loved his garden, especially his fig trees. He and Matina would spend many hours administering tender loving care to their numerous flowers, fruit and vegetables. No visitor to his home would leave without some kind of offering from his garden. He would also regularly visit friends and relatives laden with all kinds of goodies.

The story of Emanuel is not complete without mention of his passion for both fishing and playing cards. He enjoyed many memorable fishing trips to the Great Barrier Reef with his friends, and also enjoyed fishing with Matina near his holiday home at Ettalong.

He was a master Prefa and Poker player, with a razor sharp mind right until his last game at Hellenic House a couple of days before his passing. He also enjoyed the game of Tavli.
Rotary was also an important part of Emanuel’s life, and it helped define the philosophies by which he chose to live by. He believed in the saying that “the worth of a man’s life is measured not by the money or property he leaves behind, but rather by the family he leaves behind”.

Emanuel met fellow Kytherian Matina Samios and they were married in 1953, celebrating their 60th Wedding anniversary in 2013. They had 3 children, Anna in 1954, Gerald in 1955 and Stephen in 1958, and later welcomed son in law John Psaltis, and daughters in law Marianne Comino and Virginia Spinoulas to the family with open arms. Seven grandchildren followed, Michael, Matthew, and Christopher Psaltis, Matthew and Jason Casimatis, and Evan and Marissa Casimatis. He was lucky enough to attend the wedding of two grandsons, welcoming their new wives Jennifer and Elise to the family. He was also looking forward to becoming a great grandfather for the first time later this year.

On Christmas Day 2014, sitting at the table surrounded by all of his loving children and grandchildren, Emanuel remarked to his wife Matina, “we started off as just the two of us, and now look at what we have”.

Emanuel will be dearly missed by all.


RETURNED SERVICE LEAGUE (RSL) SERVICE

Emanuel Casimatis

N202233

“Their bodies are buried in peace and their name liveth for evermore”

“The members of the Kingsgrove RSL Sub-Branch and Club offer their sincere condolences to the Casimatis family and their friends on their very sad loss of Emanuel.

Emanuel Casimatis travelled from the small town of Ariah Park which is in the Riverina region near Temora to Paddington in Sydney to enlist in the Citizen Military Force (CMF) for full time duty on the 12th May 1942 at the age of (23) twenty three, obviously he wanted to help his newly adopted country as it was under threat of a Japanese invasion. I was told by Emanuel’s son Steve that two of Emanuel’s brothers Jack and Andrew also enlisted in the Australian Army; Andrew served in the same unit as Emanuel 2 Employment Company.

Emanuel was posted to 2 Australian Labour Company, unfortunately we do not know where this Company was based however official records show they camped at places like Tocumwal and Albury on the New South Wales border as at that time we had different rail gauges so the men worked on the trains loading and unloading military supplies, including foodstuffs and armaments. Emanuel probably would have also found himself working at factories packing and transporting goods, or he could have worked on the wharves loading military equipment which was required at the front line for the Australian troops fighting the Japanese

It was ‘hard yakka’ as they say in Australian terms and though the work lacked the glamour of the front line however its importance to the conduct of the war was very much understood by Emanuel and his mates in the Unit. They knew they were part of the whole nation doing its bit; they were doing their part in the army towards protecting the country and winning the war.

On the 5th October 1942 Emanuel was transferred to 2 Australian Employment Company where he and his mates would have continued in much the same role moving important military supplies. On the 1st March 1943 Emanuel was posted to 6 Australian Advanced Ammunition Depot (AAD) at Lithgow this was a part of the Royal Australian Ordnance Corp (RAOC). This particular Ammunition Depot was of such high strategic importance that besides the many anti aircraft batteries including a few dummy ones there was actually a number of dummy town buildings built to protect the Depot from possible bombing. Once again Emanuel and his mates undertook vital work in the munitions supply chain; it cannot be overstated as to the importance of this Depot to the Australian war effort.

On the 22nd November 1943 Emanuel left Lithgow and having probably spent a very cold and wet winter in Lithgow he would have been very happy to leave, Emanuel was posted back to 2 Employment Company where once again he and his mates undertook the essential laboring tasks , the hard physical labour needed to maintain the war effort and support the Australian military units in their quest to defeat the enemy.

It must be said that Emanuel and the rest of those 15,000 men from, Greece, Italy, and Austria to name a few countries who served with the Australian Army’s (39) thirty nine Labour and Employment Units were very diverse in Nationality and backgrounds, they lived together in tents and huts in crowded proximity and still managed to build up a great camaraderie however it must be said that they were the Forgotten Soldiers of the war as far as the history books are concerned.
Finally after (3) three years of dedicated service to his country on the 16th April 1945 Emanuel was discharged from the Army and he could return to his family and become a civilian and get on with building his successful life in Australia .

Emanuel was indeed a man who selflessly served Australia in its time of great need; Emanuel was awarded the War Medal 1939 – 45, Australian Service Medal 1939 – 45 and the General Service Badge.

“O valiant hearts who to your glory came through dust of conflict and through battle flame, tranquil you lie. Your knightly virtue proved, your memory hallowed in the land you loved”

“The hour has come for rest. This red poppy the traditional emblem of war sacrifice, the symbol of life offered in the service of one’s country and Rosemary for Remembrance links us to our late comrade Emanuel and us who remain. “We place them here in remembrance”

Those persons who wish to lay a Poppy please come forward.
Would you please stand for a few moments silence in memory of Emanuel, this will be followed by the playing of the Last Post; I will then recite the Ode followed by Reveille
“They shall grow not old as we that are left grow old, age shall not weary them nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them. Reveille

“Lest we forget”

Alan R. Barnes
President Kingsgrove RSL Sub Branch
22nd January 2015

Biography of Emanuel Casimatis

To view / download a version of this article in Greek, as a .pdf:

Emanuel Casimatis article.pdf

Born in Pitsinianika, Kythera in April 1919, Emanuel Casimatis was the tenth child of Gerasimos and Anizina Casimatis. He came from a big family of five brothers and six sisters, and the villagers would call the many kids ‘Gerasimakia’. There was a 28-year difference between the eldest and youngest of the ‘Gerasimakia’ children. By the time Emanuel was born some of his brothers had already left for Australia, which meant he had not yet met them. He made it his goal to travel to Australia and become acquainted with his siblings.

Emanuel was a very smart child. He was dux at his school and was offered a future there in Kythera. The high school teacher even came to his house and told his father that he wanted him to continue his studies, offering him all the books for free as an incentive. When his father asked him, he told him that he wanted to migrate to Australia as he had his heart set on joining his brothers in Australia whom he had not yet met.

At the age of 17, Emanuel travelled to Australia on the ‘Orama’ on a 28-day voyage via the Suez Canal and Cocos Islands, eventually reaching Sydney where he had an entourage of people waiting for him, including brothers that he was able to meet for the first time. From here he went to Temora, where the close bond he was able to forge between himself and his brothers was a key factor in their success in Australia. Emanuel once recounted, “We were a very close family, keeping in mind we had 5 brothers living here together, and
in all our lives we never had one single fight”.

When he was 23 he was drafted into the army. He worked for 3 years in an ammunition depot, to load up the trains that went to New Guinea. Though Emanuel didn't like the idea of conscription it turned out to be a good thing as he made many lifelong friends, including many Kytherians and other Greeks. Over the years, he would regularly meet up with 30-40 ex-army buddies every Wednesday at the Hellenic House. Their numbers slowly dwindled until there were only 2 left. Two days before his passing, Emanuel made his regular Wednesday visit to Hellenic House, and this would be his last.

Emanuel was very proud of the business ventures he started with his brothers in Temora (White Horse Café), Young (Monterey Café), Ariah Park, the Chatswood Oasis Milk Bar with friend Peter Coroneos, and then later Crows Nest (Peter Pan Cake Shop). His last venture was the Elite Shoe Salon in Kingsgrove with his wife Matina, which he ran for over 35 years until his retirement in the mid 1980’s.

Emanuel was equally proud of his involvement with the Kytherian Brotherhood, serving as President during a financially tumultuous time. Under his leadership and with a strong team behind him, the fortunes of the Kytherian Brotherhood were turned around, and Kythera House was saved. The Kytherian Brotherhood remained an integral part of his and his family’s life.

Emanuel loved his garden, especially his fig trees. He and Matina would spend many hours administering tender loving care to their numerous flowers, fruit and vegetables. No visitor to his home would leave without some kind of offering from his garden. He would also regularly visit friends and relatives laden with all kinds of goodies.

The story of Emanuel is not complete without mention of his passion for both fishing and playing cards. He enjoyed many memorable fishing trips to the Great Barrier Reef with his friends, and also enjoyed fishing with Matina near his holiday home at Ettalong.

He was a master Prefa and Poker player, with a razor sharp mind right until his last game at Hellenic House a couple of days before his passing. He also enjoyed the game of Tavli.
Rotary was also an important part of Emanuel’s life, and it helped define the philosophies by which he chose to live by. He believed in the saying that “the worth of a man’s life is measured not by the money or property he leaves behind, but rather by the family he leaves behind”.

Emanuel met fellow Kytherian Matina Samios and they were married in 1953, celebrating their 60th Wedding anniversary in 2013. They had 3 children, Anna in 1954, Gerald in 1955 and Stephen in 1958, and later welcomed son in law John Psaltis, and daughters in law Marianne Comino and Virginia Spinoulas to the family with open arms. Seven grandchildren followed, Michael, Matthew, and Christopher Psaltis, Matthew and Jason Casimatis, and Evan and Marissa Casimatis. He was lucky enough to attend the wedding of two grandsons, welcoming their new wives Jennifer and Elise to the family. He was also looking forward to becoming a great grandfather for the first time later this year.

On Christmas Day 2014, sitting at the table surrounded by all of his loving children and grandchildren, Emanuel remarked to his wife Matina, “we started off as just the two of us, and now look at what we have”.

Emanuel will be dearly missed by all.


RETURNED SERVICE LEAGUE (RSL) SERVICE

Emanuel Casimatis

N202233

“Their bodies are buried in peace and their name liveth for evermore”

“The members of the Kingsgrove RSL Sub-Branch and Club offer their sincere condolences to the Casimatis family and their friends on their very sad loss of Emanuel.

Emanuel Casimatis travelled from the small town of Ariah Park which is in the Riverina region near Temora to Paddington in Sydney to enlist in the Citizen Military Force (CMF) for full time duty on the 12th May 1942 at the age of (23) twenty three, obviously he wanted to help his newly adopted country as it was under threat of a Japanese invasion. I was told by Emanuel’s son Steve that two of Emanuel’s brothers Jack and Andrew also enlisted in the Australian Army; Andrew served in the same unit as Emanuel 2 Employment Company.

Emanuel was posted to 2 Australian Labour Company, unfortunately we do not know where this Company was based however official records show they camped at places like Tocumwal and Albury on the New South Wales border as at that time we had different rail gauges so the men worked on the trains loading and unloading military supplies, including foodstuffs and armaments. Emanuel probably would have also found himself working at factories packing and transporting goods, or he could have worked on the wharves loading military equipment which was required at the front line for the Australian troops fighting the Japanese

It was ‘hard yakka’ as they say in Australian terms and though the work lacked the glamour of the front line however its importance to the conduct of the war was very much understood by Emanuel and his mates in the Unit. They knew they were part of the whole nation doing its bit; they were doing their part in the army towards protecting the country and winning the war.

On the 5th October 1942 Emanuel was transferred to 2 Australian Employment Company where he and his mates would have continued in much the same role moving important military supplies. On the 1st March 1943 Emanuel was posted to 6 Australian Advanced Ammunition Depot (AAD) at Lithgow this was a part of the Royal Australian Ordnance Corp (RAOC). This particular Ammunition Depot was of such high strategic importance that besides the many anti aircraft batteries including a few dummy ones there was actually a number of dummy town buildings built to protect the Depot from possible bombing. Once again Emanuel and his mates undertook vital work in the munitions supply chain; it cannot be overstated as to the importance of this Depot to the Australian war effort.

On the 22nd November 1943 Emanuel left Lithgow and having probably spent a very cold and wet winter in Lithgow he would have been very happy to leave, Emanuel was posted back to 2 Employment Company where once again he and his mates undertook the essential laboring tasks , the hard physical labour needed to maintain the war effort and support the Australian military units in their quest to defeat the enemy.

It must be said that Emanuel and the rest of those 15,000 men from, Greece, Italy, and Austria to name a few countries who served with the Australian Army’s (39) thirty nine Labour and Employment Units were very diverse in Nationality and backgrounds, they lived together in tents and huts in crowded proximity and still managed to build up a great camaraderie however it must be said that they were the Forgotten Soldiers of the war as far as the history books are concerned.
Finally after (3) three years of dedicated service to his country on the 16th April 1945 Emanuel was discharged from the Army and he could return to his family and become a civilian and get on with building his successful life in Australia .

Emanuel was indeed a man who selflessly served Australia in its time of great need; Emanuel was awarded the War Medal 1939 – 45, Australian Service Medal 1939 – 45 and the General Service Badge.

