21st June 2023 would have been Helen’s 88th birthday. She passed just two months shy of that landmark, on March 19th. On March 19th I was driving to Indian ells. I had tickets for the Tennis final. Alcaraz versus Medvedev. I was on the road through the low desert when the phone rang. It was Eveline Ivanoff. Helen’s lifelong friend in South Africa.. “I am sorry to tell you….” Helen was still technically alive at that point. Someone would have to go to her hospital bed to authorize the end of life decision. It was Sunday. The first flight for me left on Monday. From California it would take me 33 hours. I booked the first available flight, using British Airways, who had the flight leaving earliest from LAX to JNB. That journey would end up costing in me some $15,000 thanks to British Airways grifter model of exploiting bereavement flights.

In the meanwhile, Xenia Ivanoff and Eveline, Helen’s lifelong friend, were at her bedside awaiting whichever of her two children would get there first for the last breath goodbye. As it happened, that moment came for Xenia. On that Sunday evening at the Sandton Clinic.

Thanks to Nick and Chris Ghelakis, the arrangements for an Orthodox Greek funeral in South Africa were all in place. Helen’s brother, my uncle Elias, his wife Jenny and daughter Youli coordinated with me to attend the funeral, and to give a speech. Ensuring the proper Orthodox procedure was followed as much as supporting me on this lonely journey.

I was moved by how many people attended her funeral in Johannesburg in March. It was a moving event. Nothing brings the value of life into sharper focus than death. I prepared a speech for the funeral Helen asked me to arrange for her. Helen had given me very specific instructions for her funeral.

I think she would have been pleased with the occasion and especially the decisions made by those of us who made the religious component what she would have wanted. Helen is almost the last now, from that generation, born and raised surviving brutal inhumane fascist starvation led war against children like her, growing up under Nazi occupation.
……………………….

Helen Broulidakis
21 June 1935. Piraeus
19 March 2023. Bryanston

Helen Evangelou was born in Piraeus on 21st of June, 1935. To Panagiota and Christos Evangelou. They lived in a small house on what is now called Distomou Street not far from the busy harbor. Helen was not yet seven in April of 1941 when the Nazi Fascists crushed Greece, starting a cycle of mass starvation.

Her formative years were spent struggling for enough food to outlive her peers, many of whom died of hunger around her. Bombs shattered neighborhoods right up to the opposite side of her road. She spent part of her formative years collecting body parts of exploded friends buried under the rubble of fascism. Her family survived on very little food. She tells the story of how the church fed her once a week. Sunday lunch. Only the young girls would get this meal – to ensure future mothers could survive. The young girls in this food program could not take away any of the food. Helen would frequently remind me of the time in her life where she had one meal a week, between the bowls of soup made from whatever scraps her parents could find. At the end of that meal would say her thank you’s to the priest before putting the last mouthful of meat in her mouth. She would not chew. She would exit the church and then removed that piece of meat from her mouth to take home to her mother. In this way she brought home enough protein to keep the family alive.

The arrival of her younger brother Elias, born into this time of brutal Nazi oppression, visited unimaginable hardship on the young family Evangelou. She grew up with catastrophic destruction all around her. First the Nazi’s with their abhorrent fascist abuses and then by the Greek political factions contesting Government in a brutal civil war lasting three and a half years. Helen’s formative years taught her to survive horrific challenges.

But survive she did. With a smile intact. By her late teens she was an enthusiastic attractive ambitious young lady who caught the eye of a neighbor with romantic intentions. She too found this intelligent handsome man interesting. Her brother Elias has said “she enjoyed this attention as much as her parents did not”. Her would-be suitor was a renowned Communist journalist. His politics unacceptable to Christos and Panagiota.

The year was 1955, Helen was 19. At this same time her Aunt Eftychia became a widow, inheriting a small business in South Africa from her recently deceased husband. This was a small catering business providing cheap meals for black laborers going through Johannesburg Station.
Helen’s parents seized this opportunity to end the blossoming romance by sending Helen to accompany Aunt Eftychia and her young daughter Despina to new opportunities in distant South Africa. Helen could speak English while Aunt Eftychia could not. Into a dark unknown thousands of miles away these three traveled from Athens to Johannesburg with only an old orthodox icon to protect them. That icon would remain in South Africa with Helen for some 68 years, until her dying day, after which, in two days from this funeral occasion, it will be returned to Greece. To Despina, who was the child traveling to South Africa in 1955 with that icon. It’s orthodox work in Africa now done.

