Leonidas N. Chimbidis

The 73 year spiritual odyssey of Leonidas N. Chimbidis came to a peaceful end a little before 5:00 PM on Columbus Day, 2004 at the Muse Norris Hospice Inpatient Unit in Mason City. Funeral services will be held 10:00 AM Tuesday at the Holy Transfiguration Greek Orthodox Church, 1311 2nd St. SW, with Rev. Joseph Mirowski officiating. Interment will be in Elmwood-St. Joseph Cemetery. Visitation will be from 5:00 to 7:00 PM Monday at Major Erickson Funeral Home, 111 N. Pennsylvania Avenue. A Trisagion Prayer Service will be held at 6:30 PM at the funeral home. Memorials may be given to the Leo N. Chimbidis Memorial Fund. It was a personal journey that had begun on the northwest side of Chicago, Illinois on September 3, 1931 during the height of the Great American depression. Young Leo and his two brothers, Mike and Jim were brought to Mason City as young children to live with their maternal grandparents, James and Zaharo Nikalaou. Leo?s early education consisted of elementary school at Grant, middle school at Roosevelt and graduation from Mason City High School in 1950. During his athletic career, Leo hit a few homeruns for Elmer Starr?s Junior Legion baseball team. After a brief stint in the US Marines, Leo attended the University of Iowa where he received a BA degree in Ancient and Medieval History in the spring of 1956. He began a 15 years career as a high school teacher, first in Lu Verne, Northwood and Rockford, Iowa, followed by years in Tonopah, Nevada and Brunswick, Georgia. In the early sixties, he attained a master?s degree from the University of Notre Dame. During his summers at home, Leo assisted his brother Jim in the development of 3 Mason City businesses: the Red Llama Lounge, the Hungary Mind Bookstore and the C-K Mink Ranch. He later left the classroom to give life to his own ideas of private enterprise. He created the Samovar Restaurant, St. Herman?s Station and the Chicago Cheesecake Company. All were examples of Leo?s creative culinary abilities. In 1958 in the tradition of Columbus, Leo and his brother Jim embarked on a journey of self-discovery by first visiting the ancestral home of their parents, Greece. What followed were 4 decades of travel which stretched East from Stonehenge and the Ashmolean Museum in England, West to the underground cities of Cappadoccia in Central Turkey, North from Czarist palaces of St. Petersberg and South to the Pharonic temples of Luxor, Egypt. He climbed the great pyramid on the Giza Plateau, rummaged through King Tut?s tomb in the Valley of the Kings, strolled through the Greek colonial ruins of Sicily and Southern Italy and worshipped in the monasteries of Mount Athos and Zagorsk, Russia. Leo stood silently in the church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem and repeatedly investigated the various religious and archaeological sites in Italy, Greece, Yugoslavia, Spain and Turkey. He was a ?career? student of life, always looking, always reading and always curious about the obscure and far away dustbins of the world. In reality, Leo was a teacher and philosopher in the tradition of those classical scholars of Classical Greece. Whether you knew him as ?Leo?, ?Leonidas?, the ?Whip? or ?Spider, he was always at the ready to regale you with a little known fact or aphorism. His brother feels very diminished by this loss. May Leo?s memory be eternal! Leo is survived by his brother, James Chimbidis of Aurora, IL; aunt?s, Constance Nickolou of Mason City, Victoria Nickles of Mason City and Francis Nickolou of Mason City. Leo?s parents and brother, Michael preceded him in death.

Visitation:
5:00 PM to 7:00 PM at Major Erickson Funeral Home on October 18, 2004 (map/driving directions) 5:00 PM to 5:00 PM at Major Erickson Funeral Home on October 12, 2004 (map/driving directions)

Service:
10:00 AM at Holy Transfiguration Greek Orthodox Church on October 19, 2004 (map/driving directions)