Anna Antonakas is a well known and loved Hay resident. How we came to be blessed with her presence is a tale of innocent love that transcended continents.

Anna has always been a quiet person, for the most part always preferred being at home with her father and sister from a young age, having lost her mother when she was just over three years old.

Her father was a busy man, holding down work, caring for his elderly parents, the two girls, and his sister and her children, who had lost her husband.

They were poor, but they were very happy.

Times were very different in Greece in Anna’s time; women rarely worked, only going to prune the olives for a six-month period every two years, and once a daughter was married, it was the father’s role to purchase a house in which the new couple would make their family.

Anna and Greg met each other when she was 18, Greg a mere two years older.

“I began to notice this young man in church, and he noticed me. It wasn’t the done thing in that time for people to walk up to each other and start hanging around, so we got small notes to each other through friends," Anna recalled.

“Four months after we met, he told me that he had the papers to go to Australia, which he had been waiting for, and would I ever go with him? I said that I would.”

Greg came to Australia in 1954, and Anna followed in 1958.

The long and frequent letters flowed in those times, and love truly blossomed.

“I was worried that he would come to this new country and find some other girl, but he never faltered, and was determined to bring me to Australia,” Anna said.

Greg was always a worker, having begun working at age 12. During his first four years in Australia, Greg completed two and-a-half years’ employment with proprietor of Garden of Roses café, Mr Christie, to pay him back for his sponsorship.

He then went to Griffith, and then Canberra working in cafes, and then spent six months in Sydney.

A proficient cake baker, he went to school in Sydney to learn how to make more Australianised cakes. Anna’s dad was concerned for her when he found out she wanted to go to Australia.

“He asked me if I was sure, if I knew where Australia was or how far away it was, and I said I am sure and no I don’t but I am going to find out,” Anna said.

She jokingly says that not wanting to partake in any more olive seasons and not wanting her dad to worry about the expense of buying another house that prompted her epic adventure, and that love was a given.

She stayed in Melbourne for a short while; not being able to communicate terrified, her, and she recalled many times that she would race out to the post office box to mail letters in the middle of the night to avoid conversation.

She was picked up and taken to Hay, by Greg.

“The road never finished, it felt like we were in that car for one month, travelling.

“I began to get cranky, I said Greg where did you find Hay; you’d passed through everything else and then found it and decided to stay?” Anna said, laughing.

“He said, this is where they brought me, and now you too, because Hay is where I’m staying.”

She did not feel as though she could communicate effectively with the locals until she was in Hay for about three years.

“The locals were always very nice, and welcoming,” Anna said.

“They were encouraging; telling me how good I was doing, learning the cake names, and things like that. But I always had a hard time for those first few years with talking and understanding, and that made life hard.”

They married in Sydney, and enjoyed a lovely two-week honeymoon on Bondi Beach.

“The motel was not very far from the beach at all, we had a wonderful time, seeing all sorts of things, the animals at the zoo, it was the only holiday we had for a long time,” Anna said.

They lived at accommodations they found in South Hay for the first two and-a-half years. Anna chuckles when asked what she found in Hay and Australia different to Greece.

“It was a matter of going from sleep to the shop, and then coming back from the shop to sleep,” she laughed.

“That’s the way we liked it, always together, and always working.”

The couple opened their cake shop, which they operated together for a few years, before opening the Scenic Café, where they spent 11 years in operation.

Greg was an avid sportsman, playing football and other sports, and travelling to Griffith on weekends to play.

“I asked him who will help me, I am close to having the baby, and he said I will help, I will be here.”

Supremely confident that everything would be alright, it took some words from their friend Mr Christie, to get Greg to finish up sports during that time.

He then took up bowls on Saturdays and remained in Hay.

When she went into labour with her first child, Steven, in 1960, she left the shop at 5pm, and went directly to the hospital, where the vet was previously located, welcoming Steven the next day.

“I was very cranky, I had arrived before another lady, and she left before I gave birth,” Anna recalls.

“I asked why did she get to have her baby and go home before I did, I was here first, and the nurses laughed and told me that it doesn’t work that way,” Anna said with a laugh.

Maria was born in 1962, and it was once again heading directly from the shop to the hospital in order to welcome her to the world. By that time, they had purchased their home, Mr Christie’s who had moved to Melbourne, and in which Anna still resides,

They sold the Scenic café after 11 years, but when the deal fell through it proved to be a very hard time for the family. Still forever fixated on helping others though, Greg helped another friend purchase the fruit shop in town, and eventually bought it from the friend when they left Hay.

They ran that for a time. She recalls taking the children to Greece when they were in secondary school.

“Steven did not enjoy it, we were there for six months, he says to me I don’t like it I don’t under stand anyone, I want to go home,” she says.

“I replied, darling you only have a little while to go; you’re experiencing what it was like for me when I first came to Australia, I didn’t understand anyone either,” she says bemusedly.

But as Greece changed, progressed more and became more of a tourist destination, she said the children loved it and visited most years.

Being used to working in cafes, she was taken aback when Greg bought the hardware shop, originally located underneath Foodworks.

“Greg came home one day and told me he had bought the hardware shop; I could not believe it," Anna said.

“I said oh that’s great, what do we know about hardware?”

It was a long while before she felt like she wanted to have much involvement in the hardware shop, but warmed to it after a while.

Anna credits the already employed worker there as being a big help in bridging their knowledge of hardware.

They eventually moved it to its current location. Having bought the shop with a view of handing it down to his family, Greg eagerly enlisted Harry Kouroulis to help in the shop after he and Maria were wed.

Harry still runs and owns it today.

In 64 years of marriage, Anna and Greg were never apart; always together and doing what they loved.

When Greg tragically passed away, she felt as though she would never be the same, having lost one half of who she is.

She is doing so very well though, gardening, fam ily just across the road, and with her gorgeous little dog Lola as her companion. Anna recently went to Melbourne to see her beloved long-time friends, the Christies, and said they are aiming to come to Hay to see her soon.

They love coming back to see her and “their house.”

Anna also hopes to get to Greece next year, stoically remarking that it will be the last time she will make the trip, and ardently wishes that she can say one last goodbye to everyone there.

She is so happy she took the chance and would never have changed it for anything.

She is justifiably proud of their life and all that they accomplished, having come to Australia with nothing, bat tled, worked hard for everything they had.

“Sixty-four years of Hay, nobody could offer me anything that would make me ever want to change it,” she said.

“I love Hay, I have been here much longer than my first 20 years of life in Greece; it is my home.”