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Her Greek grandmother, Caliope Zigouras, boarded a boat in Greece to follow her husband to the United States “with 12 drachma in her pocket and a nursing baby on her hip.”
“Would I do that?” Olitsky asked herself. “I don’t know.”
Susan’s mother, Aphrodite Zigouras, was the first of eight children born to the young couple in the U.S. By age 10, Aphrodite was helping to care for her younger siblings. Then, in her junior year, her parents pulled her out of high school to work in their diner, called the Alamo. Days started at 5 a.m. Aphrodite prepared food, served, and seated customers.
“My love of food comes from that,” Olitsky said. “It was plentiful and delicious and healthy.”
On her father’s side, her grandmother Katherine Woodman Dutlinger was widowed when her son was still young.
“That, to me, has to be the scariest scenario,” Olitsky said.
With no skills or work history, her grandmother set out to make a living to support herself and her son. Katherine Dutlinger learned to drive and became a district manager for Avon, leaving her son with her sister and driving throughout Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Eventually, she found a job selling magazine subscriptions by phone so that she could work from home and be with her son.
These women served as young Susan’s role models. They taught her that while life might not be easy, no challenge was insurmountable if faced with courage, perseverance, and integrity.
That is why Olitsky named the field-of-interest fund she established in honor of her mother and grandmothers the “Women of Courage Fund,” and dedicated its use for women facing difficult situations.
Olitsky herself embodies their strength and determination.
When she graduated from high school in Pennsylvania, she needed money to pay for college. She landed a job working the midnight shift in a factory – a good paying union job — and saved every penny to pay for tuition.
She married her high school sweetheart, and together they traveled the world in support of his Air Force career. She worked wherever they landed and she realized that she wanted her own career. With encouragement from a friend, she decided to go into financial services. She earned a master’s degree while in New Mexico through a program with Pepperdine University and later was hired by Merrill Lynch in Sacramento. When her husband was transferred to Langley Air Force Base, for the first time, she too had a career that was transferrable — she joined Norfolk’s Merrill Lynch office.
When her husband received orders to another duty station, Olitsky decided to stay in Norfolk. Their marriage ended in 1984.
In 1988, she married Norman Olitsky, who went on to be a Circuit Court judge in Portsmouth. Susan retired from Merrill Lynch in 2007 after 31 years.
When Norman died in 2021, he and Susan had been married 33 years.
Olitsky is also a Legacy Society member. This group of generous people plan future charitable gifts to the Foundation through a will, trust, or other vehicle.
She and Norman wanted to support things that were important to them, Olitsky said, and the organizations that made Hampton Roads so special. She made her living here, and Norman was born, raised, and worked his entire life in Hampton Roads.
“I wanted to make sure I left something here where I have spent more years of my life than any other,” she said, in the community that supported and encouraged her.
And she wanted to make sure that the women of courage, the women who shaped her, will live on forever through the Women of Courage Fund.
The Hampton Roads Community Foundation can help you establish a fund in memory of an important person in your life. Call 757-434-4320 or visit HamptonRoadsCF.org
