Bess Efstathiou, 86, formerly of Kearny, and most recently of Swarthmore, PA, passed into eternal rest on February 25, 2016. Visitation will take place Thursday, March 10 from 2 PM to 4 PM and 7 PM to 9 PM at the Armitage & Wiggins Funeral Home, 596 Belgrove Drive, Kearny, N.J 07032. Funeral Services will take place on Friday, March 11, at 10:00 AM at St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church, 721 Rahway Ave, Union, NJ 07083. Burial immediately following at Fairview Cemetery in Westfield, NJ. In lieu of flowers, donations in her memory to St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church, Union, NJ are appreciated.
Mrs. Efstathiou spent her life committed to education, the arts, and her family. She was born in Pennsylvania to immigrant parents and worked the second shift in the family business from the age of 10. After high school, she attended the Teachers’ College at St. Basil Academy and graduated with a certificate to teach Greek. The following September, she returned to St. Basil Academy to teach young, orphaned children who were sheltered by the Academy. It was then at St. Basil that she met the love of her life, Athan, and her best friend of almost seven decades, Callie of Nova Scotia, Canada. Athan and Bess left the Academy to pursue higher education and continued a long distance relationship for six years. Studying by day and working at the family business at night, she financed her education and graduated from Wilkes College (PA), while Athan completed his physics studies at Columbia University (NY). They married and made their happy home in Kearny. Bess pursued a career teaching science and spent the majority of her working life in the Belleville Public School system at School Number 5, the junior high, and the high school as teacher and department head. She continued her formal education at night, earning a Master’s Degree at Montclair State University in 1980. In 1994, she retired as the district’s science supervisor.
Mrs. Efstathiou applied her knowledge of pedagogy in every facet of her life. For a decade, she was the director of the Sunday School at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church in Newark, NJ. She served on advisory committees for the education of children at St. Basil Academy, providing expertise in science curricula and implemented - as she had in Belleville in the early 1980s - the use of the first microcomputers, along with accompanying professional development. She volunteered with the church youth group, coaching them in drama, dancing, and performance. Together with Athan, she worked on many charitable works including the Elytis Chair (Rutgers University) endowment fund and the Greek Schools of St. Demetrios (Union) and St. Nicholas/St. Demetrios (Newark). She was an active member in the Philoptochos and the Daughters of Penelope. In her spare time, she became a docent at the Newark Museum providing tours to groups, a dream nurtured and realized from a lifetime of world travels and regular museum-hopping with family and friends.
She is predeceased by her husband Athan, three brothers and sister Grace. She will be missed by her close family: daughter Penny (Kevin), grandson Athan, nephew Thomas (FL), and the many other godchildren, cousins, nieces, nephews, family, and friends across the US and abroad with whom she maintained loving relationships across the miles.