As a small child Eugenia Tsoulis, the eldest of six girls, lived with her grandmother and uncle on the hill overlooking Patra. Another uncle, she was told, had been assaulted and killed by partisans, and she was living with her grandmother because her father was a partisan and the soldiers might take her away.
Tsoulis arrived in South Australia with her parents when she was eight years old and they moved from house to house, and she from school to school. It was not until later that she came to understand the full impact of the migration experience on people like her father who was never reconciled to the fact that he would be buried in this country.
Her parents ensured that all their daughters had the chance for a good education. Tsoulis's educational qualifications include two years of a Law degree at the University of Adelaide in the 1960s, a psychiatric nursing certificate (Glenside Hospital 1967-1970), a Diploma in Secondary Teaching (University of SA, 1977), BEd (University of SA 1978) and Master of Arts, by research (Flinders University 1995). Following her training as a psychiatric nurse, she was sister-in-charge of the adolescent unit at Enfield Hospital (1970-75). She worked at Findon High School 1978-8 and as a counsellor at Thebarton High School 1985-6. In 1986-7 she was a consultant in Multicultural Curriculum Development to the combined SA universities, and researched and co-wrote the Nursing Awards texts for the Underdale College of Advanced Education (CAE) and the SA Institute of Technology.
From the late 1980s Tsoulis was involved with a number of multicultural programmes in South Australia and New South Wales in areas of research, policy development and conference co-ordination for the development of an Australian culture of diversity through the arts. From 1991-1995 she was director of the Migrant Workers Centre and, from 1997, executive director of the Migrant Resource Centre of SA. She was awarded the Order of Australia in the early 1990s for services to cultural diversity and the arts. An enthusiast for travel, her first book was written during a year based in France.