I remember growing up with that icon in Thea’s room. Without fail every single day she would light a candle and place it in front of the icon and say her prayers to Agio Phanourios. The great martyr. I saw a great deal of that icon during my childhood years. In her will Thea left it to her daughter, Despina. Despina had agreed to leave it with Helen for so long as it was needed there. An icon with some provenance that will soon be back in Athens after a 68 year tour of duty in Africa.

After arriving in South Africa in 1955 Helen worked briefly in a bank in Yeoville. There she caught the eye of Manos Broulidakis, a veteran of WW2. Manos was a Captain in the British Expeditionary Forces. A volunteer in the fight aginst nascent fascist tyranny who served the entire war period, 1939 to 1945, at the sharp end of the war with Hitler. Manos was a bona-fide anti-fascist who knew no fear. Fluent in seven languages, tall handsome and blue eyed, many remember him as a larger than life character.

After the war Manos built a magnificent house on Cyrildene Ridge, known as ‘The House on Hoboken Road’ that became the first fifties built home in South Africa to achieve National heritage status. In 1960, he sold that house to an infamous American millionaire author of the best selling science fiction book ‘Dianetics’, L.Ron. Hubbard. Manos moved his young family to a new home in Bryanston.

Marriage and a glamorous lifestyle with this tall handsome charismatic intellectual was a glorious time for Helen – far from the traumatic privations of her war-blighted youth. I imagine this was the happiest time of her life. Helen married Manos on 2nd November 1957. Two children followed soon after. Katerina in August of 1958 and Andreas in 1960. And in 1966, they had a third child, Christine.

In August of 1971 Manos died of a heart attack.

Helen found herself facing grave misfortune again, widowed at 36 with three children, limited work experience and minimal business acumen.
Her steadfast Aunt Eftychia moved into the family home in Bryanston to help raise the Kathy and Andrew while Helen set about building a new life with the guidance of her orthodox priest.

Her two older children left home early. Kathy, 12 when her father died, became a ballerina who later studied eastern mysticism in India. A Satsangi. A seeker of truth. Andrew pursued a career in music and a new life in London. Helen found stability and joy in her life through devotion to her younger daughter Christine whom she adored unconditionally, celebrating her successes in life as an A Student and law school graduate.

She took great joy enabling her young brother Spiro to emigrate from Greece to South Africa where with her help he enjoyed financial success as the proprietor of a lucrative garage business with a large house in Bryanston.

Once her three children had emigrated from South Africa and Helen was alone in her Bryanston home she embraced a full and active social life that included bridge, bowling and dinner parties. She became a proficient landlady, renting multiple apartments efficiently and effectively. Many of her tenants went on to become good friends.

Helen had two half English grandsons; Manoussos John Broulidakis, born in 1989 and Byron Broulidakis, born in 2009.

Helping the less fortunate was always a priority for Helen having experienced more than her fair share of misfortune in life. Her many acts of kindness, especially to the elderly, are widely known. It is fair to say her Brother’s description of their ‘Arvanitiki’ heritage explained her stubborn determination. A quality that ensured unbreakable loyalty to those she chose to be loyal to. You will have to google ‘Arvanitiki’ to understand this bloodline reference. (American readers may understand it explained as ‘Ornery’.)

Throughout the highs and lows of her 68 years as a Greek woman living in Africa, most of them as a single mother, Helen had one constant friend in her “sister by another mother”, Eveline Ivanoff. They spoke daily for over sixty years. Theirs was a bond of unconditional friendship. Eveline was with Helen in the hospital bed on March 19th after she took her last breath, holding her hand and recalling their shared journey through life.
And what a remarkable journey that was.

Helen enjoyed the momentous occasions and endured the tragedies, those events that shaped her. Helen was outgoing and friendly, willing to help her friends and family where she could and equally willing to articulate anger or resentment for perceived disappointments or injustices. Rightly, or as was not uncommon, wrongly. One knew where they stood with Helen.

In later years when I had to make some difficult decisions in her late life care, even more helpful to Helen’s quality of life than taking away her car keys was recruiting Phumla through an agency providing ‘world class carers’ for the elderly. After a rocky start, Helen became enormously fond of Phumla, who arrived in her Bryanston home in 2018 to assist with her late life care. Thanks to Phumla’s constant companionship and tenderness Helen’s final years were neither lonely nor riven by regret, but instead enjoyed with the comfort of knowing how far she came from where she started and that she was loved. 24/7. Helen was never alone in her final years. “Phumla is like a daughter to me” Helen would often repeat during our increasingly brief daily phone calls.

