SANDRA FAOUTAS

Sarah (Sandra) Faoutas, 92, who passed away on Sunday morning, December 3, was well-known in the Panama City area. With her restaurateur husband Teddy, she greeted many customers at Teddy's on Harrison Avenue, at the Harbor House on St. Andrews Bay, and at the Seafare on the beach.

Though known by many in the Panhandle of Florida, she grew up in Brooklyn, New York, speaking Yiddish, attending Hebrew school, and playing with her cousin Esther. Her paternal grandparents Aaron and Bracha (Tiplitsky) Wishnopolsky and maternal grandparents Elie and Sadie Rose Gurewicz lived in Ukraine's restricted Pale of Settlement, the western border region of Imperial Russia set aside for Jews. These grandparents, except for Bracha, all made their way to the United States. Sandra's parents would come also but not before her father Abraham was drafted into the Czar's army that often discriminated against Jews by giving them brooms for guns. He shot himself in the foot to escape possible death from this forced service.

Leaving for the United States from the seaport of Libau, Abraham Wishnopolsky along with his wife Celia crossed the Atlantic on the passenger ship Kursk, arriving at Ellis Island on June 9, 1913. Sandra would be born a little more than a year later on September 2, 1914. She began kindergarten in December of 1919 at P.S. 156, The Waverly School in Brooklyn. Her early years were mostly happy ones, though her only sibling, a sister, Chaye Reisel, died at birth in 1920. Sandra's mother, Celia, a diabetic, continued to have health problems and died at 40 just two days after Sandra's sixteenth birthday in 1930. About this time she adopted the nickname "Sandra," believing that it had a brighter sound to it than Sarah. She would drop out of high school in the spring of 1931 to help her single father, not knowing that one year later her own life would be changed forever.

That transformation began on a lovely summer day at Prospect Park in Brooklyn when a handsome young Cypriot immigrant named Theotokis invited her to take a boat ride with him. He could barely speak English, but after the ride he said, "Me see you again." It was not to be for another year, and even then Sandra's father was unsure about the young man everyone called Teddy. Despite family opposition, the couple vowed to be together and eloped on October 7, 1935, paying two strangers in the park fifty cents apiece to witness the ceremony. They kept their marriage a secret for another eight months before telling Sandra's father.

In January of 1940 they left New York to start a Greek cheese business in Florida. After a shipment of cheese spoiled on its way to New York, Sandra and Teddy, almost broke, sought work in Tarpon Springs, Florida. They eventually opened Teddy's Pavilion, a popular dining and recreational establishment for locals and service people throughout World War II. In 1951 they settled in Panama City where Sandra would spend the rest of her life. She welcomed thousands of people to the Faoutas restaurants that were always some of the most popular in Panama City.

She will be remembered for her kindness and thoughtfulness. She could not sleep if she even imagined that she had wronged someone in any way. She was a classy lady in both dress and actions; she always looked proper and invariably knew the right thing to say to people. She had a strong belief in God. This uplifted her during her husband's numerous health struggles and gave her the courage to go on after his death. She was an avid walker, a passionate fisherman, and a wonderful cook. She persevered for over nine decades. As her husband once said, recalling a 1934 hit song, "she was my 'orchid in the moonlight.'" As the lyrics have it, "the moonbeams that fall only seem to recall; love is all, love is you."

She is survived by three children, Celia (Ron) Edwards, Andrew (Betty) Faoutas, and Olivia (Paul) Hillman; seven grandchildren, Randy (Frieda) Yates, Rick (Lisa) Yates, Kevin (Lucy) Faoutas, Ken Faoutas, Nathan Hillman, Rachel (Zak) Shafran, and her namesake Sara (Hamdi) Kassem; five great grandchildren; and two first cousins, Esther Halpert and Rosalie Ollar.

There will be a graveside service at Evergreen Memorial Gardens at 1:30 P.M. on Wednesday, December 6. Paul M. Hillman, Sandra's son-in-law, will be officiating. Friends are welcome to attend. Flowers for the graveside may be delivered to Wilson Funeral Home, 214 Airport Rd, Panama City, FL 32405, telephone 850-785-5272.