Joan Aliparmakis Petrakis ’52
Lasting Ties to SJC
Joan Petrakis’ involvement with Saint Joseph College spans nearly 60 years and includes tenures as a:
- student
- faculty member
- admissions officer
- and archive volunteer.
She attributes her deep ties to her alma mater to a shared sense of academic integrity; “I came to Saint Joseph College when I transferred from a school in Virginia. I was looking for a serious environment where students focused on their education. This was it.”
Love of Fashion & Textiles
Joan majored in Home Economics, a perfect fit to her love of clothing, crafts and textiles. “My mother always sewed and my father was a cutter in a shirt factory, so this type of work was all around me,” she said. Joan’s family was also active in the Greek Orthodox Church where she cultivated a love of music — another interest she was able to pursue at SJC. After graduation, Joan married, taught school (including a year at SJC), raised her daughter and began to pursue her interest in the needlework of Greece.
Expert in Greek Needlework, Published by Scribner’s
As she regularly vacationed in Greece, she conducted research in the Benaki and other museums, rendering needlework designs on to graph paper. The more she worked on it, the more Joan realized her research encompassed the modern history of Greece told through the designs of the different provinces. In 1977, she published The Needle Arts of Greece, a 174-page book published by Scribner’s.
Giving Back to SJC
Joan equates her ability to research and write the book to her SJC education: “The education I received here was serious. We were taught that the work itself was rewarding.” As her daughter grew up and moved away (she is now a nurse in Virginia and the mother of two young sons), Joan began to fill her time with volunteering. Since 1998 she’s donated one day a week to the SJC Archives where she catalogued much of the College’s artifact collection. What keeps her coming back? “I find that by volunteering, I bring more meaning to my life,” Joan said. “Plus, I like the people here.”