“O valiant hearts who to your glory came through dust of conflict and through battle flame, tranquil you lie. Your knightly virtue proved, your memory hallowed in the land you loved”

“The hour has come for rest. This red poppy the traditional emblem of war sacrifice, the symbol of life offered in the service of one’s country and Rosemary for Remembrance links us to our late comrade Emanuel and us who remain. “We place them here in remembrance”

Those persons who wish to lay a Poppy please come forward.
Would you please stand for a few moments silence in memory of Emanuel, this will be followed by the playing of the Last Post; I will then recite the Ode followed by Reveille
“They shall grow not old as we that are left grow old, age shall not weary them nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them. Reveille

“Lest we forget”

Alan R. Barnes
President Kingsgrove RSL Sub Branch
22nd January 2015

Steve annually plants from seeds brought over from Kythira, over 125 pots of basiliko.  He starts his garden in early April which includes tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplants, zuchhini, vleta, radikia, as well as basiliko which he harvests and has through the end of November.  Here in this photo he proudly shows off one of the cuttings.  

Celebrating Steve's 90th Birthday in Calistoga, California. 

Steve George and Panayiota Calligeros married 53 years.

Steve George Calligeros, born in 1928, to George Stavros Calligeros and Anastasia Kasimatis Kalligerou in Pitsinianika.  Steve married, Panayiota Zacharakis on February 1, 1963 and moved to San Francisco, CA. where they have 2 children, Tessie Mary Calligeros (second from the left) and George Tony Calligeros (back left).  In this picture Steve and Panayiota are surrounded by their 2 children, 3 grandchildren (far left, Anthony Steven Obester, middle child, Alexea Mary Calligeros and far right, Alyssa Nicole Obester). 

Anastasia Kalligeros with her 2 children Stavros George Kalligeros (age 3) and baby Eirini Kalligeros (age 1) 

Anastasia Kasimatis Kalligeros (middle image), mother of Stavros George Calligeros, Eirini Kalligeros, Gregoria Kalligeros Lourandou. 

Eirini Kalligeros (left), Anastasis Kalligeros (middle), young girl (Gregoria Kalligeros Lourandou)

Biography of Emanuel Casimatis

To view / download a version of this article in Greek, as a .pdf:

Emanuel Casimatis article.pdf

Born in Pitsinianika, Kythera in April 1919, Emanuel Casimatis was the tenth child of Gerasimos and Anizina Casimatis. He came from a big family of five brothers and six sisters, and the villagers would call the many kids ‘Gerasimakia’. There was a 28-year difference between the eldest and youngest of the ‘Gerasimakia’ children. By the time Emanuel was born some of his brothers had already left for Australia, which meant he had not yet met them. He made it his goal to travel to Australia and become acquainted with his siblings.

Emanuel was a very smart child. He was dux at his school and was offered a future there in Kythera. The high school teacher even came to his house and told his father that he wanted him to continue his studies, offering him all the books for free as an incentive. When his father asked him, he told him that he wanted to migrate to Australia as he had his heart set on joining his brothers in Australia whom he had not yet met.

At the age of 17, Emanuel travelled to Australia on the ‘Orama’ on a 28-day voyage via the Suez Canal and Cocos Islands, eventually reaching Sydney where he had an entourage of people waiting for him, including brothers that he was able to meet for the first time. From here he went to Temora, where the close bond he was able to forge between himself and his brothers was a key factor in their success in Australia. Emanuel once recounted, “We were a very close family, keeping in mind we had 5 brothers living here together, and
in all our lives we never had one single fight”.

When he was 23 he was drafted into the army. He worked for 3 years in an ammunition depot, to load up the trains that went to New Guinea. Though Emanuel didn't like the idea of conscription it turned out to be a good thing as he made many lifelong friends, including many Kytherians and other Greeks. Over the years, he would regularly meet up with 30-40 ex-army buddies every Wednesday at the Hellenic House. Their numbers slowly dwindled until there were only 2 left. Two days before his passing, Emanuel made his regular Wednesday visit to Hellenic House, and this would be his last.

Emanuel was very proud of the business ventures he started with his brothers in Temora (White Horse Café), Young (Monterey Café), Ariah Park, the Chatswood Oasis Milk Bar with friend Peter Coroneos, and then later Crows Nest (Peter Pan Cake Shop). His last venture was the Elite Shoe Salon in Kingsgrove with his wife Matina, which he ran for over 35 years until his retirement in the mid 1980’s.

Emanuel was equally proud of his involvement with the Kytherian Brotherhood, serving as President during a financially tumultuous time. Under his leadership and with a strong team behind him, the fortunes of the Kytherian Brotherhood were turned around, and Kythera House was saved. The Kytherian Brotherhood remained an integral part of his and his family’s life.

Emanuel loved his garden, especially his fig trees. He and Matina would spend many hours administering tender loving care to their numerous flowers, fruit and vegetables. No visitor to his home would leave without some kind of offering from his garden. He would also regularly visit friends and relatives laden with all kinds of goodies.

The story of Emanuel is not complete without mention of his passion for both fishing and playing cards. He enjoyed many memorable fishing trips to the Great Barrier Reef with his friends, and also enjoyed fishing with Matina near his holiday home at Ettalong.

He was a master Prefa and Poker player, with a razor sharp mind right until his last game at Hellenic House a couple of days before his passing. He also enjoyed the game of Tavli.
Rotary was also an important part of Emanuel’s life, and it helped define the philosophies by which he chose to live by. He believed in the saying that “the worth of a man’s life is measured not by the money or property he leaves behind, but rather by the family he leaves behind”.

Emanuel met fellow Kytherian Matina Samios and they were married in 1953, celebrating their 60th Wedding anniversary in 2013. They had 3 children, Anna in 1954, Gerald in 1955 and Stephen in 1958, and later welcomed son in law John Psaltis, and daughters in law Marianne Comino and Virginia Spinoulas to the family with open arms. Seven grandchildren followed, Michael, Matthew, and Christopher Psaltis, Matthew and Jason Casimatis, and Evan and Marissa Casimatis. He was lucky enough to attend the wedding of two grandsons, welcoming their new wives Jennifer and Elise to the family. He was also looking forward to becoming a great grandfather for the first time later this year.

On Christmas Day 2014, sitting at the table surrounded by all of his loving children and grandchildren, Emanuel remarked to his wife Matina, “we started off as just the two of us, and now look at what we have”.

Emanuel will be dearly missed by all.


RETURNED SERVICE LEAGUE (RSL) SERVICE

Emanuel Casimatis

N202233

“Their bodies are buried in peace and their name liveth for evermore”

“The members of the Kingsgrove RSL Sub-Branch and Club offer their sincere condolences to the Casimatis family and their friends on their very sad loss of Emanuel.

Emanuel Casimatis travelled from the small town of Ariah Park which is in the Riverina region near Temora to Paddington in Sydney to enlist in the Citizen Military Force (CMF) for full time duty on the 12th May 1942 at the age of (23) twenty three, obviously he wanted to help his newly adopted country as it was under threat of a Japanese invasion. I was told by Emanuel’s son Steve that two of Emanuel’s brothers Jack and Andrew also enlisted in the Australian Army; Andrew served in the same unit as Emanuel 2 Employment Company.

Emanuel was posted to 2 Australian Labour Company, unfortunately we do not know where this Company was based however official records show they camped at places like Tocumwal and Albury on the New South Wales border as at that time we had different rail gauges so the men worked on the trains loading and unloading military supplies, including foodstuffs and armaments. Emanuel probably would have also found himself working at factories packing and transporting goods, or he could have worked on the wharves loading military equipment which was required at the front line for the Australian troops fighting the Japanese

It was ‘hard yakka’ as they say in Australian terms and though the work lacked the glamour of the front line however its importance to the conduct of the war was very much understood by Emanuel and his mates in the Unit. They knew they were part of the whole nation doing its bit; they were doing their part in the army towards protecting the country and winning the war.

On the 5th October 1942 Emanuel was transferred to 2 Australian Employment Company where he and his mates would have continued in much the same role moving important military supplies. On the 1st March 1943 Emanuel was posted to 6 Australian Advanced Ammunition Depot (AAD) at Lithgow this was a part of the Royal Australian Ordnance Corp (RAOC). This particular Ammunition Depot was of such high strategic importance that besides the many anti aircraft batteries including a few dummy ones there was actually a number of dummy town buildings built to protect the Depot from possible bombing. Once again Emanuel and his mates undertook vital work in the munitions supply chain; it cannot be overstated as to the importance of this Depot to the Australian war effort.

On the 22nd November 1943 Emanuel left Lithgow and having probably spent a very cold and wet winter in Lithgow he would have been very happy to leave, Emanuel was posted back to 2 Employment Company where once again he and his mates undertook the essential laboring tasks , the hard physical labour needed to maintain the war effort and support the Australian military units in their quest to defeat the enemy.

It must be said that Emanuel and the rest of those 15,000 men from, Greece, Italy, and Austria to name a few countries who served with the Australian Army’s (39) thirty nine Labour and Employment Units were very diverse in Nationality and backgrounds, they lived together in tents and huts in crowded proximity and still managed to build up a great camaraderie however it must be said that they were the Forgotten Soldiers of the war as far as the history books are concerned.
Finally after (3) three years of dedicated service to his country on the 16th April 1945 Emanuel was discharged from the Army and he could return to his family and become a civilian and get on with building his successful life in Australia .

Emanuel was indeed a man who selflessly served Australia in its time of great need; Emanuel was awarded the War Medal 1939 – 45, Australian Service Medal 1939 – 45 and the General Service Badge.

“O valiant hearts who to your glory came through dust of conflict and through battle flame, tranquil you lie. Your knightly virtue proved, your memory hallowed in the land you loved”

“The hour has come for rest. This red poppy the traditional emblem of war sacrifice, the symbol of life offered in the service of one’s country and Rosemary for Remembrance links us to our late comrade Emanuel and us who remain. “We place them here in remembrance”

Those persons who wish to lay a Poppy please come forward.
Would you please stand for a few moments silence in memory of Emanuel, this will be followed by the playing of the Last Post; I will then recite the Ode followed by Reveille
“They shall grow not old as we that are left grow old, age shall not weary them nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them. Reveille

“Lest we forget”

Alan R. Barnes
President Kingsgrove RSL Sub Branch
22nd January 2015

Biography of Emanuel Casimatis

To view / download a version of this article in Greek, as a .pdf:

Emanuel Casimatis article.pdf

Born in Pitsinianika, Kythera in April 1919, Emanuel Casimatis was the tenth child of Gerasimos and Anizina Casimatis. He came from a big family of five brothers and six sisters, and the villagers would call the many kids ‘Gerasimakia’. There was a 28-year difference between the eldest and youngest of the ‘Gerasimakia’ children. By the time Emanuel was born some of his brothers had already left for Australia, which meant he had not yet met them. He made it his goal to travel to Australia and become acquainted with his siblings.

Emanuel was a very smart child. He was dux at his school and was offered a future there in Kythera. The high school teacher even came to his house and told his father that he wanted him to continue his studies, offering him all the books for free as an incentive. When his father asked him, he told him that he wanted to migrate to Australia as he had his heart set on joining his brothers in Australia whom he had not yet met.

At the age of 17, Emanuel travelled to Australia on the ‘Orama’ on a 28-day voyage via the Suez Canal and Cocos Islands, eventually reaching Sydney where he had an entourage of people waiting for him, including brothers that he was able to meet for the first time. From here he went to Temora, where the close bond he was able to forge between himself and his brothers was a key factor in their success in Australia. Emanuel once recounted, “We were a very close family, keeping in mind we had 5 brothers living here together, and
in all our lives we never had one single fight”.

When he was 23 he was drafted into the army. He worked for 3 years in an ammunition depot, to load up the trains that went to New Guinea. Though Emanuel didn't like the idea of conscription it turned out to be a good thing as he made many lifelong friends, including many Kytherians and other Greeks. Over the years, he would regularly meet up with 30-40 ex-army buddies every Wednesday at the Hellenic House. Their numbers slowly dwindled until there were only 2 left. Two days before his passing, Emanuel made his regular Wednesday visit to Hellenic House, and this would be his last.

Emanuel was very proud of the business ventures he started with his brothers in Temora (White Horse Café), Young (Monterey Café), Ariah Park, the Chatswood Oasis Milk Bar with friend Peter Coroneos, and then later Crows Nest (Peter Pan Cake Shop). His last venture was the Elite Shoe Salon in Kingsgrove with his wife Matina, which he ran for over 35 years until his retirement in the mid 1980’s.

Emanuel was equally proud of his involvement with the Kytherian Brotherhood, serving as President during a financially tumultuous time. Under his leadership and with a strong team behind him, the fortunes of the Kytherian Brotherhood were turned around, and Kythera House was saved. The Kytherian Brotherhood remained an integral part of his and his family’s life.

Emanuel loved his garden, especially his fig trees. He and Matina would spend many hours administering tender loving care to their numerous flowers, fruit and vegetables. No visitor to his home would leave without some kind of offering from his garden. He would also regularly visit friends and relatives laden with all kinds of goodies.

The story of Emanuel is not complete without mention of his passion for both fishing and playing cards. He enjoyed many memorable fishing trips to the Great Barrier Reef with his friends, and also enjoyed fishing with Matina near his holiday home at Ettalong.

