The Tribune

By NICO SCAVELLA

Tribune Staff Reporter

nscavella@tribunemedia.net

PRIME Minister Perry Christie yesterday paid tribute to the life of Greek-Bahamian Alexander Maillis, describing the former PLP senator as a “fiery” parliamentarian who was “ahead of his time in many of the things he so adamantly agitated for when he was in the Senate”.

At a funeral at the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church yesterday morning, Mr Christie highlighted Mr Maillis’ historical significance in the political arena, such as being the first Greek-Bahamian to sit in Parliament, as well as being the “first unambiguously white person to serve as a PLP parliamentarian”.

Such achievements, Mr Christie said, will solidify Mr Maillis as a “defining presence in the history of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas”.

Mr Christie said the former senator lived a life “that was marked by high and worthy accomplishments across a wide and varied canvass both here in the Bahamas and abroad.”

“Looking back as I do today on our time in the Senate together, I well remember the kinds of speeches that Alexander Maillis was accustomed to make, in the upper chamber,” Mr Christie said. “He had a fine command of the language and always spoke intelligently and with great conviction. He was really quite good at working himself up to dizzying heights of rhetorical zeal.

“But behind Alexander Maillis’ fiery rhetoric, was a fertile intellect that turned out some really good ideas, ideas that were always directed towards the advancement of the people of the Bahamas, particularly the underprivileged, and the development and protection of our economy, especially our agricultural and marine resources. Indeed Alex was ahead of his time in many of the things he so adamantly agitated for when he was in the Senate.”

Mr Maillis was appointed to the Senate in 1972, where he served up until 1978. Mr Christie was appointed to the senate in 1974.

According to Mr Christie, during the time he and Mr Maillis were appointed as senators, the parliamentary ranks of the Progressive Liberal Party were “entirely black.”

Mr Maillis’ appointment resulted in him becoming the first white Bahamian to serve as a PLP parliamentarian, and the first Bahamian “of pure Greek extraction” to sit in Parliament, Mr Christie said.

“So it is plain for all to see that Alexander Maillis lived not only a remarkably long life, living just one year short of his centenary, but a life that was marked by high and worthy accomplishments across a wide and vague canvass both here in the Bahamas and abroad,” Mr Christie said. “Whether in the second great world war, in politics, in the practice of law, in business, in international aviation and tourism, in community (uplifting) and civic activism, in tilling the soil of his beloved homeland, in the practice of his Christian faith and in his devotion to this very church, in all of these things and more, Alexander Pericles Maillis proved his great worth as a man, as a Bahamian and as a child of God.”

Alexandra Maillis-Lynch, daughter of the deceased, described her father as one of the “strongest willed people” that she knew and a “big picture thinker.”

“He was intense and passionate; his greatest strength was his greatest weakness,” she said. “I’m sure that there are many, many people who felt his intensity. He was fearless. He stood for truth, honesty, justice, equality, strength and honour. And I know that (from) the 50 years that I have spent with him.”

Mr Maillis was the third son of five children born in Nassau to Greek sponge merchants Pericles J Maillis and Kalliope P Maillis in 1916. The family struggled with the death of Mr Maillis’ father – when he was 10 – and the demise of the sponge industry, resulting from economic depression and hurricanes.

Alexander Maillis was graduated as head boy at Queen’s College, and then put himself through college in New York City by working in the hotel industry. While in America, he was drafted as a British subject into the US Army and was trained as a paratrooper.

He served in the army for five years, during which time he received a six-month scholarship for his essay titled “Reconstructing Europe”.

When he returned home, he converted the premises of his family’s hotel into a restaurant and nightclub called the Imperial Hotel. The nightclub was credited to have launched the careers of famous entertainers like Blind Blake, Peanuts Taylor and George Symonette, and the restaurant is proclaimed as the birthplace of the famed Bahamian delicacy “cracked conch”.’

During the late 1940s, he purchased the tracts of land in Adelaide that would eventually become the family’s homestead and successful mango orchard.

Mr Maillis died in his sleep in the early morning hours of Saturday, October 3. He was 99.

He is survived by his four children: Pericles Maillis, Charles Maillis, Maria Chisnal and Alexandra Maillis-Lynch, ten grandchildren and nine great grandchildren.