Cynthia Fokakis

Madison - Cynthia Fokakis died in her own home, surrounded by family and friends, in Madison on Sunday morning, September 18, 2011. Word of her death spread among members of her church community at the Assumption Greek Orthodox Church during the Sunday liturgy. A special memorial was performed at the end of the service.

Cynthia was born to parents, who like many who were part of the Great Immigration, left places of remarkable beauty, and often historic importance, as young people to lessen the burden on their impoverished Southern European families by coming to the United States. Cynthia was the daughter of Andrew and Angeline Cappas, each of whom came to this country alone, Andrew from a devastatingly poor Greek village in the northwestern Peloponnesus and Angeline from a hilltown overlooking the Ionian Sea. They married and during the 1920s prospered as restaurant-owners in their beloved Minneapolis and raised a family with Cynthia, their first child, born on September 25, 1922. In 1935, during the Great Depression, Cynthia's father died at age 45 of a brain tumor while being treated at Mayo Clinic, leaving behind his widow, who spoke no English, and 4 children. Cynthia, who was 12 at the time, helped her mother raise her brother, Ted Cappas (Adrienne), and sisters, Mary Zazas (Chris) and Vasiliki "Coula" Drubulis deceased (Arge deceased). The Depression had a major impact on the young family, but Cynthia graduated from Minneapolis' West High School and immediately went to work as a bookkeeper for the Cameron Insurance Agency.

In 1943, while visiting her Great-Aunt Dionysia and Great-Uncle Fost Choles of Choles Florists in Madison, Cynthia met a young Greek-American, Emmanuel Arthur Fokakis, who was stationed at Truax Airfield and whom the Choles family had invited to Sunday dinner at their home on Nakoma's Manitou Way. Cynthia married Emmanuel, who had come to the U.S. at age 12 from the Aegean Island of Patmos, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. After the war-time wedding in Minneapolis, Cynthia and Emmanuel lived for 6 months in Miami Beach where he was stationed as an officer in the Air Force before being sent to the Pacific.

After WWII, Cynthia, Emmanuel and Cynthia's brother Ted left Minneapolis for Madison where they operated "Goldie's" a restaurant on Wilson Street. In 1947, they became owners of the Spanish Caf� and Bar, near the Orpheum Theater on State Street. Cynthia Fokakis, with her organizational skills and attention to detail, was the bookkeeper and hostess for the restaurant, and continued to fill those positions into the early 1960s, but in 1957, Cynthia also began working in the office of the Dane County Clerk of Courts, then Jean Johnson. Cynthia Fokakis and her friend Dolly Anderson handled Alimony and Support, which was so small a demographic that Cynthia and Dolly maintained manual pen & ink entries in ledgers while working at a cardtable. In 1960, Cynthia became Circuit Court Judge Richard W. Bardwell's clerk, a position which she held for 15 years and where she learned the ins and outs of the county's court system, including working with juries. She made friends, many collegial professional relationships, which lead to her decision to run as a Democrat for election as Clerk of Courts in 1976. She was victorious and every two years thereafter, Cynthia ran and won as Clerk of Courts until her retirement in 1992.

During her terms as Dane County's Clerk of Courts, Cynthia spoke on behalf of the State Association of County Officers before committees of the Wisconsin State Legislature considering bills which would affect the court system. She attended many state conventions of the Clerks of Courts Association; in 1983-95, she chaired the group's Legislative Committee. In her career, she was a member of the National Association of Trial Court Administrators and the American Judicature Society. In 1988, she was a Wisconsin State Delegate to the National Democratic Convention which nominated Michael Dukakis for President in Atlanta.

After her retirement, Cynthia Fokakis was a docent at the Wisconsin State Historical Society, and a member of the League of Women Voters, the Women's Political Caucus and of Big Brothers & Big Sisters. Cynthia was always a devoted member of the Greek Orthodox Church. She attended national biennial Clergy-Laity Congresses in New York City, Philadelphia, New Orleans and Miami. For many years, she was a member of the church choir, also elected to the church board as secretary and as treasurer and, similarly, a member of the church women's philanthropic society, Philoptochos, from time to time being elected the group's president, secretary or treasurer. Her administrative skills and considerable energy were put to best use when she served as the Madison community's volunteer church secretary throughout most of the 1990s and into the new millennium.

Cynthia's hobbies included all kinds of needlework and, as a younger woman, sewing and dressmaking, following in the steps of her mother, a seamstress. In the last years of the Truman Administration, Cynthia and Emmanuel Fokakis worked with an architect, Cynthia especially, to design and build a dream house in the Modern style which stands today near the "Tangeman House" in Nakoma. Cynthia furnished the house in a single day at the Merchandise Mart, including a gold and black Vladimir Kagan sofa, black mahogany furniture, Litolier fixtures with a sputnik chandelier and Jackson Pollock-like splatter paint linoleum on the kitchen floor. They moved from an ethnic, extended family multi-story home to the Modern house during the Eisenhower election.

All those who knew Cynthia Fokakis knew she accomplished what she did with numerous health issues. Chronically anemic, nearly 40 years ago three-fourths of her stomach was removed due to perforations from ulcers; 38 years ago was her first incidence of breast cancer with a reoccurrence in the scar tissue 15 years ago; 36 years ago metastasis to the liver which was arrested with UW Hospital's early use of 5-FU dripped directly into the organ; 4 years ago colon cancer and heart disease; and, this summer, metastatic breast cancer to the lungs with cancer in the liver. The physician who treated Cynthia with all the challenges to her health, especially with timely referrals to University Hospitals, was Dr. H.K. Parks, a figure well known to all those who knew her. Dr. Parks died at age 90 this April 11, three days after she last spoke to him. Recently, Cynthia said she had found her new "Dr. Parks" in Dr. William Schelman, Oncologist and Hematologist at UW Hospitals.

Cynthia will be missed by her many relatives and numerous friends, and her daughter Irene (Michael), grandson Peter, her brother Ted and sister Mary and their spouses with 6 nieces and nephews, 15 great-nieces and nephews, including Andrianna, Marina and Aris Awes, plus 2 surviving sisters-in-law and many nieces, nephews, great and great-great nieces and nephews from her husband's family. The family thanks Yangchen Lhamo who has been Cynthia's aide these past 6 months, along with all the aides from BrightStar.

A funeral service will be held at ASSUMPTION GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH, 11 N. 7th Street, Madison on Friday, September 23, 2011, at 10:00 a.m. A visitation will be held at CRESS FUNERAL HOME, 3610 Speedway Rd., Madison, on Thursday, September 22, 2011, from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. with a Trisagion service to be held at 7:00 p.m.

Cynthia asked, in lieu of flowers, donations be given to the general fund of Madison's Assumption Greek Orthodox Church because few remember it costs to heat and light a church. She would have been 89-years of age this September 25. She had a good, long life.