He was a master Prefa and Poker player, with a razor sharp mind right until his last game at Hellenic House a couple of days before his passing. He also enjoyed the game of Tavli.
Rotary was also an important part of Emanuel’s life, and it helped define the philosophies by which he chose to live by. He believed in the saying that “the worth of a man’s life is measured not by the money or property he leaves behind, but rather by the family he leaves behind”.

Emanuel met fellow Kytherian Matina Samios and they were married in 1953, celebrating their 60th Wedding anniversary in 2013. They had 3 children, Anna in 1954, Gerald in 1955 and Stephen in 1958, and later welcomed son in law John Psaltis, and daughters in law Marianne Comino and Virginia Spinoulas to the family with open arms. Seven grandchildren followed, Michael, Matthew, and Christopher Psaltis, Matthew and Jason Casimatis, and Evan and Marissa Casimatis. He was lucky enough to attend the wedding of two grandsons, welcoming their new wives Jennifer and Elise to the family. He was also looking forward to becoming a great grandfather for the first time later this year.

On Christmas Day 2014, sitting at the table surrounded by all of his loving children and grandchildren, Emanuel remarked to his wife Matina, “we started off as just the two of us, and now look at what we have”.

Emanuel will be dearly missed by all.


RETURNED SERVICE LEAGUE (RSL) SERVICE

Emanuel Casimatis

N202233

“Their bodies are buried in peace and their name liveth for evermore”

“The members of the Kingsgrove RSL Sub-Branch and Club offer their sincere condolences to the Casimatis family and their friends on their very sad loss of Emanuel.

Emanuel Casimatis travelled from the small town of Ariah Park which is in the Riverina region near Temora to Paddington in Sydney to enlist in the Citizen Military Force (CMF) for full time duty on the 12th May 1942 at the age of (23) twenty three, obviously he wanted to help his newly adopted country as it was under threat of a Japanese invasion. I was told by Emanuel’s son Steve that two of Emanuel’s brothers Jack and Andrew also enlisted in the Australian Army; Andrew served in the same unit as Emanuel 2 Employment Company.

Emanuel was posted to 2 Australian Labour Company, unfortunately we do not know where this Company was based however official records show they camped at places like Tocumwal and Albury on the New South Wales border as at that time we had different rail gauges so the men worked on the trains loading and unloading military supplies, including foodstuffs and armaments. Emanuel probably would have also found himself working at factories packing and transporting goods, or he could have worked on the wharves loading military equipment which was required at the front line for the Australian troops fighting the Japanese

It was ‘hard yakka’ as they say in Australian terms and though the work lacked the glamour of the front line however its importance to the conduct of the war was very much understood by Emanuel and his mates in the Unit. They knew they were part of the whole nation doing its bit; they were doing their part in the army towards protecting the country and winning the war.

On the 5th October 1942 Emanuel was transferred to 2 Australian Employment Company where he and his mates would have continued in much the same role moving important military supplies. On the 1st March 1943 Emanuel was posted to 6 Australian Advanced Ammunition Depot (AAD) at Lithgow this was a part of the Royal Australian Ordnance Corp (RAOC). This particular Ammunition Depot was of such high strategic importance that besides the many anti aircraft batteries including a few dummy ones there was actually a number of dummy town buildings built to protect the Depot from possible bombing. Once again Emanuel and his mates undertook vital work in the munitions supply chain; it cannot be overstated as to the importance of this Depot to the Australian war effort.

On the 22nd November 1943 Emanuel left Lithgow and having probably spent a very cold and wet winter in Lithgow he would have been very happy to leave, Emanuel was posted back to 2 Employment Company where once again he and his mates undertook the essential laboring tasks , the hard physical labour needed to maintain the war effort and support the Australian military units in their quest to defeat the enemy.

It must be said that Emanuel and the rest of those 15,000 men from, Greece, Italy, and Austria to name a few countries who served with the Australian Army’s (39) thirty nine Labour and Employment Units were very diverse in Nationality and backgrounds, they lived together in tents and huts in crowded proximity and still managed to build up a great camaraderie however it must be said that they were the Forgotten Soldiers of the war as far as the history books are concerned.
Finally after (3) three years of dedicated service to his country on the 16th April 1945 Emanuel was discharged from the Army and he could return to his family and become a civilian and get on with building his successful life in Australia .

Emanuel was indeed a man who selflessly served Australia in its time of great need; Emanuel was awarded the War Medal 1939 – 45, Australian Service Medal 1939 – 45 and the General Service Badge.

“O valiant hearts who to your glory came through dust of conflict and through battle flame, tranquil you lie. Your knightly virtue proved, your memory hallowed in the land you loved”

“The hour has come for rest. This red poppy the traditional emblem of war sacrifice, the symbol of life offered in the service of one’s country and Rosemary for Remembrance links us to our late comrade Emanuel and us who remain. “We place them here in remembrance”

Those persons who wish to lay a Poppy please come forward.
Would you please stand for a few moments silence in memory of Emanuel, this will be followed by the playing of the Last Post; I will then recite the Ode followed by Reveille
“They shall grow not old as we that are left grow old, age shall not weary them nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them. Reveille

“Lest we forget”

Alan R. Barnes
President Kingsgrove RSL Sub Branch
22nd January 2015

Biography of Emanuel Casimatis

To view / download a version of this article in Greek, as a .pdf:

Emanuel Casimatis article.pdf

Born in Pitsinianika, Kythera in April 1919, Emanuel Casimatis was the tenth child of Gerasimos and Anizina Casimatis. He came from a big family of five brothers and six sisters, and the villagers would call the many kids ‘Gerasimakia’. There was a 28-year difference between the eldest and youngest of the ‘Gerasimakia’ children. By the time Emanuel was born some of his brothers had already left for Australia, which meant he had not yet met them. He made it his goal to travel to Australia and become acquainted with his siblings.

Emanuel was a very smart child. He was dux at his school and was offered a future there in Kythera. The high school teacher even came to his house and told his father that he wanted him to continue his studies, offering him all the books for free as an incentive. When his father asked him, he told him that he wanted to migrate to Australia as he had his heart set on joining his brothers in Australia whom he had not yet met.

At the age of 17, Emanuel travelled to Australia on the ‘Orama’ on a 28-day voyage via the Suez Canal and Cocos Islands, eventually reaching Sydney where he had an entourage of people waiting for him, including brothers that he was able to meet for the first time. From here he went to Temora, where the close bond he was able to forge between himself and his brothers was a key factor in their success in Australia. Emanuel once recounted, “We were a very close family, keeping in mind we had 5 brothers living here together, and
in all our lives we never had one single fight”.

When he was 23 he was drafted into the army. He worked for 3 years in an ammunition depot, to load up the trains that went to New Guinea. Though Emanuel didn't like the idea of conscription it turned out to be a good thing as he made many lifelong friends, including many Kytherians and other Greeks. Over the years, he would regularly meet up with 30-40 ex-army buddies every Wednesday at the Hellenic House. Their numbers slowly dwindled until there were only 2 left. Two days before his passing, Emanuel made his regular Wednesday visit to Hellenic House, and this would be his last.

Emanuel was very proud of the business ventures he started with his brothers in Temora (White Horse Café), Young (Monterey Café), Ariah Park, the Chatswood Oasis Milk Bar with friend Peter Coroneos, and then later Crows Nest (Peter Pan Cake Shop). His last venture was the Elite Shoe Salon in Kingsgrove with his wife Matina, which he ran for over 35 years until his retirement in the mid 1980’s.

Emanuel was equally proud of his involvement with the Kytherian Brotherhood, serving as President during a financially tumultuous time. Under his leadership and with a strong team behind him, the fortunes of the Kytherian Brotherhood were turned around, and Kythera House was saved. The Kytherian Brotherhood remained an integral part of his and his family’s life.

Emanuel loved his garden, especially his fig trees. He and Matina would spend many hours administering tender loving care to their numerous flowers, fruit and vegetables. No visitor to his home would leave without some kind of offering from his garden. He would also regularly visit friends and relatives laden with all kinds of goodies.

The story of Emanuel is not complete without mention of his passion for both fishing and playing cards. He enjoyed many memorable fishing trips to the Great Barrier Reef with his friends, and also enjoyed fishing with Matina near his holiday home at Ettalong.

He was a master Prefa and Poker player, with a razor sharp mind right until his last game at Hellenic House a couple of days before his passing. He also enjoyed the game of Tavli.
Rotary was also an important part of Emanuel’s life, and it helped define the philosophies by which he chose to live by. He believed in the saying that “the worth of a man’s life is measured not by the money or property he leaves behind, but rather by the family he leaves behind”.

Emanuel met fellow Kytherian Matina Samios and they were married in 1953, celebrating their 60th Wedding anniversary in 2013. They had 3 children, Anna in 1954, Gerald in 1955 and Stephen in 1958, and later welcomed son in law John Psaltis, and daughters in law Marianne Comino and Virginia Spinoulas to the family with open arms. Seven grandchildren followed, Michael, Matthew, and Christopher Psaltis, Matthew and Jason Casimatis, and Evan and Marissa Casimatis. He was lucky enough to attend the wedding of two grandsons, welcoming their new wives Jennifer and Elise to the family. He was also looking forward to becoming a great grandfather for the first time later this year.

On Christmas Day 2014, sitting at the table surrounded by all of his loving children and grandchildren, Emanuel remarked to his wife Matina, “we started off as just the two of us, and now look at what we have”.

Emanuel will be dearly missed by all.


RETURNED SERVICE LEAGUE (RSL) SERVICE

Emanuel Casimatis

N202233

“Their bodies are buried in peace and their name liveth for evermore”

“The members of the Kingsgrove RSL Sub-Branch and Club offer their sincere condolences to the Casimatis family and their friends on their very sad loss of Emanuel.

Emanuel Casimatis travelled from the small town of Ariah Park which is in the Riverina region near Temora to Paddington in Sydney to enlist in the Citizen Military Force (CMF) for full time duty on the 12th May 1942 at the age of (23) twenty three, obviously he wanted to help his newly adopted country as it was under threat of a Japanese invasion. I was told by Emanuel’s son Steve that two of Emanuel’s brothers Jack and Andrew also enlisted in the Australian Army; Andrew served in the same unit as Emanuel 2 Employment Company.

Emanuel was posted to 2 Australian Labour Company, unfortunately we do not know where this Company was based however official records show they camped at places like Tocumwal and Albury on the New South Wales border as at that time we had different rail gauges so the men worked on the trains loading and unloading military supplies, including foodstuffs and armaments. Emanuel probably would have also found himself working at factories packing and transporting goods, or he could have worked on the wharves loading military equipment which was required at the front line for the Australian troops fighting the Japanese

It was ‘hard yakka’ as they say in Australian terms and though the work lacked the glamour of the front line however its importance to the conduct of the war was very much understood by Emanuel and his mates in the Unit. They knew they were part of the whole nation doing its bit; they were doing their part in the army towards protecting the country and winning the war.

On the 5th October 1942 Emanuel was transferred to 2 Australian Employment Company where he and his mates would have continued in much the same role moving important military supplies. On the 1st March 1943 Emanuel was posted to 6 Australian Advanced Ammunition Depot (AAD) at Lithgow this was a part of the Royal Australian Ordnance Corp (RAOC). This particular Ammunition Depot was of such high strategic importance that besides the many anti aircraft batteries including a few dummy ones there was actually a number of dummy town buildings built to protect the Depot from possible bombing. Once again Emanuel and his mates undertook vital work in the munitions supply chain; it cannot be overstated as to the importance of this Depot to the Australian war effort.

On the 22nd November 1943 Emanuel left Lithgow and having probably spent a very cold and wet winter in Lithgow he would have been very happy to leave, Emanuel was posted back to 2 Employment Company where once again he and his mates undertook the essential laboring tasks , the hard physical labour needed to maintain the war effort and support the Australian military units in their quest to defeat the enemy.

It must be said that Emanuel and the rest of those 15,000 men from, Greece, Italy, and Austria to name a few countries who served with the Australian Army’s (39) thirty nine Labour and Employment Units were very diverse in Nationality and backgrounds, they lived together in tents and huts in crowded proximity and still managed to build up a great camaraderie however it must be said that they were the Forgotten Soldiers of the war as far as the history books are concerned.
Finally after (3) three years of dedicated service to his country on the 16th April 1945 Emanuel was discharged from the Army and he could return to his family and become a civilian and get on with building his successful life in Australia .

Emanuel was indeed a man who selflessly served Australia in its time of great need; Emanuel was awarded the War Medal 1939 – 45, Australian Service Medal 1939 – 45 and the General Service Badge.

