Former “first lady” of Greece, Amalia Megapanou, passes away at 91.

Former “First Lady” of Greece, Anna Megapanou, a children books author, passed away at the age of 91.

Amalia Megapanou was the wife of the late prime minister Konstantinos Karamanlis (1907-1998), a conservative politician who served four times as prime minister of Greece.

Megapanou was considered as one of the most elegant women next to a Greek prime minister.

The niece of Panagiotis Kanellopoulos, who had served also as prime minister, she married Karamanlis in 1951 and followed him into self-imposed Paris in the 1960s. Their relationship ended in divorce in 1972 on the grounds of irreconcilable differences.

During the years of her husband’s prime ministership, Amalia Megapanou never interfered in politics, never gave interviews or was publicly involved in any issue.

Her education, physical kindness, modesty and intelligence helped her understand that she was rather overqualified for the game of politics as it was played in Greece at the time.

“I don’t intervene into my husband’s job because he does it very well,” he told the American press, when she visited together with her first husband the White House.

Megapanou wrote more than a dozen books under the name of her second husband, prominent obstetrician Epameinondas Megapanos.