Koula turned 85 in January, and she has earned every one of those years.
Born in Greece, raised in Melbourne, married to an Egyptian man she met on a dance floor, and still, after all of it, entirely herself. “I was always a little bit outspoken,” she says. “My mother told me it might get me into trouble. I said, well, if it does, it does.”
Her story begins at sea. In 1951, ten-year-old Koula travelled to Australia with her mother and three brothers on a converted army vessel. It was not a passenger ship. “It wasn’t a cabin boat,” she says. “Just bunks, like a dormitory.” The journey took more than a month, a stretch of ocean between one life and the next. Her father, a barber, had arrived earlier and worked until he could sponsor the family. “The World Council of Churches paid our fare, and we paid them off,” she says.
They arrived at Station Pier in Port Melbourne, stepping into a new country alongside many other families beginning again.
Koula’s father was one of seven, and over time he helped bring them all to Australia. Each stayed with them until they had saved enough to buy a home of their own. “If two people worked, they could buy a house,” she says.
Koula left school at fourteen with limited English but a clear sense of direction. She wanted to be a hairdresser. A teacher helped her secure an apprenticeship, and she started work the Monday after her fifteenth birthday. She stayed in that first salon for twenty years, building her skills, English language and eventually managing the business. “Any new hairstyles, she would send me first, then I’d come back and show the girls,” she says.
Later, she opened her own small salon in Brunswick. It was modest, but it was hers. “Better than working for someone else,” she says. Independence mattered, even when it challenged expectations.
The romance came at a Greek dance in the city. A man named Michael asked her to dance. “You can teach me,” she told him. He was Egyptian, she was Greek, and together they raised two sons, each going on to run their own businesses. “We got on like a house on fire,” she says.
Koula worked until she was 82, through years that included recurring battles with cancer. A fall and head injury eventually brought her into care, and she has now been at Avondale Heights for almost three years.
She is candid about what she loves. Her room, for one thing. “I don’t want to shift out of this room,” she says. “I love it. I love the noise. I love the nurses being close by.” She values the routine, the familiarity, and the people around her. She joins outings when she can, including shopping trips, and speaks warmly of the staff who take pride in their work.
“They look after us the best they can,” she says. Her sons visit often, taking her out and keeping her connected to the life she built. There are six grandchildren now, and a family that remains close.
She still notices everything. She still speaks up. She still expects things to be done properly. But there is also a sense of ease, a settling into this stage of life without losing who she is.
“I’m going to be around for a long time,” she says.