“O valiant hearts who to your glory came through dust of conflict and through battle flame, tranquil you lie. Your knightly virtue proved, your memory hallowed in the land you loved”

“The hour has come for rest. This red poppy the traditional emblem of war sacrifice, the symbol of life offered in the service of one’s country and Rosemary for Remembrance links us to our late comrade Emanuel and us who remain. “We place them here in remembrance”

Those persons who wish to lay a Poppy please come forward.
Would you please stand for a few moments silence in memory of Emanuel, this will be followed by the playing of the Last Post; I will then recite the Ode followed by Reveille
“They shall grow not old as we that are left grow old, age shall not weary them nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them. Reveille

“Lest we forget”

Alan R. Barnes
President Kingsgrove RSL Sub Branch
22nd January 2015

Biography of Emanuel Casimatis

To view / download a version of this article in Greek, as a .pdf:

Emanuel Casimatis article.pdf

Born in Pitsinianika, Kythera in April 1919, Emanuel Casimatis was the tenth child of Gerasimos and Anizina Casimatis. He came from a big family of five brothers and six sisters, and the villagers would call the many kids ‘Gerasimakia’. There was a 28-year difference between the eldest and youngest of the ‘Gerasimakia’ children. By the time Emanuel was born some of his brothers had already left for Australia, which meant he had not yet met them. He made it his goal to travel to Australia and become acquainted with his siblings.

Emanuel was a very smart child. He was dux at his school and was offered a future there in Kythera. The high school teacher even came to his house and told his father that he wanted him to continue his studies, offering him all the books for free as an incentive. When his father asked him, he told him that he wanted to migrate to Australia as he had his heart set on joining his brothers in Australia whom he had not yet met.

At the age of 17, Emanuel travelled to Australia on the ‘Orama’ on a 28-day voyage via the Suez Canal and Cocos Islands, eventually reaching Sydney where he had an entourage of people waiting for him, including brothers that he was able to meet for the first time. From here he went to Temora, where the close bond he was able to forge between himself and his brothers was a key factor in their success in Australia. Emanuel once recounted, “We were a very close family, keeping in mind we had 5 brothers living here together, and
in all our lives we never had one single fight”.

When he was 23 he was drafted into the army. He worked for 3 years in an ammunition depot, to load up the trains that went to New Guinea. Though Emanuel didn't like the idea of conscription it turned out to be a good thing as he made many lifelong friends, including many Kytherians and other Greeks. Over the years, he would regularly meet up with 30-40 ex-army buddies every Wednesday at the Hellenic House. Their numbers slowly dwindled until there were only 2 left. Two days before his passing, Emanuel made his regular Wednesday visit to Hellenic House, and this would be his last.

Emanuel was very proud of the business ventures he started with his brothers in Temora (White Horse Café), Young (Monterey Café), Ariah Park, the Chatswood Oasis Milk Bar with friend Peter Coroneos, and then later Crows Nest (Peter Pan Cake Shop). His last venture was the Elite Shoe Salon in Kingsgrove with his wife Matina, which he ran for over 35 years until his retirement in the mid 1980’s.

Emanuel was equally proud of his involvement with the Kytherian Brotherhood, serving as President during a financially tumultuous time. Under his leadership and with a strong team behind him, the fortunes of the Kytherian Brotherhood were turned around, and Kythera House was saved. The Kytherian Brotherhood remained an integral part of his and his family’s life.

Emanuel loved his garden, especially his fig trees. He and Matina would spend many hours administering tender loving care to their numerous flowers, fruit and vegetables. No visitor to his home would leave without some kind of offering from his garden. He would also regularly visit friends and relatives laden with all kinds of goodies.

The story of Emanuel is not complete without mention of his passion for both fishing and playing cards. He enjoyed many memorable fishing trips to the Great Barrier Reef with his friends, and also enjoyed fishing with Matina near his holiday home at Ettalong.

He was a master Prefa and Poker player, with a razor sharp mind right until his last game at Hellenic House a couple of days before his passing. He also enjoyed the game of Tavli.
Rotary was also an important part of Emanuel’s life, and it helped define the philosophies by which he chose to live by. He believed in the saying that “the worth of a man’s life is measured not by the money or property he leaves behind, but rather by the family he leaves behind”.

Emanuel met fellow Kytherian Matina Samios and they were married in 1953, celebrating their 60th Wedding anniversary in 2013. They had 3 children, Anna in 1954, Gerald in 1955 and Stephen in 1958, and later welcomed son in law John Psaltis, and daughters in law Marianne Comino and Virginia Spinoulas to the family with open arms. Seven grandchildren followed, Michael, Matthew, and Christopher Psaltis, Matthew and Jason Casimatis, and Evan and Marissa Casimatis. He was lucky enough to attend the wedding of two grandsons, welcoming their new wives Jennifer and Elise to the family. He was also looking forward to becoming a great grandfather for the first time later this year.

On Christmas Day 2014, sitting at the table surrounded by all of his loving children and grandchildren, Emanuel remarked to his wife Matina, “we started off as just the two of us, and now look at what we have”.

Emanuel will be dearly missed by all.


RETURNED SERVICE LEAGUE (RSL) SERVICE

Emanuel Casimatis

N202233

“Their bodies are buried in peace and their name liveth for evermore”

“The members of the Kingsgrove RSL Sub-Branch and Club offer their sincere condolences to the Casimatis family and their friends on their very sad loss of Emanuel.

Emanuel Casimatis travelled from the small town of Ariah Park which is in the Riverina region near Temora to Paddington in Sydney to enlist in the Citizen Military Force (CMF) for full time duty on the 12th May 1942 at the age of (23) twenty three, obviously he wanted to help his newly adopted country as it was under threat of a Japanese invasion. I was told by Emanuel’s son Steve that two of Emanuel’s brothers Jack and Andrew also enlisted in the Australian Army; Andrew served in the same unit as Emanuel 2 Employment Company.

Emanuel was posted to 2 Australian Labour Company, unfortunately we do not know where this Company was based however official records show they camped at places like Tocumwal and Albury on the New South Wales border as at that time we had different rail gauges so the men worked on the trains loading and unloading military supplies, including foodstuffs and armaments. Emanuel probably would have also found himself working at factories packing and transporting goods, or he could have worked on the wharves loading military equipment which was required at the front line for the Australian troops fighting the Japanese

It was ‘hard yakka’ as they say in Australian terms and though the work lacked the glamour of the front line however its importance to the conduct of the war was very much understood by Emanuel and his mates in the Unit. They knew they were part of the whole nation doing its bit; they were doing their part in the army towards protecting the country and winning the war.

On the 5th October 1942 Emanuel was transferred to 2 Australian Employment Company where he and his mates would have continued in much the same role moving important military supplies. On the 1st March 1943 Emanuel was posted to 6 Australian Advanced Ammunition Depot (AAD) at Lithgow this was a part of the Royal Australian Ordnance Corp (RAOC). This particular Ammunition Depot was of such high strategic importance that besides the many anti aircraft batteries including a few dummy ones there was actually a number of dummy town buildings built to protect the Depot from possible bombing. Once again Emanuel and his mates undertook vital work in the munitions supply chain; it cannot be overstated as to the importance of this Depot to the Australian war effort.

On the 22nd November 1943 Emanuel left Lithgow and having probably spent a very cold and wet winter in Lithgow he would have been very happy to leave, Emanuel was posted back to 2 Employment Company where once again he and his mates undertook the essential laboring tasks , the hard physical labour needed to maintain the war effort and support the Australian military units in their quest to defeat the enemy.

It must be said that Emanuel and the rest of those 15,000 men from, Greece, Italy, and Austria to name a few countries who served with the Australian Army’s (39) thirty nine Labour and Employment Units were very diverse in Nationality and backgrounds, they lived together in tents and huts in crowded proximity and still managed to build up a great camaraderie however it must be said that they were the Forgotten Soldiers of the war as far as the history books are concerned.
Finally after (3) three years of dedicated service to his country on the 16th April 1945 Emanuel was discharged from the Army and he could return to his family and become a civilian and get on with building his successful life in Australia .

Emanuel was indeed a man who selflessly served Australia in its time of great need; Emanuel was awarded the War Medal 1939 – 45, Australian Service Medal 1939 – 45 and the General Service Badge.

“O valiant hearts who to your glory came through dust of conflict and through battle flame, tranquil you lie. Your knightly virtue proved, your memory hallowed in the land you loved”

“The hour has come for rest. This red poppy the traditional emblem of war sacrifice, the symbol of life offered in the service of one’s country and Rosemary for Remembrance links us to our late comrade Emanuel and us who remain. “We place them here in remembrance”

Those persons who wish to lay a Poppy please come forward.
Would you please stand for a few moments silence in memory of Emanuel, this will be followed by the playing of the Last Post; I will then recite the Ode followed by Reveille
“They shall grow not old as we that are left grow old, age shall not weary them nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them. Reveille

“Lest we forget”

Alan R. Barnes
President Kingsgrove RSL Sub Branch
22nd January 2015

Biography of Emanuel Casimatis

To view / download a version of this article in Greek, as a .pdf:

Emanuel Casimatis article.pdf

Born in Pitsinianika, Kythera in April 1919, Emanuel Casimatis was the tenth child of Gerasimos and Anizina Casimatis. He came from a big family of five brothers and six sisters, and the villagers would call the many kids ‘Gerasimakia’. There was a 28-year difference between the eldest and youngest of the ‘Gerasimakia’ children. By the time Emanuel was born some of his brothers had already left for Australia, which meant he had not yet met them. He made it his goal to travel to Australia and become acquainted with his siblings.

Emanuel was a very smart child. He was dux at his school and was offered a future there in Kythera. The high school teacher even came to his house and told his father that he wanted him to continue his studies, offering him all the books for free as an incentive. When his father asked him, he told him that he wanted to migrate to Australia as he had his heart set on joining his brothers in Australia whom he had not yet met.

At the age of 17, Emanuel travelled to Australia on the ‘Orama’ on a 28-day voyage via the Suez Canal and Cocos Islands, eventually reaching Sydney where he had an entourage of people waiting for him, including brothers that he was able to meet for the first time. From here he went to Temora, where the close bond he was able to forge between himself and his brothers was a key factor in their success in Australia. Emanuel once recounted, “We were a very close family, keeping in mind we had 5 brothers living here together, and
in all our lives we never had one single fight”.

[[picture:"IMG_0001.jpg" ID:22781]]

When he was 23 he was drafted into the army. He worked for 3 years in an ammunition depot, to load up the trains that went to New Guinea. Though Emanuel didn't like the idea of conscription it turned out to be a good thing as he made many lifelong friends, including many Kytherians and other Greeks. Over the years, he would regularly meet up with 30-40 ex-army buddies every Wednesday at the Hellenic House. Their numbers slowly dwindled until there were only 2 left. Two days before his passing, Emanuel made his regular Wednesday visit to Hellenic House, and this would be his last.

Emanuel was very proud of the business ventures he started with his brothers in Temora (White Horse Café), Young (Monterey Café), Ariah Park, the Chatswood Oasis Milk Bar with friend Peter Coroneos, and then later Crows Nest (Peter Pan Cake Shop). His last venture was the Elite Shoe Salon in Kingsgrove with his wife Matina, which he ran for over 35 years until his retirement in the mid 1980’s.

Emanuel was equally proud of his involvement with the Kytherian Brotherhood, serving as President during a financially tumultuous time. Under his leadership and with a strong team behind him, the fortunes of the Kytherian Brotherhood were turned around, and Kythera House was saved. The Kytherian Brotherhood remained an integral part of his and his family’s life.

Emanuel loved his garden, especially his fig trees. He and Matina would spend many hours administering tender loving care to their numerous flowers, fruit and vegetables. No visitor to his home would leave without some kind of offering from his garden. He would also regularly visit friends and relatives laden with all kinds of goodies.

The story of Emanuel is not complete without mention of his passion for both fishing and playing cards. He enjoyed many memorable fishing trips to the Great Barrier Reef with his friends, and also enjoyed fishing with Matina near his holiday home at Ettalong.

He was a master Prefa and Poker player, with a razor sharp mind right until his last game at Hellenic House a couple of days before his passing. He also enjoyed the game of Tavli.
Rotary was also an important part of Emanuel’s life, and it helped define the philosophies by which he chose to live by. He believed in the saying that “the worth of a man’s life is measured not by the money or property he leaves behind, but rather by the family he leaves behind”.

Emanuel met fellow Kytherian Matina Samios and they were married in 1953, celebrating their 60th Wedding anniversary in 2013. They had 3 children, Anna in 1954, Gerald in 1955 and Stephen in 1958, and later welcomed son in law John Psaltis, and daughters in law Marianne Comino and Virginia Spinoulas to the family with open arms. Seven grandchildren followed, Michael, Matthew, and Christopher Psaltis, Matthew and Jason Casimatis, and Evan and Marissa Casimatis. He was lucky enough to attend the wedding of two grandsons, welcoming their new wives Jennifer and Elise to the family. He was also looking forward to becoming a great grandfather for the first time later this year.

On Christmas Day 2014, sitting at the table surrounded by all of his loving children and grandchildren, Emanuel remarked to his wife Matina, “we started off as just the two of us, and now look at what we have”.

Emanuel will be dearly missed by all.


RETURNED SERVICE LEAGUE (RSL) SERVICE

Emanuel Casimatis

N202233

“Their bodies are buried in peace and their name liveth for evermore”

“The members of the Kingsgrove RSL Sub-Branch and Club offer their sincere condolences to the Casimatis family and their friends on their very sad loss of Emanuel.

Emanuel Casimatis travelled from the small town of Ariah Park which is in the Riverina region near Temora to Paddington in Sydney to enlist in the Citizen Military Force (CMF) for full time duty on the 12th May 1942 at the age of (23) twenty three, obviously he wanted to help his newly adopted country as it was under threat of a Japanese invasion. I was told by Emanuel’s son Steve that two of Emanuel’s brothers Jack and Andrew also enlisted in the Australian Army; Andrew served in the same unit as Emanuel 2 Employment Company.

