Rose Ovian

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Transcription

00:00 - 00:24
RO: Well, I was born in Whitinsville, 11/6/1924. And my name at the time was Ardemis Megerdichian.
00:24 - 00:27
GJ: And what is it now?
00:27 - 00:59
RO: And I lived in what they call "The Beehive" on...I forgot the name..."Mechanic Street." The Whitin, the machine works, the factory. There was a train in the back, and the factory was in back of that train. And we lived on this side of it. All Armenians, all Armenians, and most of them were Bazmashentsi. And a few Sursuretsi.
00:59 - 01:02
GJ: This is in Whitinsville?
RO: This is Newton Upper Falls.
01:03 - 01:30
GJ: Okay.
RO: Okay. So then from Newton Upper Falls, as I grew a little bit older,like, what grade was I in? And I can't remember of what grade I was in, I must've been in the third grade. I went to Biddeford, Maine. And then from Biddeford, Maine, I came to Whitinsville. We did live in Whitinsville for a while where I was born, but we moved out of there.
01:33 - 02:00
GJ: Okay.
RO: Wait a minute. No, I don't want to scramble this all up. I grew up in Whitinsville. We moved out of Whitinsville. No, Newton Upper Falls, from Newton Upper Falls, we went to Biddeford, Maine, and when we came back, we ended up in Whitinsville. That's where I went to school most of my life.
02:00 - 02:39
GJ: How old were you when you were in Whitinsville?
RO: When I was in Whitinsville, I'm trying to think, Whitinsville, um, If I was in, I was, no, when I was in the third grade, I went to Biddeford, Maine. When we came back from Maine, Where did I end up? Somebody came to Biddeford, Maine, and took us back to Whitinsville. That's when I was away. I must've been in the fourth grade. Something like that.
02:40 - 04:29
GJ: Uh huh.
RO: I came to Whitinsville, I must have been about eight years old. I don't know, and all my life was Whitinsville, you know, Until I met my husband and I did not know him in Whitinsville. He was already in Worcester. And so most of my life was with that Whitinsville. We had an AYF (Armenian Youth Federation), we joined the AYF, we gave dances, Armenian. Then they had picnics. My father-in-law had a farm, and they called it Soghos's Farm. My husband grew up on that farm, but I did not know him then. And um, they left Whitinsville, they came to Worcester. But I spent most of my life in Whitinsville until I got married and I graduated from high school there. And I had a lot of friends there. Like there was Philip Ovian, he's dead, the priest, Father Leo. He's gone. There was, who else did we have? My girlfriend, Sue Martin. And she was a Harabedian. And there was Mary Ann Mantashigian (?) but she was older than me. One year. There was Mary Ann, Mantashigians grew up on Spring Street. Her father was a, her father was a barber.
04:29 - 04:33
GJ: They were related to the Bedoian. They were related to Mary Bedoian.
04:34 - 06:12
RO: They were? Well, the Bazmashentsi were all related. Then there was a, when I went to Whitinsville, I got to know all the Arakelians first. We lived in Kerope’s three-family house, near the church. My father got a tenement there when we came back to Whitinsville and we were on the first floor and we were there for a couple, a year maybe. Then we went into a better apartment. We got out of there because my father had a hard time getting an apartment, because it was five kids and everybody didn't want to give an apartment to five kids. But my father had to get us out to Whitinsville because he got a job. And this Mr. Machoian, he knew my father, he wanted my father to go to Whitinsville. He knew my father well. He said, "Come to Whitinsville, I've got a job for you." So my father was a molder. So he went back and he did molding. He was a molder in the Whitin Machine Works and we went to school there and most of my life was there. And who were my friends? Lucy was younger than me, there was Lucy. Then there was the Varteresians Ethel, Alice. Alice married that...What's his name? Garabedian.
06:12 - 07:59
GJ: Uh huh.
RO: I think he's still alive. What was his first name? Well, I can't think of it now, but any other time I would know. But I'm talking about it and now I'm forgetting. So anyway, Oh, Gaba, Gaba was Joe Bedoian, Johnny Bedoian’s friend. And then there was Gus Ovian. Gus Ovian. And, of course, I grew up with all the Ovians, like the Ovians on Church Street. Like Larry, there was a Larry. His name was Antranig when he was a kid. But later on he changed it to Larry. But my husband wasn't born "Larry" Ovian. He was born "Loris." And when he went to school, they must have, he must have changed it to "Laurence." And so anyway, the Ovians lived near the Catholic Church. The Arakelians lived down the street in the back. And I knew them all. Then Lucy Mooradian moved in from Providence. And she lived near me. And we became friends. She was a kid, too. And then there was the Malkasians, up in Plummers. Then there was Ari, Arshod, we used to call him, Ari, (Arthur) what was his name? Ari Mooradian.  You know the Mooradian...You know the Mooradian boys? So he married Sona. And, uh, but I still lived in Whitinsville. And I worked in the Whitin Machine Works for a while before the war.
