Vasiliki Papadopoulos
Lovingly known as “Yiayia Vicki”
23 April 1935 — 13 December 2023 · aged 88
Queen Vic Market olive-seller, Hellas supporter and Oakleigh's favourite yiayia
Melbourne, Australia Born in Kalamata, Messinia, Greece Resting at Fawkner Memorial Park, MelbourneAbout Vasiliki
Vicki Papadopoulos arrived in Melbourne in 1960 with one suitcase, a jar of Kalamata olives and an address on a scrap of paper that turned out to be wrong. She walked the streets of Richmond for two hours in the rain, asking in broken English and fluent Greek, until a shopkeeper recognised her surname and walked her to the right door. 'Greeks,' she liked to say, 'always find each other.'
Born in Kalamata in 1935, she had grown up picking olives in the hills above the Messenian Gulf and came to join her fiancé, Nikos, as part of the great post-war migration. She worked for twelve years as a machinist in a Richmond clothing factory, sewing winter coats on piece rates and sending half her wages to her parents. In 1974 she and Nikos took a stall at the Queen Victoria Market, selling olives, feta and dolmades from her own recipe. Customers queued in the cold for her samples, and her weekly basket of free olives for pensioners became a market legend. The stall stood for thirty-four years, and for most of them she was the first trader in the market each morning. She also cooked for the parish festivals and taught three generations of Oakleigh girls to roll vine leaves.
She watched South Melbourne Hellas from the grandstand with a transistor radio and a thermos of Greek coffee, shouted at referees in two languages, and played tavli against her grandsons, whom she regularly beat. Nikos died in 2011; she wore black for a year and kept cooking for two. On 13 December 2023, aged eighty-eight, she died peacefully at home in Oakleigh, with a tray of kourabiedes cooling in the kitchen. She leaves her son Peter, her daughter Sofia, five grandchildren, three great-grandchildren and a sister, Eleni, in Kalamata.
“Always give a little extra. The extra is what they remember.”
- Faith
- Greek Orthodox
- Place of birth
- Kalamata, Messinia, Greece
- Resting place
- Fawkner Memorial Park, Melbourne
- Passed away
- 13 December 2023, Melbourne
Trisagion & Funeral Service
Wednesday, 20 December 2023 at 09:00 UTC
Add to calendarLife journey
Emigrated from Kalamata to Melbourne
1960 · Kalamata to Melbourne
Arrived with one suitcase, a jar of olives and a wrong address.
Machinist
Richmond clothing factory1960 – 1972 · Melbourne
Sewed winter coats on piece rates and sent half her wages home.
Married Nikos Papadopoulos
1961 · Melbourne
A marriage of fifty years, until Nikos's death in 2011.
Stallholder, Vicki's Olives & Feta
Queen Victoria Market1974 – 2008 · Melbourne
Thirty-four years of dawn starts, free samples and pensioners' baskets.
Festival cook
Greek Orthodox Parish of Oakleigh1975 – 2019 · Melbourne
Fed the parish at every Easter, Christmas and name-day festival.
Long-Serving Trader Award
Queen Victoria Market2008 · Melbourne
Honoured on her retirement from the market.
Tap an organisation to find others who studied or worked there.
Family & connections
Vasiliki is survived by
- Peter Papadopoulos· Son
- Sofia Kontos· Daughter
- Eleni Karagianni· Sister
- 5 grandchildren· Grandchildren
Tributes & memories
6 people have shared a memory of Vasiliki.
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Sign in to write a tribute- SP
Cousin in Kalamata
When Vasiliki left Kalamata in 1960 she broke our grandmother's heart. She wrote every month for sixty years, and I read each letter aloud in the village square. I keep them in a box marked, in my grandmother's hand, 'Our Vasiliki.'
- MK
Granddaughter
Yiayia taught me to roll vine leaves when I was six. She said a good leaf is rolled like a promise: tight, and not too many. At Christmas I made dolmades for forty people, wearing her apron. They tasted like her kitchen.
- TM
Customer for forty years
I started coming to her stall as a student in 1983 and bought a single olive. She gave me a bag. When I got my first job she gave me a jar. When my daughter was born she gave me a bigger jar. I never once left that stall without a gift.
- FA
Parish priest, Oakleigh
Every Easter she carried her basket of red eggs into church like an offering and gave them out at the door. At Christmas, kourabiedes for the whole parish. She said a church without food is a museum. Our hall feels very quiet this week.
- CS
Fellow trader, Queen Victoria Market
She set up her stall at half past four every morning and had hot coffee ready for the whole row. In the winter of 1982 she gave every olive she had to a busload of stranded pensioners. When I protested she said, 'They will come back.' They did, for twenty-six years.
- HP
Neighbour in Oakleigh for forty years
Every Saturday morning a plate of spanakopita appeared on my fence post with a note: 'Don't wash the plate.' I never did; I filled it with something and handed it back. That is how we looked after each other for forty years. The fence feels lonely now.
