Featured image: GOC Care client Helen Marselos.
Healthy@home clients share their diverse life stories
GROWING up on a dairy farm near Gladstone, Helen Masselos didn’t have a lot of opportunity to indulge her Greek heritage, but almost a century later she revels in the company of others who share her passion. Helen, who turns 93 in May, is an Aussie with a Greek heart – and her world now revolves around Tuesdays at the Greek Orthodox Community respite centre.
Her father left Kythira, a picturesque island off the Peloponnese Peninsula in 1911, a young man seeking to escape poverty for a better life in Australia.
Helen was born in Australia and says she would walk three miles from the “magnificent home” her father had built on the family dairy farm in the Boyne Valley to the tiny Ubobo State School, which had opened only a few years earlier.
She was later sent to boarding school at St Faith’s at Yeppoon where she excelled in Latin and French, until being evacuated to Barcaldine during World War II.
“Then my father got sick, and I came home. And that was the end of my education in 1942,” Helen says. “But we had everything we wanted.”
No longer able to work the farm, her father moved the family to Townsville where he opened a café and Helen was introduced to the Greek Orthodox Church and the Greek language.
“Obviously on the farm we had no access to any Greek people, but my mother had kept my Greek Orthodox faith alive and tried to teach me what she could,” Helen says.
“At Townsville I was lucky enough to have a Greek priest who taught me a lot of the language and was a big help with the grammar. The Latin and French helped too. I really took to language.”
She is still fluent, which makes her Tuesdays at the GOC Care respite centre so valuable, as she can have a chat with other women from Greece and speak the language.
“They talk about where they are from and I can ask them questions about what it’s like there and fill in the gaps of my background and heritage,” she says. “It makes us all feel part of a community.”
In 1951, Helen married Harry, also from Kythira, who was her husband for more than 60 years. He had arrived in Australia as a teenager in the 1930s, so they both spoke Greek and English.
Harry died nine years ago, but Helen still lives in her own home, and is still driving, although these days it is only down to the nearby shopping centre.
Her daughter Maria, who she calls “my right hand”, and two little dogs live with her.
The Greek Orthodox Community was organising fortnightly two and a half hour visits to give Helen a hand around the house, but she proudly says that she cancelled these to do it herself.
“I bought a little hand-held vacuum cleaner that I can handle easily, and do a room at a time so I can manage to get through the house,” she says. “I’m a good cook so that’s not a problem. Maria cooks for herself and I cook what I want to eat.”
She also keeps herself busy doing puzzles and regularly buys puzzle books to enter the competitions, although she says her reward is keeping her mind sharp, more than any little prizes that sometimes come her way.
Her big garden also keeps her active and she loves tending her vegetables, but the highlight of her week is unquestionably Tuesday, when she heads off to the GOC Care respite centre in the rooms behind the St Paraskevi Greek Orthodox Church, which she also faithfully attends every Sunday.
“They have really got our welfare at heart and always ask about us and make us feel wanted, and that is why I wouldn’t miss day,” Helen says.
“We were playing games, but now I have found two nice ladies there and we play Scrabble.”
“I grew up on the farm, so I am Australian and I had no contact for many years, but now I can be part of our rich history, culture and religion, and that makes me very proud,” Helen says.
“I love my heritage and the respite centre keeps that alive. It’s my way to stay in touch with the Greek culture. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
The Aged Care Diversity Framework
The Aged Care Diversity Framework aims to ensure a high quality aged care system that embraces the diverse characteristics and life experiences of consumers. Older people with diverse needs. characteristics and life experiences may be part of a group or multiple groups that may have encountered exclusion, discrimination and stigma during their lives.
The above article is part of a series that tells the real life stories of healthy@home clients. It has has been approved for publishing by the service provider and client.
Mrs Helen Marselos has an amazing story. What a inspiring woman. Her love for The Greek Orthodox Church, the Greek language, her heritage, friendships formed demonstrates these center’s are necessary for our aging members of our community.
Thanks for your comments Leah. We agree wholeheatedly with you!