Oral history interview with Calliope T. Phoutrides

Collection

Identifier: SR 773

Staff Only

Oral history interview with Calliope T. Phoutrides

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Scope and Contents

This oral history interview with Calliope T. Phoutrides was conducted by Deborah Newman at Phoutrides’s home in Portland, Oregon, on October 10, 1991, as part of the Portland Matriarchs oral history project, a series of interviews conducted in October 1991 with older women involved in Portland organizations. The project was conducted as part of the Oregon Historical Society Research Library’s oral history program.

In this interview, Phoutrides describes how she and her husband, the Reverend Stephen E. Phoutrides, came to Seattle, Washington, in 1924. She discusses her family background and early life in Athens, Greece. She talks about her father, Theodore Yampanis, and about his career as a painter. She speaks at length about her marriage to Stephanos E. Phoutrides, who served as priest at Greek Orthodox churches in Seattle. She shares her reasons for immigrating to the United States in 1912. She tells several stories about her childhood in Athens, and speaks about her lifelong involvement in the Greek Orthodox Church. She closes the interview by discussing her role as presbytera, a priest’s wife.

Dates

Creation: 1991 October 10

Creator

Phoutrides, Calliope T. (Calliope Theodore), 1898-1994 (Interviewee, Person)
Newman, Deborah (Interviewer, Person)

Conditions Governing Access

Collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

Copyright for this interview is held by the Oregon Historical Society. Use is allowed according to the following statement: Creative Commons - BY-NC-SA, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

Biographical note

Calliope Theodore Phoutrides, nee Yampanis, was born in Athens, Greece, in 1898. In 1912, she immigrated to the United States and lived in New England. She married Stephen Evangelos Phoutrides in 1918, and they later had three children. In 1924, they moved to Seattle, Washington, where Stephanos E. Phoutrides served as priest at St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church, and later at the Church of the Assumption. While living in Seattle, Calliope Phoutrides became a U.S. citizen in the 1930s, worked in the bookbinding department at the University of Washington, and worked at the Censorship Office during World War II. Stephanos E. Phoutrides died in 1946, and in 1959, Calliope Phoutrides moved to Portland, Oregon, where she was active in the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church and the Greek Orthodox Ladies Philoptochos Society. She died in 1994.

Sources: U.S. naturalization record on Ancestry.com; information provided by Phoutrides in her interview; Phoutrides’ obituary in the Oregonian, June 10, 1994.

Extent

0.1 Cubic Feet (2 audiocassettes (1 hr., 33 min., 59 sec.))

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Abstract

Oral history interview with Calliope T. Phoutrides conducted by Deborah Newman on October 10, 1991, as part of the Portland Matriarchs oral history project. Phoutrides discusses her early life in Athens, Greece, and her marriage to the Reverend Stephanos E. Phoutrides.

Existence and Location of Copies

Audio available online in OHS Digital Collections.

Related Materials

An audio recording of an interview with Calliope Phoutrides by J. Mulcahy is part of the Oregon Folklife Program records, Coll 378, at the University of Oregon Libraries Special Collections and University Archives.