Kalousdian/Manassian
Yessayi and Siranoush Kalousdian were from the sanjak of Shabin-Karahisar which fell within the Sivas vilayet during the last years of the Ottoman Empire. It is possible that Yessayi’s village was called Abana.
Shabin-Karahisar (Շապին Գարահիսար, Turkish spelling Şebinkarahisar) was the birthplace of General Antranik Ozanian Pasha and the location of a month long heroic defense of the Shabin-Karahisar Armenians against Ottoman Turkish troops. The Shabin-Karahisar uprising (June 2–30, 1915) was a resistance effort by the Armenian militia of the Hunchaks of the Sivas province against Ottoman troops during the Armenian genocide and had resisted the Ottoman onslaught for the duration of a month. One can find a more detailed history of Shabin-Karahisar here, and a more detailed history of the uprising here. Today, Shabin-Karahisar falls within the Giresun District of present-day Turkey.
Dates and timelines come from a mix of immigration and ship’s manifest documents and oral histories from Siranoush and Yessayi Kalousdian, primarily from their recollections of life events during the first and second decade of the 1900’s. Existing gaps will be will be revised as additional factual information is revealed.
Yessayi (Isaac) Kalousdian
Yessayi (Epkimizian) Kalousdian was one of eight children born to Kalousd and Zanazan (Houspousian) in Shabin-Karahisar (Sivas), Ottoman Empire (present day Turkey). Yessayi had 4 brothers: Hagop, Barsegh, Levon and Sarkis as well as three sisters: Mariam, Aghavni and Nartouhi. Yessayi was born on May 10, 1898. Of all his brothers and sisters, his older brother Barsegh is the only known survivor of the Hamidian massacres.
At 34 years of age, Barsegh travelled from Istanbul to Marseille where, on December 21, 1913, he boarded the ROMA which arrived in Providence, RI on January 4, 1914. When he entered the United States, the family last name was changed to Kalousdian, after his father’s first name, Kalousd. He lived at 3 Brook Street in Whitinsville, MA which was likely a boarding house with other Armenian men as was the custom at that time.
Yessayi, at 18 years old, sailed from Marseille, France on the Madonna in steerage on January 3, 1914, arriving in Providence, RI on January 18, 1914 and stayed with his brother Barsegh in Whitinsville. On September 23, 1927, Yessayi was naturalized in Worcester, MA #2629614 at Supreme Court.
Siranoush Manassian
Siranoush was also from Shabin-Karahisar. She was born on May 15, 1904 to Margyanos and Poorastan Manassian. She had one older brother, Hmayak (also spoken as Hoomayat) and a younger brother, Aram. Margyanos’s brother (Siranoush’s paternal uncle) was Ohaness Manassian who was married to Vartuhi (last name unknown). Ohaness died of influenza. They had 4 children, the eldest Harutyun, Karekin, Markarit and Arshag. When Ohaness died from influenza, Vartuhi and her children moved in with Siranoush’s family. Arshag was born in Margyanos’s house.
Siranoush’s family had a farm on outskirts of town consisting of 10 fields of wheat and corn and two grapevines. Their house was located just below the church. Siranoush once recollected that one day she and her cousin Arshag took the family bulls and let them loose inside the church. Her father became very angry and her mother hid Arshag and Siranoush in the grapevines. Siranoush’s father was eventually conscripted into the Ottoman army.
The Manassians lived close to Turkish villages. When the Turkish soldiers invaded her village, her brothers, like everyone else, fled. Siranoush recalled feeling the earth shake, most likely from cannons. Hoomayat went to the nearby Turkish village to find food and was shot. Aram stayed with Siranoush before they were separated. When she was about twelve years old, she was pulled from her mother’s arms by Turkish gendarmes and sold to a Kurdish woman who had no daughter. Siranoush recalled staying one and a half years as a slave to a very beautiful Kurdish woman “with very white skin” whose name was Pambookh and her husband Mustafa. They had three sons; Hamo, Isat and the third name is unknown. Within three months of serving Pambookh and Mustafa’s family, Siranoush learned to speak Kurdish. But, she also had a cross visibly tattooed on her arm.
As the Turkish and Kurdish raids continued, Siranoush recalled, “If you were an Armenian, you were shot.” During that winter, the Turks announced that if anyone harbored Armenians they too would be executed. One morning as gendarmes surrounded the house, Mustafa told Siranoush to speak Kurdish and tell the gendarmes that her mother and father are Kurds from another village. Mustafa invited the officers into the house, offered them food and drink and told them there were no Armenians in the house, only Kurds. Convinced, the gendarmes left.
