Zena Kanther Dedyras

Zena Kanther was born in Tala in 1930 and was the youngest child of a multimember family.  Her real name was Theognosia.

Her childhood was injured by her father’s incarceration. Her parents had all the requirements for a peaceful and happy life. Her father fell in love with her mother, a beautiful woman, and asked her to marry him. Their life however, was stigmatized when Zena’s father was unfairly accused and sentenced for three years.

The life of the family changed after he came back from prison, as he became alcoholic and violent. He abused his wife and children. He hated all his fellow-inhabitants for he considered them responsible for everything that happened to him. He sold everything the family owned, left his job and deserted his family leaving them with nothing, as everyone in the village mentions. His children were wandering about hungry and unprotected. The village could not help the family, as everyone else was also poor.

Their mother worked in the surrounding villages and the older children had to seek for jobs. Zena stayed with her sister and her father who did not care about them.

Despite the difficulties, their mother wished to help educate Zena. Unfortunately, poverty did not allow it. Zena did not even graduate Primary School.

Even though Zena was young, she also sought for a job. She initially worked as a housemaid. At the age of seventeen, she went to Limassol and managed to find a job at a clinic.

A year after she returned to the village to see her family. A young man from Paphos fell in love with her, and asked her mother if he could marry Zena. Zena said yes even though she wanted to work a bit more. They got engaged and just before they got married, she got pregnant and the man left her.

Zena made it and had a baby boy. She was single and helpless. Everyone deserted her but she kept on fighting. She worked as a maid and paid a woman to look after her child; that however was not enough. A friend of hers convinced her to dance at a night club; this profession was considered scandalous at the time.

Everyone who met her mention that luck “smiled at her, because she was a nice person”. When she met an ill man, she helped him. She rescued him. He fell in love with Zena and they got married. She was suddenly very rich. This is how she got the last name “Kanther Dedyras”.

As soon as she became rich, she helped many people, even though no one had helped her. She helped build school, churches and many more.

Zena helped our village by funding the project of bringing water directly to our houses; thus, helping everyone that had to walk for miles to get water.
What is more, she helped build the chapel dedicated to Saint Marina, the Primary School and the Hero Monument of our village.

Sources: 
Inhabitants of the Community and the family of Zena Kanther