Preservation of American Hellenic History
Preservation of American Hellenic History
by Jason C. Mavrovitis
Eleni's mother, Vasiliki, died twenty-one months later, on 21 December 1935.
Just a day before her death, Yia-Yia Vasiliki quietly announced that her time had come. She asked that her burial clothing be prepared and the next afternoon requested that Lily bath her in preparation for her burial. That evening she seemed to drift into a coma. Lily revived her grandmother and telephoned Doctor DeTata to come at once. He came, examined Yia-Yia Vasiliki, and then told Lily not to interfere with her Yia-Yia's death. She was ready to leave life.
Lily did as Doctor DeTata told her and within a few hours Yia-Yia Vasiliki peacefully stopped breathing. At ninety-four years of age Vasiliki had outlived her husband, Hristodul, by twenty-seven years.
Yia-Yia Vasiliki's death was of the kind that Orthodox Christians pray for each week at liturgy: "That the end of our lives may be Christian, without pain, blameless and peaceful, and for a good account at the fearful judgment-seat of Christ, Let us ask of the Lord." The way of her passing was like that of countless others who in old age were prepared to leave this world and did so with grace, dignity and peaceful resignation.
Athanasios Mavrovitis, his grandmother, Eleni, and great-grandmother, Vasiliki are buried in the same grave at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Maspeth, Long Island.(5) Their gravesite, located in a vandalized section of the cemetery, had its plot marker and head stone missing or in fragments in 1992. The grave could not readily be located.
With her mother and grandmother both gone, Lily was now mistress in the house Eleni had left to her. She set about making it a home for her husband, two young children, and stepfather.
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