Anastasia Ktypiadou met Ioakeim Prokopoglou at her father’s, Ioannis, grocery store and soon their acquaintance became a budding romance. Sadly, the couple was temporarily driven apart by the end of the Greco-Turkish war and the ensuing population exchange agreement, with Anastasia remaining in Constantinople, as her family was exempt from the population exchange, while Ioakeim
The population exchange could not stand in the way of Ioakeim and Anastasia’s love. As soon as Ioakeim made it to Greece, he wrote to Anastasia and they kept in touch. Four years later, in 1928, the couple got engaged in a letter, exchanging love vows in writing. Anastasia’s family in Constantinople celebrated the engagement by offering wedding favours to relatives and friends. Anastasia had one of these wedding favours in her luggage when she disembarked in Piraeus in 1929 and the couple got married in 1930.
Nikolaos Pempes was born in Sinasos circa 1880. He married his compatriot, Vasiliki Ladopoulou. Like most Sinasos men, Nikolaos worked in Constantinople, regularly visiting his family who had stayed behind in Sinasos. Nikolaos and Vasiliki had three children, Lazaros in 1906, Gavriil, and Theologos in 1915, but Vasiliki died when giving birth to their third