Emanuel was posted to 2 Australian Labour Company, unfortunately we do not know where this Company was based however official records show they camped at places like Tocumwal and Albury on the New South Wales border as at that time we had different rail gauges so the men worked on the trains loading and unloading military supplies, including foodstuffs and armaments. Emanuel probably would have also found himself working at factories packing and transporting goods, or he could have worked on the wharves loading military equipment which was required at the front line for the Australian troops fighting the Japanese

It was ‘hard yakka’ as they say in Australian terms and though the work lacked the glamour of the front line however its importance to the conduct of the war was very much understood by Emanuel and his mates in the Unit. They knew they were part of the whole nation doing its bit; they were doing their part in the army towards protecting the country and winning the war.

On the 5th October 1942 Emanuel was transferred to 2 Australian Employment Company where he and his mates would have continued in much the same role moving important military supplies. On the 1st March 1943 Emanuel was posted to 6 Australian Advanced Ammunition Depot (AAD) at Lithgow this was a part of the Royal Australian Ordnance Corp (RAOC). This particular Ammunition Depot was of such high strategic importance that besides the many anti aircraft batteries including a few dummy ones there was actually a number of dummy town buildings built to protect the Depot from possible bombing. Once again Emanuel and his mates undertook vital work in the munitions supply chain; it cannot be overstated as to the importance of this Depot to the Australian war effort.

On the 22nd November 1943 Emanuel left Lithgow and having probably spent a very cold and wet winter in Lithgow he would have been very happy to leave, Emanuel was posted back to 2 Employment Company where once again he and his mates undertook the essential laboring tasks , the hard physical labour needed to maintain the war effort and support the Australian military units in their quest to defeat the enemy.

It must be said that Emanuel and the rest of those 15,000 men from, Greece, Italy, and Austria to name a few countries who served with the Australian Army’s (39) thirty nine Labour and Employment Units were very diverse in Nationality and backgrounds, they lived together in tents and huts in crowded proximity and still managed to build up a great camaraderie however it must be said that they were the Forgotten Soldiers of the war as far as the history books are concerned.
Finally after (3) three years of dedicated service to his country on the 16th April 1945 Emanuel was discharged from the Army and he could return to his family and become a civilian and get on with building his successful life in Australia .

Emanuel was indeed a man who selflessly served Australia in its time of great need; Emanuel was awarded the War Medal 1939 – 45, Australian Service Medal 1939 – 45 and the General Service Badge.

“O valiant hearts who to your glory came through dust of conflict and through battle flame, tranquil you lie. Your knightly virtue proved, your memory hallowed in the land you loved”

“The hour has come for rest. This red poppy the traditional emblem of war sacrifice, the symbol of life offered in the service of one’s country and Rosemary for Remembrance links us to our late comrade Emanuel and us who remain. “We place them here in remembrance”

Those persons who wish to lay a Poppy please come forward.
Would you please stand for a few moments silence in memory of Emanuel, this will be followed by the playing of the Last Post; I will then recite the Ode followed by Reveille
“They shall grow not old as we that are left grow old, age shall not weary them nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them. Reveille

“Lest we forget”

Alan R. Barnes
President Kingsgrove RSL Sub Branch
22nd January 2015

Biography of Emanuel Casimatis

To view / download a version of this article in Greek, as a .pdf:

Emanuel Casimatis article.pdf

[[picture:"IMG_0078.jpg" ID:22785]]

Born in Pitsinianika, Kythera in April 1919, Emanuel Casimatis was the tenth child of Gerasimos and Anizina Casimatis. He came from a big family of five brothers and six sisters, and the villagers would call the many kids ‘Gerasimakia’. There was a 28-year difference between the eldest and youngest of the ‘Gerasimakia’ children. By the time Emanuel was born some of his brothers had already left for Australia, which meant he had not yet met them. He made it his goal to travel to Australia and become acquainted with his siblings.

Emanuel was a very smart child. He was dux at his school and was offered a future there in Kythera. The high school teacher even came to his house and told his father that he wanted him to continue his studies, offering him all the books for free as an incentive. When his father asked him, he told him that he wanted to migrate to Australia as he had his heart set on joining his brothers in Australia whom he had not yet met.

At the age of 17, Emanuel travelled to Australia on the ‘Orama’ on a 28-day voyage via the Suez Canal and Cocos Islands, eventually reaching Sydney where he had an entourage of people waiting for him, including brothers that he was able to meet for the first time. From here he went to Temora, where the close bond he was able to forge between himself and his brothers was a key factor in their success in Australia. Emanuel once recounted, “We were a very close family, keeping in mind we had 5 brothers living here together, and
in all our lives we never had one single fight”.

[[picture:"IMG_0001.jpg" ID:22781]]

When he was 23 he was drafted into the army. He worked for 3 years in an ammunition depot, to load up the trains that went to New Guinea. Though Emanuel didn't like the idea of conscription it turned out to be a good thing as he made many lifelong friends, including many Kytherians and other Greeks. Over the years, he would regularly meet up with 30-40 ex-army buddies every Wednesday at the Hellenic House. Their numbers slowly dwindled until there were only 2 left. Two days before his passing, Emanuel made his regular Wednesday visit to Hellenic House, and this would be his last.

Emanuel was very proud of the business ventures he started with his brothers in Temora (White Horse Café), Young (Monterey Café), Ariah Park, the Chatswood Oasis Milk Bar with friend Peter Coroneos, and then later Crows Nest (Peter Pan Cake Shop). His last venture was the Elite Shoe Salon in Kingsgrove with his wife Matina, which he ran for over 35 years until his retirement in the mid 1980’s.

[[picture:"IMG_0004.jpg" ID:22782]]

Emanuel was equally proud of his involvement with the Kytherian Brotherhood, serving as President during a financially tumultuous time. Under his leadership and with a strong team behind him, the fortunes of the Kytherian Brotherhood were turned around, and Kythera House was saved. The Kytherian Brotherhood remained an integral part of his and his family’s life.

[[picture:"IMG_0079.jpg" ID:22784]]

Emanuel loved his garden, especially his fig trees. He and Matina would spend many hours administering tender loving care to their numerous flowers, fruit and vegetables. No visitor to his home would leave without some kind of offering from his garden. He would also regularly visit friends and relatives laden with all kinds of goodies.

The story of Emanuel is not complete without mention of his passion for both fishing and playing cards. He enjoyed many memorable fishing trips to the Great Barrier Reef with his friends, and also enjoyed fishing with Matina near his holiday home at Ettalong.

[[picture:"IMG_0012 - Copy.jpg" ID:22786]]

He was a master Prefa and Poker player, with a razor sharp mind right until his last game at Hellenic House a couple of days before his passing. He also enjoyed the game of Tavli.

Rotary was also an important part of Emanuel’s life, and it helped define the philosophies by which he chose to live by. He believed in the saying that “the worth of a man’s life is measured not by the money or property he leaves behind, but rather by the family he leaves behind”.

[[picture:"IMG_20150107_101112.jpg" ID:22783]]

Emanuel met fellow Kytherian Matina Samios and they were married in 1953, celebrating their 60th Wedding anniversary in 2013. They had 3 children, Anna in 1954, Gerald in 1955 and Stephen in 1958, and later welcomed son in law John Psaltis, and daughters in law Marianne Comino and Virginia Spinoulas to the family with open arms. Seven grandchildren followed, Michael, Matthew, and Christopher Psaltis, Matthew and Jason Casimatis, and Evan and Marissa Casimatis. He was lucky enough to attend the wedding of two grandsons, welcoming their new wives Jennifer and Elise to the family. He was also looking forward to becoming a great grandfather for the first time later this year.

[[picture:"P1010131.jpg" ID:22787]]

On Christmas Day 2014, sitting at the table surrounded by all of his loving children and grandchildren, Emanuel remarked to his wife Matina, “we started off as just the two of us, and now look at what we have”.

Emanuel will be dearly missed by all.


RETURNED SERVICE LEAGUE (RSL) SERVICE

Emanuel Casimatis

N202233

“Their bodies are buried in peace and their name liveth for evermore”

“The members of the Kingsgrove RSL Sub-Branch and Club offer their sincere condolences to the Casimatis family and their friends on their very sad loss of Emanuel.

Emanuel Casimatis travelled from the small town of Ariah Park which is in the Riverina region near Temora to Paddington in Sydney to enlist in the Citizen Military Force (CMF) for full time duty on the 12th May 1942 at the age of (23) twenty three, obviously he wanted to help his newly adopted country as it was under threat of a Japanese invasion. I was told by Emanuel’s son Steve that two of Emanuel’s brothers Jack and Andrew also enlisted in the Australian Army; Andrew served in the same unit as Emanuel 2 Employment Company.

Emanuel was posted to 2 Australian Labour Company, unfortunately we do not know where this Company was based however official records show they camped at places like Tocumwal and Albury on the New South Wales border as at that time we had different rail gauges so the men worked on the trains loading and unloading military supplies, including foodstuffs and armaments. Emanuel probably would have also found himself working at factories packing and transporting goods, or he could have worked on the wharves loading military equipment which was required at the front line for the Australian troops fighting the Japanese

It was ‘hard yakka’ as they say in Australian terms and though the work lacked the glamour of the front line however its importance to the conduct of the war was very much understood by Emanuel and his mates in the Unit. They knew they were part of the whole nation doing its bit; they were doing their part in the army towards protecting the country and winning the war.

On the 5th October 1942 Emanuel was transferred to 2 Australian Employment Company where he and his mates would have continued in much the same role moving important military supplies. On the 1st March 1943 Emanuel was posted to 6 Australian Advanced Ammunition Depot (AAD) at Lithgow this was a part of the Royal Australian Ordnance Corp (RAOC). This particular Ammunition Depot was of such high strategic importance that besides the many anti aircraft batteries including a few dummy ones there was actually a number of dummy town buildings built to protect the Depot from possible bombing. Once again Emanuel and his mates undertook vital work in the munitions supply chain; it cannot be overstated as to the importance of this Depot to the Australian war effort.

On the 22nd November 1943 Emanuel left Lithgow and having probably spent a very cold and wet winter in Lithgow he would have been very happy to leave, Emanuel was posted back to 2 Employment Company where once again he and his mates undertook the essential laboring tasks , the hard physical labour needed to maintain the war effort and support the Australian military units in their quest to defeat the enemy.

It must be said that Emanuel and the rest of those 15,000 men from, Greece, Italy, and Austria to name a few countries who served with the Australian Army’s (39) thirty nine Labour and Employment Units were very diverse in Nationality and backgrounds, they lived together in tents and huts in crowded proximity and still managed to build up a great camaraderie however it must be said that they were the Forgotten Soldiers of the war as far as the history books are concerned.
Finally after (3) three years of dedicated service to his country on the 16th April 1945 Emanuel was discharged from the Army and he could return to his family and become a civilian and get on with building his successful life in Australia .

Emanuel was indeed a man who selflessly served Australia in its time of great need; Emanuel was awarded the War Medal 1939 – 45, Australian Service Medal 1939 – 45 and the General Service Badge.

“O valiant hearts who to your glory came through dust of conflict and through battle flame, tranquil you lie. Your knightly virtue proved, your memory hallowed in the land you loved”

“The hour has come for rest. This red poppy the traditional emblem of war sacrifice, the symbol of life offered in the service of one’s country and Rosemary for Remembrance links us to our late comrade Emanuel and us who remain. “We place them here in remembrance”

Those persons who wish to lay a Poppy please come forward.
Would you please stand for a few moments silence in memory of Emanuel, this will be followed by the playing of the Last Post; I will then recite the Ode followed by Reveille
“They shall grow not old as we that are left grow old, age shall not weary them nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them. Reveille

“Lest we forget”

Alan R. Barnes
President Kingsgrove RSL Sub Branch
22nd January 2015

My name is Emanuel Casimatis and I was born in Pitsinianika, Kythera on the 21st of April 1918. My mother gave birth to me in the family home where the midwife, a Mrs Semitekolos, assisted in the birth. I have certain memories from my childhood such as walking to and from school barefoot in a large group of fellow students from the area. Back in those days we only had one pair of shoes which we saved for wearing to Church on Sundays; which we attended every week without question. The Church was named The Rising of the Holy Cross and was located in Pitsinianika. I would go to the eryo and put the diakahi/stoli on and help the priest with the liturgy. The school I went to was also in our village. There were two schools there and one was called the Makesakia. It was about 1.5km from the town, right in the middle of the surrounding villages; Pitsinianika, Drimona, Kalokairines and Kalisperianika. Originally there were separate schools for girls and boys, although eventually it became Co-Ed whilst I was at school.

My parents were Gerasimos and Anizina Casimatis. The villagers would call us kids ‘Gerasimakia’, but the whole clan was called ‘Trohali’. They were both born in Kythera. I came from a big family of five brothers and six sisters, in which I was the tenth child, although there were also two who passed away early. In fact one of them passed away during the Spanish Flu of 1917-18, which killed half of Tsirigo towards the end of the First World War. I can recall the story of a family in Avlemona, Adronikos (Houlios) that experienced the tragedy of having six of their seven kids die as a result of this epidemic that swept through the island. I actually served in the army with the sole survivor and he only passed away recently.

