p.45
The tomb-stones within the garden of the Ayia Paraskevi Church
The church garden is quite large and contains about 20 graves. Amongst these that are legible, the oldest is dated from 1846 and the most recent 1925. Of those that can be read, the listing is below:
Mrs Irini Mavrogordato, records her memories of times in her parent’s house and during the 1930s in detail in the book published in Athens entitled ‘To Palio Spiti Ston Vosporo’ [Old House on the Bosphorus].
‘My father Nicholas Mavrogordato was born in Istanbul in 1862 and for his higher education went to Berlin. During the construction of the Berlin-Baghdad railway, a collaborative project between the German and Ottoman governments, he was responsible for the opening of the tunnels in the Taurus Mountains section, living for a time in the Pozantı and Adana regions for this undertaking. He met the nanny of the daughters of a recently widowed German engineer whom he befriended, and despite the 30 years age gap, fell in love and married her. The marriage ceremony was conducted in grand-father’s house in Therapia, Istanbul. I was born in 1917, during the First World War, and because everybody was tired of the war, I was given the name meaning peace in Greek.
I left Istanbul together with my mother in 1920, and our return was only possible 17 years later in 1937. My father was caught in Izmir while the Greek army occupied Western Anatolia, so could return to Istanbul, but went to Berlin. He died in that city in 1931, not seeing Istanbul again. I was 3 when I left the Therapia house, which naturally I couldn’t remember anything of, returning as a young maiden year later. This house of my father and grandfather was of Italian style set within a garden. My elderly aunt Mary, who was English through her mother and Greek through her father, continued living there. We returned to Istanbul by boat on the evening of an October day in 1937. The car which took us to the house, veered to a side street, climbing up a hill for a while, before stopping. We crossed a large garden in the style of a formal park, arriving at an arched doorway with iron doors. With the opening of the door we found ourselves in a kitchen at least 10 metres in length. At one end of this kitchen was a row of cookers covered with large saucepans. In the middle was a long table, next to which a pair hunting dogs were asleep. A maid took our luggage and showed us the way. ...’
click here for images of Theodore Baltazzi’s and Stephanos Mavrogordato’s tombs
The tomb-stones within the garden of the Ayia Paraskevi Church
The church garden is quite large and contains about 20 graves. Amongst these that are legible, the oldest is dated from 1846 and the most recent 1925. Of those that can be read, the listing is below:
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Mrs Irini Mavrogordato, records her memories of times in her parent’s house and during the 1930s in detail in the book published in Athens entitled ‘To Palio Spiti Ston Vosporo’ [Old House on the Bosphorus].
‘My father Nicholas Mavrogordato was born in Istanbul in 1862 and for his higher education went to Berlin. During the construction of the Berlin-Baghdad railway, a collaborative project between the German and Ottoman governments, he was responsible for the opening of the tunnels in the Taurus Mountains section, living for a time in the Pozantı and Adana regions for this undertaking. He met the nanny of the daughters of a recently widowed German engineer whom he befriended, and despite the 30 years age gap, fell in love and married her. The marriage ceremony was conducted in grand-father’s house in Therapia, Istanbul. I was born in 1917, during the First World War, and because everybody was tired of the war, I was given the name meaning peace in Greek.
I left Istanbul together with my mother in 1920, and our return was only possible 17 years later in 1937. My father was caught in Izmir while the Greek army occupied Western Anatolia, so could return to Istanbul, but went to Berlin. He died in that city in 1931, not seeing Istanbul again. I was 3 when I left the Therapia house, which naturally I couldn’t remember anything of, returning as a young maiden year later. This house of my father and grandfather was of Italian style set within a garden. My elderly aunt Mary, who was English through her mother and Greek through her father, continued living there. We returned to Istanbul by boat on the evening of an October day in 1937. The car which took us to the house, veered to a side street, climbing up a hill for a while, before stopping. We crossed a large garden in the style of a formal park, arriving at an arched doorway with iron doors. With the opening of the door we found ourselves in a kitchen at least 10 metres in length. At one end of this kitchen was a row of cookers covered with large saucepans. In the middle was a long table, next to which a pair hunting dogs were asleep. A maid took our luggage and showed us the way. ...’
click here for images of Theodore Baltazzi’s and Stephanos Mavrogordato’s tombs