08:05 - 08:12
GJ: Wow, so your dad worked as a molder in the foundry?
RO: In the foundry! Most of them were in the foundry, unless they had a profession or a business.
08:12 - 08:15
GJ: Did you ever go into the foundry to visit your dad?
08:16 - 09:04
RO: I used to take my father...My sister and I, my mother used to make lunch for him. And I went to Clark School and she'd meet us halfway, lunchtime, she'd give us my father a hot lunch, and we'd take it to the Whitin Machine Works. We'd go right down to the foundry and I'd give it to my father. My sister and I would hand it to my father, so he would have a hot lunch. So I did go down in the foundry and I saw. My father was an excellent molder. He was very good at it. And they liked that about him. And anyway, he worked there for a long time.
09:05 - 09:10
GJ:  What do you remember when you went down to the foundry? What? Do you remember anything about it? What it looked like?
09:10 - 09:29
RO: Oh, it was like a dirt floor, you know, they had big castings and the men would fill the, whatever it is, the cement, whatever they used to fill in those bins, they had to smooth. That's all. I didn't stay there long. I just gave him the lunch and I walked out.
09:30 - 09:36
GJ: Was it all Armenian in the foundry?
RO: All Armenians. Yeah, there were a lot of Armenians.
09:37 - 09:46
GJ: And so that was the probably the worst job in the, that was probably the worst place to work at Whitin Machine Works, that was probably the hardest, I shouldn't say the worst, I should say the hardest job.
09:48 - 10:02
RO: That's all they knew. It was a job. It was at the Depression time. And then for a while, they were out of work, too, some of them. But anyway, by that time, we had grown up.
10:04 - 10:08
GJ: What was that? Do you remember what the picnics were like?
10:12 - 10:15
RO: Yeah, Soghos's Farm. My father-in-law had a place. And they had the picnics there.
10:15
GJ: Where was that?
10:17 - 10:37
RO: You know, I can’t explain it. When you go, from Church Street, when you go to New Village. You go, stay on your left. And there's a place there, and I think the Catholics have a place there.
10:37 - 10:42
GJ: Uh huh.
RO: I don't know. We went to a wedding there once.
10:42 -
GJ: And what was the, what was the picnic like? Was it mostly all Bazmashentsi?
10:46 - 11:11
RO: Whoever lived in Whitinsville. Sursuretsis, Bazmenshetizies. There was a lot of Keghitsis. My husband was Keghitsis. Half was Keghitsis, half was Bazmashentsi. The Sursuretsis was by the numbers. You know, you could count them. And there was others.
11:11 - 11:16
GJ: So what happened at the picnic? What was it like?
RO: Oh, it was a picnic. They had a davul-zurna, and all that stuff.
11:16 - 11:32
GJ: What is that?
RO: Yeah. You know, the zurna, the clarinet, the davul, and all that stuff [gestures as if playing an instrument]. The drum, dumbeg, you know, that's all they had. They had picnics.
11:32 - 11:48
GJ: So, people would dance?
RO: Yeah. They'd get up and dance, mostly the kids. Yeah, the guys were young, then, you know, the men were young then, the parents. And we were young kids, but we'd go and it would be an outlet.
11:49
GJ: And people would bring food. And what kind of food would they bring? What kind of food would they bring?
11:55 - 12:33
RO: Well, they made shish kebab and that's it. Yeah. I don't remember the food, so well because we never got involved in that, but a lot of people took their own. Even like when we went on a bus to Marlborough for them, what you call it, the picnics. They had a picnic in Marlborough and the Whitinsville would hire a bus and we'd all get on that bus, pay our way. They'd meet us at the clubhouse, and we'd go to the Marlborough picnic.
12:34 - 12:40
GJ: Nice. How often were the picnics?
RO: Well, they used to have a picnic once a year in Marlborough.
12:41 - 13:13
GJ: How about in Whitinsville?
RO: Whitinsville? They had a few, not too many. Then they'd have, then they'd have one up in Plummers, somewhere there, they had a place, they had music and you'd go--not so much food--but it was the music. And we'd dance. Young kids like me, we were teenagers. We would dance and that was it.
13:14 - 13:20
GJ: What was, what's your earliest memory of understanding that you were Armenian?
