Family Life

Stavroula was born in 1932 into a poor agricultural family on the Ionian island of Kefalonia. She lost her mother when she was twelve and was brought up by her stepmother. She experienced WWII and the occupation of Greece by the German army. She travelled to Australia to join her brother. In Sydney, she worked as a seamstress and married. She struggled through a difficult marriage with a man who suffered from mental illness and was prone to violence.

John Procopiadis was born in 1935 to a Turkish-speaking Greek couple from Cappadocia in central Turkey. His father was a confectioner. His mother was a home-maker and skilled Persian carpet weaver. John grew up in Surry Hills, attended Crown Street Public School and, later, Cleveland Street High School. In the early 1950s, after their council-owned home was sold, the family moved to Kensington. After finishing high school, John became a mechanic. For several years, he had his own workshop. He then worked as a sales representative for Stuart Alexander & Co Pty Ltd,  an importer, marketer and distributor for tobacco products. He was a founding member of the PanHellenic Soccer Club, and, between 1994 and 2012, was elected as a councillor on the Randwick City Council. Between 2009 and 2010, John was mayor of Randwick.

Maria Cotsis was born on the island of Lesvos in 1947 and migrated by ship to Australia in 1968. She has worked in factories, kitchens and shops in Lakemba, Canterbury and Hurstville. Soon after arriving in Sydney, she married at Saints Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox church in Newtown. Her daughter is NSW Labor MP Sophie Cotsis. Maria has returned to Greece many times, assisting with humanitarian aid during the refugee crisis on Lesvos (2018), for which she was officially commended. For the past 35 years she has lived in Hurstville.