On June 14, 2023, Constantine “Costas” Anastasios Coulaloglou passed away peacefully in Wilmington, Delaware.
Costas was born on September 29, 1942, in Athens, Greece, the first of three children by Anastasios and Xeni Coulaloglou. He entered this world during the brutal World War II Nazi occupation of Greece. Several years later he witnessed the tragedy of a civil war that tore his homeland apart from within. In school he excelled at math and science. He graduated from the National Technical University of Athens in 1965, and a chemical engineer was born.
He met his first wife Johanna “Jannie” de Beer while studying abroad in the Netherlands, served three years as an officer in the Greek army, earned a master’s degree in chemical engineering from Delft University of Technology, then married and moved to Chicago in 1970 to get his PhD in chemical engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology. In 1974, Costas and Jannie settled in Morristown and later Mendham, NJ where Costas began his career at Exxon and they raised their three children: Xeni, Markella and Tassos.
In the summer of 1994, Michele (Foisy) came into his life. They married on January 3, 1998 in Plaka, Greece and settled in Randolph, NJ. In 2001, his career took him to Fairfax, VA. An accomplished chemical engineer, with multiple patents and publications to his name, he dedicated his entire professional life to Exxon, now ExxonMobil. Michele and Costas welcomed their son Christopher in 1999.
Finally, in 2007, Costas embraced retirement in Wilmington, DE, relishing his new role as stay-at-home dad to his young son Chris, making chocolate chip pancakes for his granddaughters Saule and Simona, taking trips to Greece and Cyprus, and sitting on his deck savoring a freshly brewed coffee.
Costas is preceded in death by his first wife Jannie, who passed in 1990 from ALS and his brother Apostolis. He is survived by his loving wife of 25 years, Michele; his sister, Anastasia; his children, Xeni, Markella (Brent), Tassos (Rita), and Chris; and his seven grandchildren.
Special thanks to Mary Wright from Activities of Living for her care, generous heart, and kind spirit.
A visitation will be held at 1:00 PM on June 22nd at Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church, 808 N. Broom Street, Wilmington, DE 19806. The funeral service will follow at 2:00 PM and the makaria will follow, both at Holy Trinity, on June 22nd.
Burial will be on the following day, June 23rd, at 12:30 PM, in Hilltop Cemetery, 18 Hilltop Road, Mendham, NJ 07945. To send condolences visit: www.mccreryandharra.com. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church, www.holytrinitywilmington.org. We will miss our husband, father, brother and friend deeply. But Costas would want us to live by his aphorism, “Don’t worry about it”. May his memory be eternal.
