Exactly 88 years ago my late mother Turkan Uludagh was only 21 years old, it was the year 1938 and that’s when she had the louvana soup of Mrs. Shohret in the elementary school of Limassol. Mrs. Shohret was the caretaker of that school and on cold days, she would make a “kazani” full of louvana soup (yellow split pea soup) to help the students and teachers to warm up…
As a young teacher of 21 years old, she had been appointed to teach at the Limassol Elementary School. In my mother’s written memoirs, here is what she writes about how she spent 3 years in Limassol:
“For six months I had education at the Victoria Secondary School in Nicosia and had a second graduation and a second diploma. After three months, I was appointed to Limassol. Limassol is a big and nice place in the southern part of Cyprus. Here TC and GC live together. Because my brother was a teacher in Limassol, Chief Inspector of Education, Mr. Ibrahim sent me to Limassol so I could stay with my brother. Because in those days a young girl staying in a house alone was not looked upon as something very acceptable.
Dylan Djavit with his great grandma Mrs. Şöhret and his father the late Mr. Mehmet
On the 1st of September 1938, the school opened. All friends greeted me very well. At the school there was the Headmaster Mr. Akile and three other teachers, including me. All the other teachers were older, I was the only one who was 21 years old. Kids loved me. We shared the classes. I would teach the first, fifth and sixth classes. I would also teach physical education, songs and art to the 3rd and 4th classes.
The first class consisted of 81 kids. They were all gathered in one big room and there were no separate teachers for separate lessons. School continued every afternoon except Thursdays were half day, Fridays were holiday. The week would begin from Saturday.”
Louvana soup of Mrs. Shohret...
“There was a caretaker at the school called Mrs. Shohret. She was a sweet talker, well behaved and hard-working person. In those days girls and boys went to separate schools. There were instructions that we should serve soup to the kids on winter days. I immediately went and bought some green coloured clothes and sew some smocks for lunch for the kids. The school bought some metal soup plates, spoons and forks and cups. Every day Mrs. Shohret would fill the stove with firewood and start burning the wood, put the “kazani” (big pot) on top and would make a kazani of louvana soup. The smell of the soup would be everywhere… As soon as the soup was cooked, Mrs. Shohret would fill four cups of louvana soup and come to us, saying “You are cold girls, here, I brought you some hot soup” and line up the cups on the teacher’s desk. That soup was so tasty… At 12 o’clock the school bell would ring and kids would sit at the tables. The boys from the boys’ school would also come to have soup at our school. We would give a quarter of a bread and a plateful of soup to each kid. Sometimes after they would drink their soup, kids would go home. Two teachers would remain to take care of kids. One day, the Headmaster of the Boys’ School and I remained to take care of the kids. One of the kids did not feel full and asked for some more bread.
The Headmaster got angry and hit the boy’s head with his hand and started swearing at the boy. I protested. “What you do is not right” I said. “That child's poverty and hunger are already enough for him. Perhaps he came to school hungry in the morning. Please don’t hit children again when they are having lunch. God already hit them…”
The Headmaster became ashamed and apologized. “I am sorry” he said. His eyes filled with tears of shame upon my reaction. He never hit the kids again…”
Abandoned by her family...
After I published my mother’s memoirs about the louvana soup of Mrs. Shohret, I got a call from her family. Burcu Toker Djavit is the wife of Dylan Djavit and apparently Mrs. Shohret was his great grandmother. She told me that they were very touched when they read my story about Mrs. Shohret and Burcu promised to send me photos of Mrs. Shohret, as well as details of her life. And she did… She contacted the son of Mrs. Shohret, Mr. Yashar Uzun, who wrote down her story for us… Here is the story of Mrs. Shohret:
“Shohret Hasan Izzet was born in 1899 in Limassol. Her life was very difficult, full of negative things. As a young child, she started working in a rich family’s house in Limassol as a cleaner. Her family abandoned her there when she started working and left for Turkey. Her father was one of the richest persons in Larnaca… He used to be the “Judge’s Clerk” in a village during the Ottoman times…
Mrs. Shohret was abandoned by her family and while she remained in Cyprus, her family left to live in Turkey. She got married twice. From her first husband she had three kids: Ahmet, Hasan and Zekiye. And from her second husband, Yashar, that is me…
After a certain age she left the house she was working in and started working as a caretaker in the Limassol Elementary School. She would work there for 40 years. After she retired in 1974 there was the war and she would be taken from Limassol to Famagusta. All of us were now displaced and each one of us was thrown in a different corner of the country. My mother Mrs. Shohret was living together with my elder brother Ahmet who had never got married and who was old by then. I would go with a truck to Famagusta and take them and all their furniture, taking into consideration their age and the difficult condition they were living in and bring them to where I lived, that is Morphou. She lived here next to me until the date she died, that is the 3rd of February 1981… She is buried in Nicosia…”
Her son-in-law is still missing...
I had interviewed Dylan Djavit, the great grandson of Mrs. Shohret in 2018 because his grandfather Djavit Sadik was missing from 1964. I had not realized then that this Mrs. Shohret was the caretaker my mother was mentioning in her memoirs…
Apparently the daughter of Mrs. Shohret, Mrs. Zekiye was married to Djavit Sadik who would go “missing” on the 1st of January 1964 while travelling from Nicosia to Limassol… And her son-in-law is still “missing”…
The daughter of Mrs. Şöhret, Mrs. Zekiye with her kids and her husband Djavit Sadik who is missing from 64.
Djavit Sadik had been born in 1919 in Pentakomo and would marry Mrs. Zekiye. Mrs. Zekiye was a famous seamstress in Limassol. Because she was blonde, her husband Mr. Djavit Sadik wanted to buy a yellow car for her and would buy a yellow Vauxhall as the family car. They would have two kids: Mehmet (the father of Dylan Djavit) and Izzet…
Mr. Djavit Sadik had a coffeeshop close to the Limassol port and later they would turn this into a workshop for Mrs. Zekiye to sew the clothes. She had a lot of English customers, as well as a lot of apprentices who came to learn the profession from her.
Mrs. Zekiye was very proud of her work, she had even sewn the wedding dress for a member of the English Royal family and she would show the photo of that wedding gown to everyone proudly…
Djavit Sadik also had a shop in Episkopi where he sold various things.
He would come to Nicosia on the 23rd of December 1963, together with his sister. Due to the intercommunal fighting, he would get stuck in Nicosia for a few days. Finally, he would leave her sister with his mother and say, “I have to go back to my family” and start from Nicosia to go to Limassol on the 1st of January 1964. He would never reach Limassol. He would go “missing” on the way. His car, the yellow Vauxhall Victor with the number plate AH701 would also “disappear”. His had been the last of the cars in the “convoy” that would go to Limassol but even though all other cars would reach Limassol, he wouldn’t be able to…
Mrs. Zekiye would apply to the British authorities at Episkopi British Bases Area and the English soldiers would do an investigation, telling her that they had seen his car in Latsia outside Nicosia and there were blood stains in the car… But no trace of Djavit Sadik until now…
His mother-in-law Mrs. Shohret passed away… His wife Zekiye passed away, waiting for news from him… His son Mehmet Djavit passed away 10 years ago in France where he had settled. His other son Izzet currently lives in Norway…
Mrs. Şöhret at the Limassol Elementary School where she worked... Photo sent by K. Denizkan taken from archive of Mr. Sunalp, the grandson
Dylan Djavit wants to find out the fate of his grandfather and appealing for help from anyone who knows… Let’s try to help him please…