Helen Fay Stamati

Having studied in an English and French College I had little knowledge of the history of my own country.

This may explain why I chose to become a tour guide.

I found out about Milies as a teenager, eager to see where my ancestors came from.  

What I saw was a village in ruins, ravaged, burnt by the fire of the German army, wounded by earthquakes and hit by bitter frosts that destroyed the crops.

Our house, the old, beautiful mansion, the Filippideiko, the house where Daniel Philippidis the great scholar of the 18^th century Greek Enlightenment was born, stood in ruins with only part of it restored.

I was appalled. I left, never to come back.

But fate had it otherwise.

I would return many years later, with my husband. He was an architect and eager to rebuild the house of his ancestors.

Having a home of ours in Milies we went there more often. And we loved it.

Maybe this explains why we wanted to offer to the people of Milies a small private collection of ours that would help them feel pride in their heritage.