Harry Cocoris

Harry Gus Cocoris was born in Birmingham, Alabama to Gus and Anastasia Cocoris, immigrants from the Peloponnese region of Greece. His childhood as the oldest of four sons included challenges: being born into the hardships of the Great Depression; starting school at Martin Elementary speaking no English; and traveling, alone, on foot as a child to the Greek School at Holy Trinity Church on the Southside from his home in North Birmingham.

Harry emerged from these early difficulties a quiet man, who found pleasure in music and in modern furniture design. His LP collection ranged from the classical canon to traditional Greek music to the big band and jazz greats to German beer-drinking songs. Classes at the Paul Hayes technical school developed his natural love of precision and his formidable manual skills. Throughout his long life, Harry produced idiosyncratic and beautifully detailed furniture in his basement workshop. His technical drawings were meticulous, and the many notes he made about his favorite composers—inserted as annotations to the liner notes in their LPs—displayed his distinctive, machine-like cursive handwriting.

From 1953-1955, Harry served in the U.S. Army in post-war Germany, where he guarded notorious Nazi criminals at Spandau Prison. The extensive trip that he took through Europe with friends at this time was one of the high points of his life. After his honorable discharge from the Army in 1955, he worked with his parents at their restaurant, the Coffee Pot Cafe on 2nd Avenue North in Birmingham until its closure in 1965.

Harry is survived by his sister-in-law, Helen K. Cocoris; his nephew, John E. Cocoris; his nieces Elizabeth Cocoris, Stacey Cocoris Craig, Connie Cocoris Chwe, and Joanna Cocoris Hufham; and their families. They will remember his sardonic sense of humor, his cigars, the trips around the basement in the cart, his huge garden, the ever-present background jazz music, his love of junk food, and the sweet nature that showed itself, especially toward the end of his life, behind the reserved facade.

The Cocoris family thanks Fair Haven Skilled Nursing and its caring staff; ACG Hospice; Kim Maddox; and most of all Mary Stallworth, whose loving care made Harry’s last years his most comfortable years. May his memory be eternal!