Vance and Britt: Papa Katapodis

Vance’s grandpa James Katapodis died on June 29, 2011 at the age of 96. He had been slowly declining in health for a long time and we knew the end was near. We were able to attend the funeral during our trip to California. We were sad we didn’t get to see Papa one last time. He was a remarkable man with a very colorful life.

His parents immigrated to the U.S. from Greece a few years before Papa was born. After the stock market crash of ‘29 Papa and his family moved back to Greece because his dad lost everything. Papa didn’t like Greece and wanted to move back to the U.S. because he really felt like that was his home. Finally, he convinced his dad to let him return to the U.S. on the condition that he would get a job and send money back to the family. His dad thought that was a great idea and sent his mother and sister back to the U.S. with him. That was the last time he ever saw his dad. He and his mother and sister stayed in the U.S. and his dad never joined them.

Papa love to fish. His son Jim was a good fisher and Papa started going fishing with him so they could spend time together and Papa grew to have a strong love for it. He took his family up to Pinecrest every year to go fishing. Papa was very athletic. He was a boxer in his youth and eventually trained boxers. He stayed very active his whole life. He used to run around the lake by their house in San Francisco every day, a total of 5 miles. Elaine says that he was always disappointed that none of his children inherited his athleticism.

Although he was not a member of the Church, he lived the Word of Wisdom better than most members. He never drank alcohol or smoked. Elaine remembers sneaking out to get a Coke-a-Cola because their dad didn’t allow them to drink it.

Papa was very frugal, which was probably a result from growing up with very little money. He didn’t trust banks. He always carried around a lot of cash in his wallet. He was very family oriented. His family was everything to him.

One of Vance’s most vivid memories of his Papa was when Vance crashed his bike, Papa gave him “the massage of his life!”. Vance would say, “Papa’s hands were magical”.

Papa was not very religious. He always felt like churches just wanted your money. When Elaine joined the Church in her twenties, she talked about the Church a lot with her family. One of her dad’s biggest hang-ups was the law of tithing.

Papa’s most famous phrase was “Everything’s Copasetic”.