My childhood was quite pleasant. I was dux at my school, and they offered me a future there in Kythera. However, I had my heart set on joining my brothers here in Australia whom I had not yet met. The high school teacher even came to the house and told my father that he wanted me to continue my studies, offering us all the books for free as an incentive. When my father asked me, I told him that I wanted to migrate to Australia. Back in those days at school there were 120 kids at school. You had 10 subjects and each subject the student was marked out of 10. Well, in my final year I received a score of 97.5/100, I lost 2.5 points in Ancient History, and my fellow student who came second received a mark of 70/100. So I was a very good student who knew at that time that to migrate to Australia would be the best option. My best friend at that young age was a chap by the name of Jack Calligeros; he was the brother of Father Efthimios. Jack also migrated to Australia and we stayed very close.

The family home in Pitsinianika had three bedrooms, which was quite large for a normal sized family, but not capable of housing eleven children. The thing is that because there was a 28 year difference between the first and last child, there would be no more than four or five of us in the house at the same time. My brother Mick, for instance, was living in Australia for a full five years before I was born. He came out by himself, before the First World War which would have been extremely difficult for him. His first job was to sell fish from house to house, without knowing the language. Our generation all came out in this manner. We had no money and couldn’t speak a word of English but we had two great attributes; we were willing to learn and willing to work and that got us through it. We had a very happy home. We were a very close family. Keep in mind five brothers living here together and in all our lives we never had one single fight.

When I was younger my father went to America for four years and came back with five thousand dollars with which he used to buy property down near Avlemona, called Modi, as well as some property at Kaladi, right on top of the beach, which I’m not going to sell. I’m going to leave it for the kids to do whatever they like. My brother said to me on his deathbed to not sell before I died and I will honour that. My father was very ergatikos and he also used to like hunting a lot.

There were quite a few of his generation who made the same voyage to America from our village; however they did not intend on staying there permanently. They went over with the intention of making enough money to provide for their families and then they would return. It was indeed hard for my mother to raise the children alone, however just about every other woman in Pitsinianika went through the same difficulty. There was also a Kytherian family from Pitsinianika, named Casimatis (Paxnouthi), who took over the entire road-making industry in Crete and every year they would get Kytherians to work as foremen; my brothers would go there for three months at a time.

I was lucky because my brother-in-law had a big factory in Pitsinianika that produced the olive oil and he had a utility-type vehicle that we used every now and again as transport. However, the majority of the time, I would walk around the island, or travel by donkey, to get to our desired destinations. We would walk from Pitsinianika to Limnaria, which was behind Myrtidiotissa. We would get up early in the morning, during summer, and walk there, have a swim, and then walk back. We used to get six or seven boys, all stupid like me and come back 12 o’clock in the middle of the day. We would go barefooted over the mountains and on stone for two hours there and two hours back. We were ignorant to anything else and so it was not a difficult thing to achieve mentally. Compare that to the fact that it would take us two and a half hours to get to Paliopoli by donkey.

We would have big celebrations for Easter and Christmas. Easter Sunday we used to go to Church for the midnight and midday services, and after the service we would dance in the platia outside the Church. Celebrating Name Days in the village was also a big event. We would get a band together and go visit the people whose Name Day it was. We also had dances to raise money for the soccer team to buy the gear from Athens. We were lucky at first because a guy by the name of Jack Casimatis, who came back from Queensland (Karamala) in 1929, bought all the football gear and even a flag for the team ‘Athliticos Ominros Pitsinianikon’. We were the only town in Meso Dimon who had anything like that. We used to play against Potamo and then they eventually combined the two teams and played against Neapoli. Conveniently, the soccer field was directly opposite our house. It was so close that my family had the privilege of keeping the ball that we all played with. I remember my mother would often call out on a number occasions for us to come inside; “Manoli ela mesa, to fayi einai etimo” to which I would reply, “Mana, pezo football akoma.” My brother Andrew also played in the team.

I never went to high school in Kythera because I knew I wanted to come to Australia. My brother Mick wrote to my father and said that he wanted me to learn a trade before coming to Australia. My father didn’t want any of us to leave but I believe he knew we couldn’t stay there and have a prosperous life. We didn’t enjoy our early life in Kythera, as it was very hard and we could see that there was no future for us there. My father’s job was subsistence farming. That was all there was on the island. I helped out for a while, but then my older brother Theo opened up a shoe making shop in Kythera and I decided to work with him, which is where I learnt the shoe making trade. That is why I ultimately decided to buy a shoe store here in Australia; because it is what I knew well and I felt Australia lacked quality in the industry.

When I came to Australia, I went to Temora with my brothers and we were more or less isolated there. However, we got in contact with many Kytherians after being drafted into the army. We didn’t like conscription much but it turned out to be quite a good thing, as we met a lot of friends and became more open-minded about life in Australia. Together we experienced a lot of good times in the army, particularly on our days off, as we went all over Sydney and met a number of people I would not have otherwise become acquainted with. In Temora, we were separated from society (and girls). We danced in Kythera but I learnt to dance properly in Sydney, in the army. I was taught a lot there, we had dances sometimes three times a week. I now look back on my experience of serving the country fondly, largely based on the fact that we were not sent offshore to fight.

I was 23 when I was drafted into the army. They would try to find out how educated we were and how much we had picked up the language. A man by the name of Andrew Fatseas was sent to test us on our English literacy. He asked me how capable I was of speaking English to which I answered confidently, “Mr Fatseas you read the Herald and I’ll translate.” He was astonished and he then got me to teach the smaller classes. I wasn’t happy to be drafted into the army because you never knew where you would be sent to. It could have been to New Guinea where a lot of our mates contracted diseases and died.

Both my wife Matina and I picked up malaria when we were younger in Kythera. There were stagnant waters in Paliopoli and there was an innocuous mosquito which transmitted the parasite that caused malaria. We both got it around 10-11 years old. They used to give us kini to remedy the pain, which was really bitter and I would throw it away. Matina’s father wrote a letter to the health department in Greece and they came and put a layer of petrol over it and eradicated the disease.

In the army when they saw that you were not naturalized they would put you in the employment companies. In other words, you were trained with guns and everything but we did not go overseas. Our main job was to work, I worked for 18 months in an ammunition depot to load up the trains that went to New Guinea. I remember in the winter of 43’, the snow would fall like a blanket and at 12 o’clock midnight we were still loading ammunition; this was one of my hardest jobs I ever had to do. They would camouflage the whole place because it would be dangerous if located by the enemy. They would put up signs like ‘John the Butcher’ to throw the enemy off. I met a lot of lifelong friends in the army from all over Greece; and the world. 30 years ago I used to go down to the Hellenic house and meet with 30 to 40 ex-army blokes and now I go nearly every Wednesday and there are only two of us left; we are an endangered species (Emmanuel says with a smile). My father died in 1943 and I never saw him again. I was in the army at the time and I heard about it through the Red Cross close to 2 years after he had passed.

While Greece remained neutral we were considered friendly aliens and luckily Greece chose the side of allies, as it meant that life was easier for us. If not, we would have been like the Italians and Germans who were interned. They even gave us a Greek day which we celebrated as a holiday in the army. I remember there was a lot of media attention on Metaxas’ death to come out of England. He was very well respected and that meant a lot to me at the time. I can remember specifically when the BBC announced ‘We regret to announce the death of General Metaxas, Prime Minister of Greece. The King’s disappointment is expressed here in London that General Metaxas died before he has seen the fruit of his great efforts.’ ‘General Metaxas made history not only for Greece, not only for Europe, but for the whole world.’ I will never forget these announcements, as it felt like we were considered an important part of this world.

I knew from when I was a kid that I wanted to migrate to Australia because I wanted to meet my brothers for the first time. I came out on the Orama, a voyage that took 28 days. Interestingly, the Orama was one of the first boats sunk in the Atlantic in the first six months of WWII, because a lot of those ocean liners were transformed into troop ships. There were a lot of Kytherians on the ship when I came out; Spiro, Jack Petrohilos, Kourmoulis from Fatsadika whose father was a priest, to name a few. There were about 20 Kytherians and 60 Greeks in total. We stayed in Portside for two weeks waiting for the ocean liner to come pick us up and then we set out for Australia. On the way we went via the Suez Canal and then we stopped at Colombo, Ceylon and passed through the Caucasus Islands, before stopping off at all the ports in Australia. I got off in Sydney and had many people waiting for me. By fluke a brother-in-law of my brother Mick, was on the same boat and we did not know until we both got off the boat and realized the connection. I was very lucky because I had extremely good brothers. When I first got to Sydney I immediately loved it. I noticed straight away the nice new buildings, how well dressed the people were and how happy they were. It was an eye opener, a paradise, the complete opposite to what I could remember of Kythera. I didn’t feel homesick at all, as my older brothers looked after me like I was their son.

My brothers had the White Horse café at Temora and then they bought another café at Young where I got involved in a local rugby league team. Young was the ‘cherry capital’ of the world and it was a bigger town than Temora. In all places I felt very welcome right from the start and didn’t experience much racism at all. I felt that you had to mix with the locals like you were one of them and after that they considered you as one of the boys. Not once in the two years of playing football did the boys call me a ‘dago’. Till this day I get upset when I think of the captain, a chap by the name of George Coleman, who died in the Second World War and every time I see our team photo I feel sorry for him. At Young, my brothers had the Monterey Café which I worked in and then once they sold that, Theo and I bought a small café at Area Park, which is where I was drafted into the army. After my stint in the army, I bought a café at West Wyalong where I only stayed for ten months because I did not like it much at all; there was none of that exciting social life that I had become accustomed to. I then came down to Sydney and met up with an old friend who worked with us at Temora, Peter Coroneos, and we bought a fruit shop in the best position of Chatswood, right opposite the train station, with two theatres on either side. We turned it into a milk bar and coffee lounge and named it Oasis Milk Bar. I believe it was the best milk bar on the north shore. It was a very contemporary milk bar. We served only light refreshments; like sandwiches, toasts, no steaks or fish or chips. We were that busy that at dinner time they would queue outside to get a table. I doubled my initial outlay from that shop.

I stayed there for five and a half years but I eventually suffered from illness and the doctor said I needed to get an easier job because working seven days a week was too much, even though it was terrific business. So my brother Andrew came up from Bega and we bought the Peter Pan Cake Shop in Crows Nest. We had problems with our staff who would get drunk and burn the cakes etc. We then sold that business and I was left with a tough decision on what I was to do. So I moved down to Kingsgrove and opened up the shoe shop in 1954. All I knew was shoes. You see it was unheard of, for a Kytherian to open up such a business. Everyone thought I was going to go broke and yet I remained confident in myself. Eventually all the Kytherians ended up coming to buy shoes from us. The shop was located just down from the station, on the same side as the milk bar of my good friends, John and Maria Vardas. I still remember our first landlord at the time, Mr Mashman. He was a terrific person and we used to joke a lot together. My shoe shop was unique in that I would measure the shoe specifically to one’s foot and take time to create it precisely for the individual customer. I knew quite a lot about the leather and materials. It was all made locally. I bought the house here in Kingsgrove in 1967. Originally it was an old house and when the kids got a bit older I pulled it all down and built the house we are living in now.

In 40 years of working and owning the shoe shop in Kingsgrove I never heard any customer say a racist word to me. I will give you an idea of how welcome I felt in this country, and suburb. In the Rotary club down at Kingsgrove, there were 40 members and we had elections for the board, I came third; they were not racist and for years the guys would push me to become president. I would however answer that I couldn’t because I never went to an English school. Errol Johnson, who was the Prime Minister of Kingsgrove North Public School even offered to do all my work if I became president. So you see I assimilated into Australian life quite easily; I was extremely happy from the first day I came here.

I have been back to Kythera three times since I left as a kid. My first time was for my mother’s funeral in 1973. She had come out for five years from 53’-58’ and after she died I went back with three other brothers. We then went in 86’ and 96’. The last two times were far more pleasant because the first time was so distressful. The place was very different to what I remembered from my youth. By that time the island had all that we had here in Australia. Kythera is a beautiful place but I believe you have to take a piece of Australia with you when you go back. I never wanted to go back to live, only for a holiday and to see my family. And now the only place I like to go away to escape from the city life is Ettalong, where I have a house and I go fishing; one of my greatest pastimes. My hobbies include any sport and fishing. I have managed to encourage my wife Matina to become involved in these hobbies as well. She probably enjoys fishing even more than I do. I have to convince her to go home sometimes because she wants to stay there all night and fish. One night a hook went through her finger and I wanted to take her to the doctor but she insisted on finishing the fishing. Matina found me in 1953; I was living in Chatswood at the time and we have been happily married every since. I am also the proud father of three kids; Anna, Gerald and Steven and also a proud Pappou of seven beautiful grandchildren I got involved in the Kytherian Brotherhood as I had met all the people on the committee while I was in the army and they invited me to come on board. However I declined because I felt I was too young. We also used to go to the picnics and dances as a family and therefore I knew it was inevitable that I was eventually going to get on the committee. I didn’t want to become president but the previous committee had some troubles and so we had an Annual General Meeting where there were 300 people in attendance and only one person, by the name of Jack Tzannes, wanted to be on the committee. Con Gavrilis called me in the office at Kythera House and said “Manuel you are the only one who can save the Kytherian Brotherhood”, he said to me. “If you don’t go on, the Kytherian Brotherhood is gone.” I thought long and hard about it and decided that I couldn’t say no because it meant too much to too many people. They owed too much money and the bank was threatening to sell Kythera House if they didn’t cut down the debt. So I went inside the meeting and said I would go on the committee but I wanted eleven strong men to come with me and when I said that, fifteen put up their hands up straight away.

