"My life, a cemetery - nursing home route": The story of a Greek Australian migrant

In early March 2020, a few days before the measure of banning gatherings due to coronation was imposed, a meeting of Greek immigrants who arrived in Australia with the ships "Patris", "Ellinis" and "Australia" was held at the Princes Pier pier in Melbourne. Mrs. Stavroula Bara-Dikaiou, who spoke to SBS Greek, was also present at the event.

Greek Australian migrant Stavroula Bara-Dikaiou (Papaflessas). at Melbourne's Princes Pier. Source: SBS Greek

"I'm from Papaflessas' family." We didn't even have to start with a question and Mrs. Stavroula Bara-Dikaios already gave us some breaking news! 

The Greek Australian woman from Melbourne was born at the home of Papaflessas in the Greek village of Poliani, in Messinia, and only 21 km from the city of Kalamata.

"I grew up there. My father was a priest and my brothers too. Now, although we have boys in the family, I don't think they're interested in becoming priests", she told SBS Greek.

Mrs. Bara-Dikaios who lived lived in the Athens' south-eastern suburb of Glyfada, migrated to Australia in the mid-50s. In December 1955, she was only 18.

"I was very sick on the ship, I couldn't eat anything. My father, a smart man, before we left Greece, he bought me cookies to eat during the journey." 

On Christmas 1955 she was on the boat: “My friends were urging me to go and get a free beer to drink because we were celebrating. Bitter days! I was in bed and I was in pain but the people were dancing."

RHMS Ellinis, Chandris Shipping Line (1933-1987). Source: Museums Victoria

She arrived in Melbourne on January 6, 1956. "I was not impressed, Port Melbourne was not what it is today. We took a taxi and drove to Melbourne's inner north suburb of Carlton where my brother lived. "

She met her husband from Greece, and they got married a year after she arrived in Australia, in 1957. "It was a good marriage," she says.

Three years after she married, she gave birth to her first child, a son who is no longer alive.

"I lost my son in a car accident. He was only 37 years old. He was engaged to an Australian girl. Nice girl. When I lost my son, I kept her close to me, I helped her. But she also respected me a lot. She was wearing her black clothes and came with me to the cemetery."

Mrs. Bara-Dikaios has also a daughter, who is now married. Seven months after her birth, her husband got cancer. "He didn't know English and the hospitals weren't anything like they are today." 

She worked as a seamstress and making dresses. She then worked as an assistant nurse at Alfred Hospital's leukemia ward. She was injured there and had to leave her job.

Later, her husband got dementia. "I had to put him in a nursing home for ten years. Now he passed away", she told SBS Greek.

"I lost my job, I lost my child, I lost my husband... Life doesn't always smile! Look, today it's sunny, but tomorrow will be cloudy [...] My life was a route from the cemetery to the nursing home".

A photo of the Greek town of Kalamata from the 60s. Source: YouTube/MessiniaView

She visited Kalamata with her daughter twenty years after her arrival in Australia.

"Kalamata was beautiful and much nicer than when I last was there. Our dream was, and I was always telling my husband, to go back to Kalamata. Even with a small living wage, we would have made it. "

"I'll tell you something; My greatest misfortune is that I came to Australia. I was never happy", she told us in English. She couldn't say it in Greek...

Throughout our conversation, she was chewing a "lola", a candy as she calls it. "I like them, they're sweet!", she said and looked again to the ocean!

Greek Australian migrant Stavroula Mpara-Dikaiou (Papaflessas). Source: SBS Greek