{"id":135,"date":"2014-01-27T18:05:51","date_gmt":"2014-01-27T18:05:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/new.alfiers.com\/?page_id=135"},"modified":"2023-12-25T23:32:41","modified_gmt":"2023-12-25T23:32:41","slug":"spirythoula-lula-maria-alfieris","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.alfiers.com\/?page_id=135","title":{"rendered":"Spiridula (Lula) Maria Alfieris 1907-1989"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Spiridula (Lula)\u00a0was born in Alexandria, Egypt, the second child of her parents, John and Maria Alfieris.\u00a0 When she was just a few months old, her mother and three-year-old brother, Gus, sailed by themselves to Ellis Island where they were detained for a few weeks because Gus had pink eye.\u00a0 Her father, John, had arranged for their passage to America and brought them to Oakland, California.\u00a0 He had come to America before them, settling in Oakland where he worked to earn money to bring them to America.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/new.alfiers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/1908YPwithGusLula.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"1908YPwithGusLula\" src=\"http:\/\/new.alfiers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/1908YPwithGusLula-300x221.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"221\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Lula, her parents, and her brother, Gus, just after arriving in America.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/new.alfiers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/YPLula.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"YPLula\" src=\"http:\/\/new.alfiers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/YPLula-300x220.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"220\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Lula, age 9, with her parents at their home in West Oakland, 1916.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/new.alfiers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/1914YPGirls.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" alt=\"1914YP&amp;Girls\" src=\"http:\/\/new.alfiers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/1914YPGirls-300x176.jpeg\" width=\"300\" height=\"176\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Lula (11) (on the left) with her parents and two sisters, Aspacia (7) and Efroseni (4), at their West Oakland home, 1918.<\/p>\n<p>Lula lived with her parents in Oakland until her arranged marriage in 1926, at the age of 18. \u00a0She was a quiet, dutiful daughter and learned from her mother how to make elaborate handcrafted items for the home. \u00a0Her parents chose her husband, as was the tradition in Greece, from among suitors they deemed capable of providing a good home for their daughter.\u00a0 Forced into this marriage by custom and tradition, she obediently obeyed. \u00a0Her parents arranged everything for a church wedding in San Francisco and sent out this invitation.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/new.alfiers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/Tzioumes+Wedding+Invitation.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Tzioumes+Wedding+Invitation\" src=\"http:\/\/new.alfiers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/Tzioumes+Wedding+Invitation-300x232.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"232\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/new.alfiers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/PanosLulaWed.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" alt=\"PanosLulaWed\" src=\"http:\/\/new.alfiers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/PanosLulaWed-300x236.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"236\" \/><\/a>\u00a0 Here is a surviving image of Lula&#8217;s 1926 marriage to Panagiotis Tzoumis (later changed to Zamenes). \u00a0To Lula&#8217;s left stands her sister, Aspacia.\u00a0 Standing second at the left of the picture is her brother, Gus.\u00a0 Behind Gus is her brother, Harry.\u00a0 Behind Harry are her parents, John and Maria, with their other children, Efrosini, Evangelia, and Miltiades in front of them.<\/p>\n<p>A year later, she gave birth to her first son, Nicholas; a second son, Aristotle, arrived eight years later in 1936. \u00a0By the time Aristotle was a toddler, Lula divorced her husband and lived in the Castro district of San Francisco in a large flat.\u00a0 She raised her two sons in that residence, stayed very close to her parents and extended family, and started a thriving upholstery\/interior design business.\u00a0 Her talent with fabric allowed her business to grow and flourish.\u00a0 She operated it for many decades and supported her family well. \u00a0Here she is in 1946 with all her sisters and her mother:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/new.alfiers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/1948AlfierSisters.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"1948AlfierSisters\" src=\"http:\/\/new.alfiers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/1948AlfierSisters-300x218.jpeg\" width=\"300\" height=\"218\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Left to right: Lula, Aspacia, Efrosini, Evangelia, and their mother, Maria, 1948<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/new.alfiers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/1955AliceLula.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"1955AliceLula\" src=\"http:\/\/new.alfiers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/1955AliceLula-300x287.jpeg\" width=\"300\" height=\"287\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Sisters Aspacia and Lula with their niece, Evonne, in Russian River, 1951.<\/p>\n<p>In the early 1950s she married another Greek man she met in San Francisco.\u00a0 That marriage ended in divorce shortly afterwards.\u00a0 Then she went to Greece in 1956 and fell in love with and married Argyris Argyriades, a man she met through friends and family in Athens. \u00a0She returned to America with him, and they lived in her San Francisco residence.<\/p>\n<p>Her son, Nicholas, went to Greece and started an avacado farm for a few years until his accidental death in 1982 at age 54.\u00a0 Her second son Aristotle (Ted), stayed in the San Francisco Bay Area, married, and gave his mother three grandchildren who gave her much happiness in her later years.\u00a0 Ted watched over his mother\u2019s well-being in every way.\u00a0 These pictures are from her 70<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0birthday celebration.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/new.alfiers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/1977_70thBD1.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-237\" alt=\"1977_70thBD1\" src=\"http:\/\/new.alfiers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/1977_70thBD1-236x300.jpeg\" width=\"236\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.alfiers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/1977_70thBD1-236x300.jpeg 236w, https:\/\/www.alfiers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/1977_70thBD1.jpeg 372w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 236px) 100vw, 236px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">From left to right: Ted&#8217;s children, Cynthia, Stephanie and Andy Zamenes; Ted&#8217;s wife, Cathy, Ted, and Lula, 1977<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/new.alfiers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/1986Lula.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"1986Lula\" src=\"http:\/\/new.alfiers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/1986Lula-203x300.jpg\" width=\"203\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Lula in 1986 as she approached age 78; she died three years later, after\u00a0battling breast cancer during the last years of her life.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/new.alfiers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/1955AliceLula.jpeg\"><br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/new.alfiers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/1948AlfierSisters.jpeg\">\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/new.alfiers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/1908YPwithGusLula.jpg\">\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/new.alfiers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/1908YPwithGusLula.jpg\">\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/new.alfiers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/1914YPGirls.jpeg\">\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/new.alfiers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/YPLula.jpg\">\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/new.alfiers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/YoungLula.jpeg\">\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/new.alfiers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/Tzioumes+Wedding+Invitation.jpg\">\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/new.alfiers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/PanosLulaWed.jpg\">\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/new.alfiers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/PanosLulaRec1.jpg\"><br \/>\n<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/new.alfiers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/1986Lula.jpg\"><br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Spiridula (Lula)\u00a0was born in Alexandria, Egypt, the second child of her parents, John and Maria Alfieris.\u00a0 When she was just a few months old, her mother and three-year-old brother, Gus, sailed by themselves to Ellis Island where they were detained for a few weeks because Gus had pink eye.\u00a0 Her father, John, had arranged for &#8230; <span class=\"more\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.alfiers.com\/?page_id=135\">[Read more&#8230;]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":87,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["entry","page","publish","author-kstathis","post-135"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alfiers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alfiers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alfiers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alfiers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alfiers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=135"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.alfiers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":258,"href":"https:\/\/www.alfiers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/135\/revisions\/258"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alfiers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/87"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alfiers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}