13:21 - 13:25
RO: When I was a young kid, I knew I was Armenian.
13:25
GJ: What did your parents tell you?
13:27 - 13:44
RO: Yeah, well, because we went to Armenian school. And I used to be in a play once, and I had to do a play. And it was about water, pour the water, and I used to have the lead in one of them.
13:45
GJ: What was, what did your parents tell you about your own family history?
13:53 - 14:36
RO: Well, my mother used to talk about the Kinoian family. She was a Kinoian. They were big clan, just like the Ovians. They were big, but they ended up in Rhode Island. And that's where my mother went first when she came to America, because her sister was there and, um, and my father went over there and that's how they met. He knew my mother's family, they were neighbors. He knew my mother's family. They, they got married and came to Whitinsville after. Central Falls and then they came to Whitinsville. And that's when they used to say there was a train that used to come in from Central Ville, Centerville.
14:37 - 15:17
RO: You know, that was next to Woonsocket or something. My mother got married in Centerville, but she came to Whitinsville, and that's where we were all born. Except for my brother John. The one that owned the bridal shop. He was born in Worcester. Because my father did come to Worcester, then he went back. That's why I spent the rest of my years there. And as far as the Armenians were, we belonged to all Armenian things. And of course, we weren't too popular in Whitinsville because we were Armenians.
15:18 - 15:22
GJ: What was that like? When you say you weren't too popular, why do you say that?
15:23 - 15:32
RO: Well, they didn't, they didn't hurt us or anything. But they looked down on us, you know.
15:33
GJ: Who? Who looked down on you? Who looked down on you? Who?
15:46 - 16:20
RO: Well, odars, like the Irish, and the, Yeah, they looked down on us, but then I think they got to know us as we got older, from high school. Because we graduated with a lot of smart people from high school. We had the Ahmadjians up on Elm Street. They went to West Point. They went to, you know, all these good schools. And, I don't know, it changed. The war changed a lot of things, too.
16:21 - 16:25
GJ: Oh, and people came back from the war and there was less discrimination.
16:25 - 16:45
RO: Yeah. They came back from the war. A lot of, a lot of guys went to college. You know, then there was Dr. Atamian. He was um, well, when you say Dr. Atamian, he was Dr. Adams and he married a Germagian girl.
16:46
GJ: Hmm.
16:47 - 17:28
RO: Germagian. They lived in back of us. There was Agnes. And then there was Tilly. They had a brother named Henry. They had a sister named Helen that married Dr. Adams. He was an Atamian, and he lived in that three decker next to the church. It was his house and his father owned that house. His name was Kerope. And, um, he grew up there. He was very quiet, Charlie, and I was friendly with his sister, you know.
17:29 - 17:41
GJ: So when your, who actually came over first in your family on your mother or father's side, when did they come over to the United States?
17:42 - 18:11
My father was here before the big genocide. They wouldn't let him go back. They said, "You can't go back." "There's a big war over there." But my mother came through Iraq and I think she went through to.... She was there for about a year, so she remembers Merdin, Baqubah, she remembers those names in Iraq.
18:13
GJ: That's where she lived?
18:15 - 18:35
RO: She lived in, well, they lived in the fields. And then they went into the villages and they were good to her. They were good to them, but they wanted to marry. You know, they'd come and they'd want to marry her. She was a young girl. She says, "No," she says, "I'm going to America, my family's over there."
18:36
GJ: Did she go through the genocide?
18:38
RO: She knows the genocide, yeah.
18:40
GJ: What happened? Do you know her story?
18:42 - 20:00
RO: Well, she, the only thing I know of my mother in the genocide was, she was a little girl and the Turks went into the house. And she says, she had three cousins, but the Armenians, the brothers lived together, you know, so they considered, my mother considered him as her brother, not her cousin. She says, Haigaz, aghpar and his brother, two brothers. She says, Haigaz, aghpar was not there. We call him my mother's brother, but it was really a first cousin. He says, Haigaz, Aghpar was not there, but the two brothers were there when the Turks walked in. They took them. My mother said "I never saw them after that." My mother, I don't know how she got out of there, but she got out of there. They took what they had and they went through the deserts. And they used to sleep in the grounds. And the Turks used to come looking for them. Young girls. And my aunt, Tourvanda,
20:01 - 20:39
RO: Her picture is over there [points] My Aunt Tourvanda was in Pawtucket. My Aunt Tourvan was the oldest one. And she was watching. whoever was with her, her family. And my mother was lying down, with a blanket over her because it was nighttime, and she had potato peels on her head, and when the Turks used to come, she goes, "She's a very sick girl." They never bothered her.