When I eventually saw the books and saw the financial position of the Brotherhood, I thought to myself that I was stupid for taking on this job. I then met with the manager of the Bank of NSW, Mr Gray. When we had lunch together, the first thing I said was, “Mr. Gray I am used my bank managers coming to my offices not me going to other places.” He replied “Manuel you owe so much money that you have to reduce that deficit or I will have to put the building up for sale.” I said “Mr. Gray you have 1500 Kytherians banking at your bank and if you do that I will make sure that every one of those will withdraw their money from you. Please just give us time”. He agreed and said that we had three months to reduce the deficit from $117 000 to below $100 000. So we had the Kytherian Ball coming up and until that Ball we would normally lose money on the function. I decided to change things in order to achieve a profit and said to my committee that we are all volunteers here and each one of us had to pay to go to the Ball. The only exception would be the Proxeno and Bishop; there would no longer be any free loaders. Then I got Peter Vlandis and Lucky Poulos and asked them to fill out the Ball program with advertisements and each page would jump in price from $150 to $300. Instead of losing on the Ball we made a profit of $15 000. But we still need another $3000 or so, therefore I got Spiro Vlandis and we agreed to put in half each, so we could get under the mark. Then after that we had to sell one floor, make strata and pay off the debt. We sold the floor to Ahepa. The only bad thing about that was I thought we would make strata in 6 months but it took us two years.

Also I went with Nick (Glass) Poteris around the south of Sydney to ask for donations from all the Kytherians. We needed to pay off this loan so we asked for $1000 from everyone to save the building. We got a hundred people to lend us the money free of interest for five years. Everyone agreed and so we paid the debt off immediately. This was completed in 1983. After that I resigned from my position as president and a young George Vardas took over from me. There was so much work involved and I had the shoe shop business to look after. I was also writing the Kytherian newspaper and would sometimes it felt like I was making sixty calls a day. It really was too much. I was happy because I aided in saving the Brotherhood. I did my duty and it was time for new blood to come in and freshen things up. I didn’t want to interfere and you know what they say ‘nothing is as past as a past president.’

It remained a big part of our family with my daughter taking over the presidency of the Younger Set committee. We would often have the whole committee over at my house as if they were family. It was very important for me to continue this in my children’s lives and maintain the Kytherian heritage. It gave us a hell of a lot of good times and kept us all together: beautiful picnics, tavli competitions, poker competitions. The difference is these days the younger generation has connections with a lot of different societies, whereas back then we only had the Kytherians. It unified us and we were nostalgic to go and see all our old friends. It was something that we wanted to pass on to our kids. It was a common want that we wanted our kids to marry at least Greek, if not Kytherian. Society is certainly different these days.

I knew I wanted to be a parent from the moment I was born. I always wanted to have kids. Matina and I got married at Ayia Triatha which was one of the only two Greek Orthodox Churches in Sydney, the other being Ayia Sophia. The Kytherians predominantly went to Ayia Triatha and the Castolorizians went to Ayia Sophia. Our parents and my older brothers were very strict on us as kids. My father was of the philosophy that if I did anything wrong at school and the teacher hit me; he would make sure they hit me twice as hard next time. As they were strict on us we chose to be equally disciplined as parents. I tried to maintain these Greek traditions for my kids, whilst eliminating the values that no longer applied to this generation. I adapted to new customs, as I believe some of those traditions and values, were far too strict for this present age. It was alright back then to apply them but not these days.

I remained in close contact with almost all of my old friends from Kythera right up until the end, with those who have died. It’s hard to write to the others now because I have a disease called Macular Degeneration which has distorted my eyesight. I also had prostate cancer fifteen years ago. I was lucky at that time that Michael Aroney was still alive and a good mate of mine. Michael was the president of all the surgeons in NSW, and he got three of the biggest urologists to work on it and shrink it till I was in remission. Knock on wood I am still here.

The main highlight for me in my life, as it is in most people’s lives, is one’s family. I am proud of my family, proud of the friends I have and proud of my achievements. Helping out the Kytherian Brotherhood at the stage it was in and donating money to charities and stuff like that are also good memories and feel-good experiences for me. My most tragic event in my life was when my mother died. No matter how old you are when your mother dies you lose part of your soul, not just part of yourself. She died of old age at 96. The doctor said you can beat the disease but you can’t beat the age.

I would sum up my life as a bad start and a good finish. That’s why I am scared for the new generation because they have had a terrific start and I hope it ends that way. I am scared for society today in general to be honest. I never saw a drug in my life, nowadays it is so prevalent. Now the family network and old school family structure is slowly dissolving. I believe society is losing direction and it is hard to accept, from my point of view.

I would like to be remembered simply as Manuel Casimatis. At Rotary, (a great highlight of my life), even if the prime minister went in today she would be called Julia. If I was called Mr Casimatis we would be fined straight away; we were all equal and called by our first names. There is a saying that I hope I have emulated. ‘A man’s life’s worthiness is measured not by the money or property he leaves behind, but by the family he leaves behind.’ You have to teach your kids to do the right thing. In Rotary we had a law; anybody could get to Rotary provided they were the best in their area. We were taught nothing else but to help people and be a good provider for your family. If you did your job well you were entitled to become a Rotarian. I think that it definitely made me a better person.
.._ _ _..._ _ _..._ _ _..._ _ _..._ _ _..._ _ _..._ _ _..._ _ _


This oral history was taken in 2011 by Joshua Kepreotis and final edit in 2014.

My name is Andrew Gerald Casimatis and I was born in the month of October, 1920 in Pitsinianika, Kythera, inside the same family house that we still have today. I have a twin sister and her name is Sophia, however I am still unsure as to the exact date of our birthday. You see in those days there were no facilities for documenting the exact dates of birth and the distance between the village at Pitsinianika and the office in Karvounades was quite far; which made it difficult to access. Communication was not so easy back then. We would have to walk around the island to get to places in the winter cold. I eventually went to get my birth certificate, because I wasn’t sure, and my mother told me that it was in late October, around Ayio Dimitriou. I went to the council office to ask but they had my birth date down for December which is a month and a half difference. I actually still don’t know to this day which date is the right one. My twin sister has the 16th of October and I had that as well but some army hospital changed it to the 26th of October. I then went to a solicitor to alter it back but he told me it was too expensive and to leave it (Andrew said with a smile). So we basically celebrate on different days because none of it is exact, no one knew; not the council and not my family.

My parents were Gerasimos and Anizina. My father was very hard working. He went to America and worked in the steel works in Detroit for two years. He came back to Kythera with some money and bought a great big piece of seaside land in the east of Kythera at Paliopoli and also land on top of Kaladi overlooking the beach. It was lovely there even in winter time when we would go to escape the cold. It was totally different to the north side of Kythera (a different world), because Pitsinianika was very cold and windy; it was like a holiday for us even though it was in truth not that far away. He was able to feed the family of 11 (living) children; however the average number living at our house at any one time was seven, as the older ones had moved out before I was born. For example my eldest brother Mick had left in 1915 to come out to Australia. My father was very self- sufficient and was able to provide for the whole family quite well. Those days you couldn’t buy much, a bit of sugar and tea and some honey from neighbours.

My mother would buy some cloth to sew all the clothes. We would use wool from the sheep which was made into Klosti and from the linen we would make sedonia for collecting the olives. Everything was self-produced. We made half the products we used on the land down at Paliopoli. We would produce a lot of wheat mixed with barley and use the animals to crush it and blow it in the wind and then take it to the mill; everything was produced locally. My father managed to cultivate the entire land we owned. All year round my parents worked extremely hard, I owe them a lot, as they were wonderful people who worked for their children. They would have to leave the older child home to look after the younger children while they worked in the horafia to survive. They would sometimes even have to take the babies with them whilst working and they used the kounia to hang us on the tree while everyone in the family worked. That’s how it was in those days. You were young and you could get through it.
When we needed medical assistance at the house the doctor would be called and he would often take a day with the horse to come from Hora and sometimes he would fail to come out altogether. Back then it would have been Dr Raptakis and then Dr Kaloutsis. Until Dr Fatseas came on board, there was not much security on the island concerning the medical department. For instance, when I was younger I had rheumatic fever and nobody told me about it. If I had voiced this to the army here in Australia that I had had that disease, then I am sure I would have been exempt from conscription; but I was never informed. There was a sister nurse that came down from Athens and she had rheumatic fever. Whether she gave it to me when I was younger I am not quite sure, but I suspect that is how I contracted it. It wasn’t until the cardiologist at Royal North Shore asked me if I had ever been sick when I was younger, with symptoms of delirium, that I answered yes and he then solved the problem. He diagnosed me correctly. You see, rheumatic fever leaves a fault in the heart and my aortic valve was damaged from that time. I was in hospital for three months, in which time they changed the aortic valve. Dr Ross was a young doctor who had just started and at that time it was common practice for them to put mechanical valves as a replacement. He advised me that we should use a calf tissue valve, instead of a mechanical one. It has lasted so far for 28 years, as the operation was done in ‘82. And has outlasted all the other valves. Doctors are still quite astonished that it has remained functional for this long. I overheard the cardiologists before the operation talking amongst themselves and they said that if you have bacteria in the blood then tissue valve is much better for restoring the full function, so when they asked me for my decision I went with the biological one. Dr Ross still asks me today why I chose the biological one over the mechanical version, and he tells me jokingly that if I had taken the mechanical version, with the warfarin usage that went with it, I would have been dead long ago.


Back to the family tree; my mother’s parents were originally from Venice and they migrated to Crete and eventually came down to Kythera. You see the name Casimatis originated from Venice because the Venetians occupied Kythera for 300 years so there was some connection. There was also a high school in Venice that Kytherians would go to. My eldest brother Mick went through all forms of education and was able to speak Italian when he came out. He was very intelligent and eventually brought the five brothers out to Australia and helped everybody a lot. In chronological order my family was Kalliopi, Mick, Diamanda, Jack, Theodoro, Eleni, Panayiotitsa, Manuel, me, my twin Sophia and Maria. 11 out of 13 survived, which was a good ratio for back in those days. I have real fond memories of my mother. She was wonderful and looked after us greatly. Our paratsoukli was ‘Trohalos’, because my great uncle was a priest (Archimandriti), however he was not married and had no children himself. He bought a lot of land that he gave to his three nephews. He owned land from Pitsinianika, all the way to Milopotamo, which is what they call ‘Marathea’ and all the way down to Keramouto; this he gave to the three brothers, including my father. The name came from the fact we had all that land but there were many rocks and stones that had to be cleared and put in one area which was called ‘Trohalea'. Every year you would have to go and pick up the stones and clear the land.


My father wanted to educate me and so I went to school. There was a mix up with one of my mates who double-crossed me. He was treacherous and because of him I didn’t go to high school. The high school teacher was a koumbaro to us and he came to the house to convince my father to get me to come. This mate was lurking around the house and waited for the teacher to leave and called me out to talk. He told me that he wasn’t going to high school. The school was far away, in Hora, and we would have had to walk all the way there and back, so I believed him. I thought against going because I wanted someone whom I knew to go with. I never told my father why, I just told my parents that I wasn’t going. He accepted my decision but didn’t like it, as I was his last son left and he wanted to keep me on the island as a teacher. Having said that, the war broke out in 39’ and so my education would have been interrupted. Who knows whether or not I would have finished. You never know where the army would have sent me if I had stayed. All my friends went to Albania to serve in Pindos and Gramos and had to navigate their way through mountains with snow up to your knees. My friends came back sick with frostbite etc, or did not come back at all and so I thank God for how things turned out.

The journey to Australia took 30 days from Port Said to Sydney. It was a big boat with all the facilities like a swimming pool and other interesting things I had not seen before. The language barrier meant it was hard to communicate with some passengers, however there were 22 Kytherians on the boat so that was great. We played cards and had a good time together. There were Tzannes’ from Livadi, Samios’ were also present and my Nono’s two daughters were on the boat as well as a lot of other Kytherians that kept us entertained. The hardest thing was to leave my father on his own with no boys. There were two sisters left in the house and they worked so hard. He wanted me to stay but I couldn’t. And to add to that the war was about to break out. We would have the radio on constantly listening to what would happen with the war. You could see it coming. If I stayed longer I would have been stuck there for a long time. I came out two months before the war broke, just before the line closed. My father later died of cancer after the war, which meant I never got to see him again after I left Kythera and that was hard for me. We brought my mother out and she stayed five years but she wanted to go back. She passed away in 73’ and we went back for the funeral which was the first time I had been back to Kythera.

