GEORGIOS (GEORGE) PANOPOULOS

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GEORGIOS (GEORGE) PANOPOULOS May 17, 1924 May 27, 2008 Georgios Panopoulos was born in Kardama, Greece, but the place he always called home even after nearly 50 years in Winnipeg -- was the tiny sea-side Peloponnese village of Palouki. It was there, as the first of six children, that George learned to fish and hunt, which in those early years was about survival. As a teenager during the Second World War he was a part of the resistance, for which the Greek government officially recognized him in 1989. Later young George served in the Greek Navy. While most sailors received care packages from home, it was George who gathered what he could and sent food home to his parents and siblings. When his father died in 1949, George abandoned his own life to return to Palouki and help his mother and siblings. Eight years later, with everyone looked after and grown, a friend introduced the quiet 33-year-old to a beautiful young woman from the village of Dorian.. He married 25-year-old Anna Katsabanis later that year. But post war Greece was poor. And in 1959, now with a baby girl to provide for, George joined sisters Mary and Yiota and brother Tom who had immigrated to Winnipeg. By the following year, Anna and baby Athina had arrived in the city. George found work in restaurants, eventually partnering with his wife and her brothers, Sam and George Katsabanis in the opening of Homer's. Later he and Anna would operate Hercules at Eaton Place from where they retired in 1996. George was a man of great grace. Quiet, compassionate, dutiful, giving, and non-judgmental, with simple needs and a boyish sense of humour. Next to family, George's greatest love was fishing. As a boy in Greece it had sustained him physically. As a man in Canada it offered him spiritual sustenance. It connected him to Palouki, the place he always called home. George died on Tuesday evening at St. Boniface General Hospital with his wife and children by his bedside. Holding his hand. There were many who offered support through George's protracted and later painful illness, but wife and children are especially grateful to George's sister Mary, sister-in-law Simone Katsabanis, friend Charlene Shatsky, to Father Gene Maximiuk and Chaplin Simone Comeault of St. Boniface hospital. George is survived by wife Anna, son Tim (Themistoklis) Panopoulos, daughter Athina Panopoulos and husband Gordon Sinclair Jr.; grandchildren Ian Sinclair, Erin Kangas and her husband Ryan, by great-grandchild Jacob Kangas, by brother Tom, sisters Mary Ginakes, Yiota Doussis of Winnipeg, Rita Lambriades of Greece and Sophia Voulgaris of Sarasota, Fl. And by all his adoring nieces and nephews. Prayers will be held Sunday, June 1 at 7:00 p.m. and the funeral is Monday at 11:00 a.m. Both at St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church. In lieu of flowers donations can be made to the Manitoba Hellenic Cultural Centre, care of St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church, 2255 Grant Ave., R3P 0S2. NEIL BARDAL INC. 949-2200

As published in Winnipeg Free Press on May 31, 2008