An adored Pan-Laconian Society living legend, our very own poet in residence, and a founding member; Stavroula Pandos is celebrating her birthday today.
Stavroula Pandos, nee Laganas, was named so because she was born on a most revered day, the Day of the Cross (Iméra tou Stavroú), on 14 September 1924. She grew up in her homevillage Kastania of Lakonia (present-day Kastoreio) on the foothills of the legendary Taygetos, twenty or so kilometers, or in those days four hours by mule, from our beloved Sparti.
She was the seventh and youngest child of subsistence farmers Giorgis and Giannoula Laganas. A gifted learner, against the odds for young girls of her generation during the great depression of the 1930s, she completed primary school up to grade six but to her lifelong regret circumstances did not allow her to continue her education further.
Her heart, however, swells with immense pride and happiness when recalling 25th March 1951. On that day, amid National Day celebrations in Kastania, she also got married and danced the Dance of Isaiah with the love of her life, village carpenter Evangelos Pandos. Thirty months later, the young couple by then parents of a 19-month baby daughter sailed to Australia under the government assisted passage program aboard the famed migrant ship Skaubryn. She remembers ever so well, as if it were yesterday, bidding farewell to family and friends in Kastania on October 26, 1953, the Feast Day of Agios Dimitrios.
Stavroula and Evangelos became the loving parents of three children: Charikleia (1952), Ioanna (1954), and Alekos (1955). The family is proud to be considered among the founding members in 1966 of the Pan-Laconian Society, in many ways its second home. Evangelos served on numerous committees including a stint as president of this organisation which he considered the representative body for all people of Lakonian background in South Australia.
Sadly Evangelos passed away, aged 91, thirteen years ago. Time does move on and today Stavroula at 97 is still going strong, continuing the family’s unwavering commitment to the club. She enjoys all Pan-Laconian functions, particularly when invited to recite one of her many epic poems that she has woven into words of inspiration and committed to memory. Most of all she says she enjoys her "wealth", the “human kind of wealth," she repeats with added emphasis and a twinkle in her eye: three children, eight grandchildren, twelve great-grandchildren, and yes one great-great-grandchild!
Chronia polla Stavroula! Happy Birthday and many many happy returns. May you long grace our functions and stir our thinking with your embroidered words of wit, wisdom and inspiration!