Although Pambookh wanted Siranoush to be her “daughter”, after one and a half years Pambookh and Mustafa sent Siranoush to Agin where Armenian orphans were collected. She briefly served in the home of an Armenian woman, who later took Siranoush to the home of a respected Turkish family where she remained for two years because she could not provide for her. Siranoush eventually escaped to the Bird’s Nest orphanage in Beirut, Lebanon in 1923. While in there, Siranoush began her search for her family members by placing her name in a notice in the Baikar Armenian newspaper. At the same time, Yessayi wrote to the orphanage indicating that he would like to marry a woman from his home, Shabin-Karahisar. This was already an established system to connect Armenians separated into diaspora as a result of the Genocide. Siranoush and other Armenian girls subsequently found their way to Cuba in 1926 where she remained until her voyage to America. Yessayi later sailed to Cuba to meet her.
Marriage and Family
Siranoush and Yessayi were married in Havana, Cuba on February 27,1926 by a Justice of the Peace. (Their marriage registration is recorded in book #281, folio #82, which was located by the very cooperative staff at Havana City Hall during an official visit there by their grandson, Van Krikorian.)
Around a month after the wedding, Yessayi left Havana without Siranoush on the SS Siboney on March 20, 1926 in steerage. He returned to Whitinsville via the Port of New York, applied for and obtained his naturalization and returned to Havana in 1927 to bring Siranoush with him to Whitinsville. Since she was now a wife of a US citizen, she was able to be classified as a “non-quota” immigrant and bypass the American immigration restrictions at that time. Siranoush obtained her American citizenship in 1941. According to the SS Mexico’s ship’s manifest, while waiting for her new husband to return, Siranoush was living with her closest friend (or relative) named N. Ablajahian whom Siranoush listed as “niece”. They resided on 87 Revillagigedo Street in the similarly named district of Havana.
When Yessayi, then 28, and Siranoush left Cuba together on December 7, 1927, they traveled by ship to the Port of New York on the SS Mexico, 2nd Cabin, and landed on December 11,1927, continuing to Providence and finally to Whitinsville by train. Yessayi was working at Whitin Machine Works at the time and remained there for 45 years as a molder in the foundry before retiring in 1968. It was grueling work, with multiple occupational hazards. Supporting an effort to unionize at the foundry, Yessayi ended up losing his seniority and starting over.
This is the last time Yessayi would be entering the United States: originally in 1914 from Constantinople/Marseille, then in 1926 from Havana, both times as an immigrant, and finally 1927 as a U.S. citizen with his new bride. They resided at 15 Elm Street, Whitinsville, the home of Kazar and Mary Demerjian, who eventually became the godparents to their children. According to the 1930 Census, the Kalousdian family resided at 133 Church Street and by 1940 had already moved to 29 Border Street in Whitinsville.
The Kalousdian family remained at 29 Border Street throughout the Great Depression raising their family of two girls, Agnes (Aghavni) and Prudence (Poorastan) and their son Sebouh. Border Street and much of New Village along C and D Streets were heavily populated with Armenian families, an ethnic ghetto. After WWII, they eventually bought a grand, two-family home on 19 Willow Street which was purchased from Whitinsville’s wealthy Rice family who were affiliated with the Whitin Machine Works. He tended his gardens at 19 Willow Street and the communal Victory gardens off Hill Streets in Whitinsville. He was a member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, Rosdom Chapter and often frequented the ARF Rosdom Club on Church Street after work.
Siranoush worked at the Kartiganer Hat company in Upton, MA for about 10 years while raising her family, making hats and millinery. She was an active member of Soorp Asdvadzadzin Armenian Church of Whitinsville and served as president of the Whitinsville “Garmir Khatch” (Armenian Red Cross later known as the Armenian Relief Society) as well as the church’s Dignatsmiutyun (Ladies Guild). She travelled to France by ship and twice hosted her only surviving first cousin Arshag Manassian who escaped the Turkish massacres and found refuge in Piraeus, Greece. Thinking him dead since 1915 when he had been bayoneted in the back, in the 1950s, Siranoush had heard a rumor that her cousin Arshag had survived. She placed ads in multiple Armenian newspapers and eventually found him, still bearing the scars from the Turkish bayonets. Arshag had been left for dead with other Armenian boys, but awoke and escaped to Greece where he lived a humble life selling soap. Siranoush would travel across the United States and to France in 1960 to reconnect with relatives there. Yessayi and Siranoush had nine grandchildren.
Siranoush passed away in December 1975.
Yessayi passed away at 83 in November 1981.
Both are buried at Pine Grove Cemetery in Whitinsville, MA.
Yessayi Kalousdian from Marseille to Providence
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Yessayi Kalousdian from Havana to NY without wife
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Yessayi Kalousdian from Havana to New York with wife
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Siranoush Kalousdian from Havana to New York
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