San Francisco Examiner

March 10, 1966. This article is reprinted below.


Rites for Tasos B. Mountanos

The body of Greek pioneer Greek-American journalist, Tasos B. Mountanos, 85, who died working on the Greek national newspaper column he loved, will lie in state at the Greek Orthodox Church of the Annunciation, 245 Valencia st., from 4 this afternoon.

The Trisagion (rosary) service is set for 8:15 tonight. The Requiem Mass will be offered at 1 p.m. tommorrow. Interment will be at the Greek cemetary in Colma.

FOR NEARLY 60 years. Mr. Mountanos had been guide and friend and leader to fellow Greeks in America - particulary in San Francisco and on the west coast.

The Greek government decorated him twice for his outstanding service to Greece and Greek immigrants here - once in 1951, when Ambassador Athansios Politis presented him with the Greek Gold Cross.

Mr. Mountanos, born in 1880 in Lakonia, came here in 1907, and the next year founded the still-active Greek weekly newspaper, The California. He wrote a weekly column until he sold the paper in 1945.

SINCE THEN HE wrote a column weekly for the Sunday edition of New York's Greek daily, The Atlantis.

He was working over his next Sunday's column Tuesday in his workroom and den in his home at 396 Urbano Drive when he suffered an aneurism.

One of the most honored laymen in the Greek Orthodox Church, an elder statesman of his faith and people, he had been honored by the title Archon Hartofilaks.

Mr. Mountanos is survived by his wife, Erasmia; son, Angelo, program director of the Greek-American radio hour and local importer; daughter, Mrs. Anna Konstantopoulos, Oakland, and two grandchildren.

He is the last survivor of four immigrant brothers. Also surviving is a nephew, Sheriff Louis Mountanos of Marin County.

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