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GreekReporter.comGreek News100 Year Old Woman Receives Unique Birthday Present

100 Year Old Woman Receives Unique Birthday Present

Sano (left) with her daughter Thea

Sano Halo, the grandmother of Pontos, celebrated her 100th birthday last Saturday in a special event hosted in her honor by the Pan-Pontian Federation and the Holy Foundation of the Pontians in America “Panagia Soumela” in West Milford.

Her birthday present came a few days before when it was announced that she and her daughter Thea had received the Greek nationality following efforts made by prominent Pontians and with the help of Foreign Minister of Greece, Dora Bakoyannis.

Sano Halo was one of thousands of ethnic Greeks driven from their homes in Turkey in 1920. Marched through mountains and deserts with ever-dwindling supplies, many of Halo’s fellow Greeks died. Some dropped dead in their tracks. Her baby sister died in her arms.

By the time Sano Halo was 15, her mother and sisters were dead, and her father and brother had disappeared. She was married off to a 45-year-old man she didn’t know. She arrived in the United States in 1925, a teen-age bride, with nothing left of her Greek heritage, not even the name that her parents had given her. Thea Halo, her daughter, tells her mother’s poignant story in her book, “Not Even My Name”.

(with information from www.armeniandiaspora.com and www.sae.gr)

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