In the metric of what success means to each individual’s understanding, Helen achieved success beyond her wildest dreams. Growing up in the house on Eaton Avenue she told me repeatedly “As a child I had one ambition in life. To be rich enough to afford chicken soup every day.”
Her many acts of kindness were reciprocated in her late years by similar acts of kindness. Many friends stepped up to visit her in the absence of her children who lived abroad.

In no particular order of importance I mention Chris Ghelakis, Nick Ghelakis, Dr. Elie and George, and Aleco Avierenos. Although there were many, many dear friends and family who showed meaningful love and support for her in later life. I would be writing for hours if I thanked everyone for every kindness, but I will mention two memories I am grateful for.

Helen loved to smoke. I gave up trying to convince her smoking was not good for you decades ago. “My father lived to 87 and he smoked 60 cigarettes a day” she explained to me. After a certain age giving up is more dangerous than carrying on. Then along came Covid and the government banned cigarettes. Helen called me in a state of high anxiety. “I need my cigarettes.” As usual when Helen was in need and I was 12,000 miles away, Nick received a call for help. As usual, Nick had the solution, although he may well have taken a great risk buying black market cigarettes. He took all kinds of personal risks to make sure Thea Lela never had to suffer unpleasant withdrawals. She felt fortunate to have so much of Nicks attention. In her late years, whatever Helen asked for, Helen got. Often it was Nick who made her every wish come true. Helen was determined to smoke to the end. “Nick is like a son to me” she would tell me.

Shortly before her passing Helen had another visit to the ICU. She was unconscious for two days. Connected to Oxygen and IV’s. When she woke and realized where she was, her first demand was to be disconnected from the IV’s and taken by wheelchair outside the door of the ICU where she lit up a Kent Light. I had WhatsApp video during this time with her carer keeping me informed on her condition. In this way I watched a video of this historic moment as she insisted on being taken outside to smoke. The look on her face was pure ecstasy. Helen was in charge. She decided what she wanted to do. No annoying doctor was going to tell her.

I am afraid I laughed out loud when I saw that video image. Who but Helen would come off oxygen with failing lungs after a two day coma to light up with such enjoyment. She inhaled deeply, just as she did with life.

Many will remember her for many different reasons. I will remember her for many different reasons as well. Mostly, for being consistent. Once she made up her mind nothing would change it. Rightly or wrongly. I like that quality with its relationship to integrity.

Helen’s longest family relationship was with her brother Elias and his wife Evgenia. A closeness that survived the geographical distance after she left Greece in 1955 to embrace the unknowns of a new life on the other side of the world. The one constant link to her past was Elias, younger by two years. Helen was outspokenly proud of Elias, the General, and his wonderful marriage to his wife who is, in her words “One in a million.”
Helen celebrated her brother’s successes as if they were her own. Thanks to the advent of WhatsApp, Helen stayed in regular contact with distant family and friends right until the end.

Recently, her niece Youli, another of the most loved and dependably constant-callers throughout Helen’s life, arranged for her to video-call her cousin Lili. Helen loved Lili, her close-cousin of similar age. Two girls who grew up together in the war-torn ruins of Piraeus. In this talk 70 years later Lili told her “otan isouna mikri isoun tοso omorfoula kai zoiroula.”
(When you were young you were so pretty and with such a passionate appetite for life.) To which Helen replied “ki esy isoun zoiroula”.
(And you too had such a passionate appetite for life.)

Helen was a zoiroula, in the fullest sense of its Greek meaning. This would not be an inappropriate epitaph had I been limited to nine words: Zoiroula, wife, mother of three, grandmother, friend and aunt.

Helen meant well in her life and enjoyed helping many people wherever she could. And sometimes when she could not. While it’s true helping and harming are often the same thing, many of those she helped remember her abundant kindness with gratitude.

From a challenged start in life Helen overcame many struggles and traumatic life events that may have crushed a less determined person with bitterness and despair. When her final hours arrived, Xenia Ivanoff, Helen’s ‘goddaughter’ was at her bedside ensuring that she passed from the life she loved so passionately shadowed by the warm embrace of someone she loved so dearly over the course of a lifetime.

Last week I was driving through the California desert on my way to Indian Wells when I took a phone call from Eveline with the news of my mother’s passing. I remembered it was Eveline who collected me on that August day in 1971 when I was ten years old. Eveline brought me the news that my father had died. This news of her friend’s passing came to me from the same person 52 years later. A circle completed.

Helen was a rare character, the like of whom we may not not meet again. Many will miss her dearly and remember her with affection. She lives on in the memory of all who were touched by her kindness.

Andrew Broulidakis, Johannesburg, 28th of March, 2023

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