Anastasios Kalamakidis was born in 1870 in Bor, Cappadocia. He was a landowner who poured a lot of hard work into his estate to secure a comfortable life for his family. At the beginning of the 20th century, he married Ermofili Kalamakidou, a priest’s daughter, also born in Bor in 1886. On December 25, 1901, they welcomed their daughter Viktoria, the first of their five children, followed by Giorgos, Rozina and Nikos. Giorgos left the family at the age of 12 to go live in Marseilles with a relative. He finished his school and university studies in France and then moved to America where he spent the rest of his life. The family’s youngest daughter, Kassiani, was born in 1922. Barely a year later, her family was displaced and they all became refugees.
The Kalamakidis family were designated exchangeable refugees. They only spoke Turkish which made their adjustment to their new circumstances even more difficult. They made it to Crete and were soon granted agricultural rehabilitation aid. They tried to rebuild their lives there and Anastasios Kalamakidis went into farming, a job he knew well. Later, the family moved to a refugee shack in Drapetsona, Piraeus. Anastasios rented a warehouse in the market of Piraeus on Karaiskaki Square and started trading oranges. His business soon became a success and he expanded his activities by exporting oranges to Italy. However, a large fire in the market area destroyed the Kalamakidis business, dealing a second heavy blow to Anastasios and his family. The family moved to Kallithea in the mid-1930s.
In 1944, Kassiani Kalamakidou married Spyros Vafeiadis, a doctor hailing from Constantinople. The couple had four children. When Kassiani gave birth to her second daughter, Eri (Ermofili), her mother gave her a small icon of the Virgin Mary as Liberator. The icon was a gift to celebrate Kassiani’s birth in Bor in 1922 and was brought over to Greece to protect the little girl. Today, the icon graces the house of Eri Kouria, gifted to her by her mother after she gave birth to her first child, thus continuing a tradition among the women of the family which originated in the birthplace of Grandma Ermofili and her daughter, Kassiani.