I came out to Australia on the 23rd of June 1939. My eldest brother Mick picked me up and took me to Temora where they had a shop. Mick had sent the papers and authorized my migration. Because I didn’t know the language, I helped my older brother Theodori in the kitchen, cleaning potatoes and those sorts of things. At that time, my other older brother Jack had a shop in Young which was a very good business like ours. He had Manuel with him. So there were two brothers in Young and three in Temora. But Jack all of a sudden decided to sell the shop in Young and so there ended up being four brothers in Temora, a few too many for one shop. Therefore Manuel and Theo brought a shop in Ariah Park. Mick eventually sold, so I went to Ariah Park with Manuel and Theo to help them out. After a while Mick decided to get back into the market and he bought a shop in West Wyalong and contacted me to come and work with him to establish the place. I eventually wasn’t needed so I was sent back to Temora to work in another kitchen for other people. However, I became frustrated because I couldn’t socialize and learn the language. Working in the kitchen meant that I wasn’t in touch with the people. I wanted to be at the front counter. So I sent a message around that I wanted to go to a bigger place and I received a letter from Mr. Paschalis and Mr. Calligeros, who had a big shop in Wollongong.
The war broke out when the Japanese struck and I was then conscripted. The Greek Government gave permission to English speaking countries to conscript all Greeks. Luckily we were the allies but the Italians and Germans were placed in concentration camps here. I received a call to present myself at the area office for examinations and then they sent me to the showground in Sydney for extensive tests, vaccinations and injections. They gave me clothes and boots and told me to go to a camp in Mascot. We got the word around to fellow Greeks, advising our mates that when it was time to take an oath to be careful to not accept being naturalized. It was understood that the Prime Minister of Australia gave the order that we were to be conscripted in the defence of Australia on our soil and not overseas. So one would have to volunteer to be sent overseas for combat. By us refusing that Oath of Naturalization we only had to defend Australia here, at home and thankfully, were not forced to fight overseas. So that’s why they took us on the understanding that we defend Australia and that’s all. We stayed as non-naturalised, Greek citizens. They sent us to ammunition or supply camps to work for the war. It was very dangerous work and we had to be careful because we were working with live ammunition and explosives. We would have to fill the shells with detonators. The fuse was kept separate until the last moment before we put it on the train. That was the real danger.

I remember in one of the camps there was a soccer game, and I considered myself a handy soccer player. We had a team back in Pitsinianika where we would play near my house. So when I saw the game in the army I immediately went down to play. The nationalities would often collect together. I was playing with my brother Manuel in our team and we would set up goals together. The other team decided to knock me off, they fractured my leg straight after I scored a goal. I was only in hospital two days and then in convalescence for three months. But what you suffer there is unbelievable. We were still made to work but the soldiers would pick on me because I was on crutches at the time and I would often cry. In the army we would need to be up at 5am for inspection. We had to be shaved, shoes polished, properly dressed. It was the hardest time I ever had there. Eventually I got used to it, although soon after I contracted the measles and they sent me down to Little Bay to be contained in isolation while I recovered. There were wounded soldiers coming in all the time from the front. After a month or two we had to go to training because they had to get strong and go back to war. The thing that amazed me was the exercises they made you do for fixed bayonet training. Two soldiers would demonstrate for us. They were so quick with the weapon. After the exhibition they would get volunteers to do it, they saw me with the injured leg and walking stick so luckily they didn’t get me to do it. Later, we would have to practice it ourselves. When the Kokoda War was on, they pulled the young boys from Victoria with only two months training and sent them to Kokoda. It was slaughter. The Japanese were in the front line training for years and had a lot of experience. The poor Victorians had hardly any training and it was heartbreaking to watch. They stood no chance.

After three months of rehabilitation, I went back to camp at Mungaroo, where we were continuously loading ammunition on the trains for the war. Not long after I started, the winter came and there was snow and rain whilst we worked. They were very difficult conditions. I got sick and they thought I had TB and so they sent me to hospital. After five days they saw that I was still alive so I was to return. It was exhausting. We then went to Bogan Gate which had a completely different climate; it was a heat wave there. All the dust polluted the water and you were never clean. You had to put up with it and we got through it. In all honesty I still felt a sense of racism in the army. There were a lot of fights between the Greeks and others; the soldiers would pick on us. We had a good fighter named Koutzoukos from Castellorizo, who was often mischievous and would leave camp. One day he left while I was working on the gate and when he came back they took him to the camp and the sergeant tried to tie him up. Koutzoukos punched him. The soldier called out “guards, guards, guards”, but because he was my friend I didn’t help the soldier. I was lucky not to be charged by the army. I couldn’t go against my mate and the sergeant was in the wrong. They picked on us and got us to do the harder work. Even in the country town of Temora I felt it. If we were walking in the street we couldn’t speak Greek publicly because we would be called dagos.

We all got struck down with disease in the army about once a week. The pans they would cook our food in were rusty, so the lines to the toilets were quite long. My leg was injured and I had the crutches, so I couldn’t be going in and out of the toilets all day. I would be waiting a long time, while standing up, so I would just sit and wait in the toilet for ages until I finished completely. They would call out and I wouldn’t move because I knew in half an hour I would have to go back again. I must have stayed there all night.

On a happier note, dancing was one of my highlights. We had a lot of dances in Kythera and in the army we used to go down to Luna Park for dancing; they had big parties in the army.

After the war I went to Bega to buy a shop there, which meant I had to work quite hard for a while to gather enough money to make this a reality (Andrew said as he looked towards his family and home). I bought a cafe in March of 47’, situated in the main street of Bega. It was called the Neon Café and I owned it with my partner a Mr. Petrochilos. During the holiday season you couldn’t rest for a moment. There was another Greek there who had a shop further down by the name of Castrisos and we would work together. We would have all the fruit on display at the front window. Back in those days an inspector would demand that we had tickets on every item sold. Well this was unreasonable, as the fruit would come in very early Tuesday morning from Sydney. I would go buy the fruit and then put it in the window, but of course I had no time to put the tickets on. He booked both mine and Castrisos’ shop. I stayed there five years and then decided it was time to come down to Sydney. I bought a cake shop with my brother Manuel called ‘Peter Pan’; I was living upstairs and I couldn’t sleep because there was so much noise and so I was not too keen to stay very long. We did a lot of birthdays and celebrations. It was a good business but hard work. We were too busy to socialize there and we worked hard to establish a new business that we knew nothing about. We would sell three thousand loafs of bread a week. It was there in Crows Nest that I thought to myself the years were passing by so I better get married soon. (To the laughter of his wife and grandchildren) I
married Irene in 1952. Our families were close and knew each other quite well. It was more or less proxenia even though we did know each other before hand. We sold the business in Crows Nest and I was looking for a new venture. I would go around the suburbs and ask the agents about any businesses for sale.
There was a chemist shop in Chester Hill, which I bought and then made alterations to transform it into a milk bar. In those years they were more milk bars than restaurants. We had my first born, Sandra, while we were working there. We also had some problems with louts who wanted to take advantage of us ethnics, so I got together a couple of Greek boys I knew and we would fight them and kick them out. They wanted to steal and not pay for things. They didn’t know that I had army training so we sorted them out. There was a lot of trouble in those years with those types of people. We just survived through it. Working in the shop was seven days a week work and became unbearable after a while. We sold after five years, came to this house in 65’ and decided to retire.
The Kytherian Brotherhood was big even back then and we were quite involved. They would have picnics at Randwick Racecourse. In fact, my daughter Sandra met her husband Peter at one of those events. We would go to Kythera House, in the city, for Easter and Christmas. We would put our names down and at Christmas the kids would get presents. My brother Manuel was president for a while and he asked me to come onto the committee but I had to decline because it was too far away. We would take the girls (Sandra, Matina and Anna) once a week so that they could learn Greek dancing. We would go to see the debutantes at the Trocadero, on George Street. For the dances we would go to the Paddington Town Hall; it was beautiful there. We used to have a lot of Kytherian weddings back then. In those days we would catch the buses and trains everywhere as we didn’t have a car until much later. Back in Kythera, all the transport was conducted by walking around and, if you were lucky, on donkey. We had a lot of animals in Pitsinianika such as goats etc. There was an old oil factory there which my brother-in-law owned and once a year they worked day and night for about four weeks to crush the olives which they brought. In fact the whole town of Pitsinianika was very busy during that time. We used to get the olives from as far away as Frilingianika. Every afternoon we played football. The field was outside the school next to our house which was a two storey house on the corner.

We would go in the morning to get water from the well and then go work the field, which was always separate from the house. My father built the house that we lived in with one of his brothers Theodoros, who died early from TB and so the house was left to my father. You would have to make the kameni to create the asvesti and you had to build it up, burn it for three days and three nights and then collect wood to burn. He then mixed it with sand and you had the mortar to build. My father was very handy with these kinds of things.

People wonder why we never went back to Kythera after migrating. Well I couldn’t return to Kythera to live even if I wanted to because the war broke out and it became impossible. Then when I eventually went back for the first time, I noticed things were terrible. Most of the people I could remember had left and gone to Athens. A lot of people had gone hungry during the war and left when they could. I could remember my mother telling me that the neighbours would go around asking for food; people were starving. It would not have been a pleasant time to live on the island. After the ‘73 trip, for my mother’s funeral, we went back for holidays in ‘88 and then again in the 90’s.

Whilst I lived in Australia I would be in continuous correspondence with my mother. They always wanted us to go back. My mother was receiving cheques from everyone who had left and when we went back in ‘73 we found all the cheques and war money (Greek/German) still in her drawer. (His wife Irene interjected- “I will say this...she was a wonderful woman. When she came out to Australia she was so nice to us all and I never heard her say one bad thing about anything or anyone. Wonderful lady”).

I had quite a few hobbies in life. For instance at Easter time I would get together with mates and make fire crackers. We would get gun powder and mix it with coal and line it in the newspaper and make three or four divisions in the side. It kept us busy for a couple of weeks. Stuff like that. We would also hunt, which my father loved. He owned five or six guns. Kythera was filled with kiniyous and we hunted many quail down by the water. It was nothing for him to come back with 30 or so quail when he went hunting. Football gave us a break from work and also offered us the opportunity to form a team bond. Going to Potamo on a Sunday for the markets was a great pleasure; as was shooting, walking and going to the Caffenio. My early life in Kythera was not all bad, just a lot of hard work for a young kid to cope with.

Sometimes we would spend months in Paliopoli at our holiday house and therefore we would often spend our summer days swimming there. But when we were at our house in Pitsinianika we would go for a swim at Limnaria, which was the little harbour near Myrtidia. We would leave with friends from the village and go down there. It is where we learnt to swim. One of our friends couldn’t swim but he had floaties on so he decided to go up on the rocks and jump in the sea where he lost them. I couldn’t jump in and save him because it was near the rocks, so I ran down and spoke to him and gave him courage. I instructed him how to float and he managed to survive. Haralambo Calligeros was his name and I am very proud of that achievement and remember it vividly. There was a group of six or seven of us and we also used to go around the towns and at Christmas with the Bouzoukia and Violin to play; they would give us eggs or money, making it big business for us.

The hardest times involved the different jobs I did in Kythera where you would be working all day in the searing sun. We also had a lot of difficult work in the army too. In general, we had a lot of hard work in our lives. I had to make a serious choice once I finished public school because my father wanted me to stay and continue my apprenticeships.
I am pleased with my life because I have survived. I was left for dead at the Royal North Shore Hospital, being unconscious for 11 days. I also experienced difficulties while I was in the army. I had a lot of fear of being sent overseas without training like the boys who went to Kokoda, although I am lucky they won’t call me up now (he says with a cheeky grin). I had to calculate my way through life and I’m happy how things turned out in the end. My greatest fear was the war. I was lucky enough to get a new doctor at the Royal North Shore, Dr Epps, who finally diagnosed me with Rheumatic Fever when no one else had figured it out.

The highlight of my life is my family; my three children, nine grandchildren and wife Irene, the responsibilities of every law abiding citizen.

.._ _ _..._ _ _..._ _ _..._ _ _..._ _ _..._ _ _..._ _ _..._ _ _

This oral history was taken in 2011 by Joshua Kepreotis and final edit in 2014.

vais3

vais2

Vais1

looking for relatives my father was George and my grandfather was Peter Calligeros left for Australia in or about 1920

HOUSE FOR SALE – PITSINIANIKA
2 BEDROOMS
KITCHEN
LOUNGE
DINING ROOM
BATHROOM/LAUNDRY
LARGE UTILITY ROOM

All aluminium windows & doors, tiled patio area, large garden.

Situated high with great views.

$300,000 AUD
Contact: Jim Cassimatis
Brisbane, Australia
Ph: +61 407630313

Dad's family are from Pitsinianika and we lived there when i was 6-12. Still have uncles and cousins there. My papou's name was Emmanuel and Giagia Grigoria.

PLEASE NOTE: I will attempt to get more information on Pitsinianika headstones, giving as many as possible nicknames and as many stories as possible about the entered gravestones.
Many thanks to Mr. Emmanuel Casimatis who was born in Pitsinianika and has provided a lot of information and "Nicknames" . There are some unidentified graves or not recorded, including that of DIONYSIOY AND KYRANIS KALLIGEROY, GRANDPARENTS OF DOCTOR PETER KALLIGEROS.