20:39
GJ: So your aunt made it out. Did your, did your grandmother make it out?
20:44 - 21:30
RO: I never knew my grandparents, but we got pictures of them. My brother has a picture of my grandfather and the relatives. The others. They never came to America. My father had his sister and brother. They ended up in France. I don't know how, they ended up in France, but my father got to America. He came with some other Sursuretsis. You know, he came to get a job, make money and send it. That's when he was going to go back, and they said, 'You can't go back." Government says "You can't go back."
21:31
GJ: Well, people did go back and got killed. So it's a good thing that...
21:34
RO: They wouldn't let him. They wouldn't give him a, you know,
21:38
GJ: A visa or passport....
21:40 - 21:45
RO: Yeah. So that's what happened with them. And then I don't know what else I can say.
21:45 - 21:59
GJ: Well, if you, if they were, if any of them were alive today, is there a question you'd want to ask them? Is there a question you'd like to ask your grandmother, your grandfather, if they were alive?
21:59 - 22:02
RO: I wish I had asked more. More about the family.
22:02 - 22:08
GJ: Uh huh.
RO: Because there was other brothers and sisters I didn't know about.
22:09
GJ: What would you like to ask?
22:11 - 22:31
RO: I was going to say, what about your other brothers and your other sisters? I only knew the ones that came to America. Like Sarkis Der Bedrosian, her mother. His mother was my mother's sister. And then there was my Aunt Turvanda, they were Kanoians.
22:31
GJ: Uh huh.
22:32 - 22:50
RO: That's why they ended up in Pawtucket because the Kinoians were in Pawtucket and they came before the war. They came before the big genocide. They were there. So. You know, they had a place.
22:53 - 23:02
GJ: Is there anything you would, was it odd growing up without grandparents? I mean, everybody else...
22:03 - 23:51
RO: I knew I wasn't the only one with no grandparents, and I never thought much of it. But my mother used to always be so sad and talk about her relatives. She's, you know, about the, about the garden, about her donkey. She had a donkey, it was her donkey. And she'd just talk about that and, I don't know. She was very young when they left. The Turks came in, but, nobody ever abused her, though. She was lucky. But I don't know how they get out of there. I don't know that. All I know is they ended up in Iraq.
23:54 - 24:06
GJ: If, you know....So, how do you think you, how do you think being Armenian influenced you as a person?
24:10 - 24:14
RO: Well, it made me very independent, I know that.
GJ: How so?
24:16 - 24:38

RO: You know, I was able to learn a lot from my mother, how to cook, what to make. You know, things like that. Our history, what kind of people we were. Why the Turks invaded us, because we were… we were a good race. And they didn't want us around.
24:41
GJ: And did it make you...
24:49
RO: We were always intimidated a little by foreigners.
24:56 - 25:04
GJ: Interesting. Going back, you said, you, you learned how to cook with your mother. What were her favorite dishes to cook? What were your mother's favorite things to cook?
25:08 - 25:29
RO: She used to make pilaf. She used to make Vospov Kheyma. All kinds of soups. She made pizza, her own pizza, but she made it with the thick dough. She didn't use that thin, thin dough. And we had, Yalanchi, I remember when she made yalanchi, she used to put grapes, green grapes on the top.
25:30
GJ: Wow.
25:30 - 25:39
RO: Yeah. And cook it, you know, after she rolled it and packed it. And then she put the green grapes...
25:40
GJ: For flavor? That's a very good idea.
25:43 - 25:48
RO: Don't forget, you know, in those days they didn't have all the flavorings you buy in the stores.
25:50
GJ: Yeah, but the green grapes would be like lemons, right? They'd have that, you know, that tart…
25:53
RO: They were sour.
25:57
GJ: Yeah. That's excellent. That's a good idea.
25:58 - 26:01
RO: And we used to make Turkish coffee for our parents.
26:01
GJ: Uh huh.
26:02 - 27:07
RO: Learned how to make it. And trying to think of different things. We used to do, help our mothers in the house a lot. You know. They used to make pahtz hatz. My father, they used to buy a 50 lb. bag of flour. Well, you can't knead it with your hands because they used to make it, put it barrels. Make the pahtz hatz, and put the pahtz hatz in the barrel because you can't eat it all at once. They used to make it for, for like a month or so. And my, my my mother would bake it and my father would--I say "shagel"--knead it. He would knead it. But you know how? He'd wear white socks, put a clean sheet, put the dough there and close it and did it with his feet. That's how he kneaded it.
27:09
GJ: Wow.
27:09
RO: You think he did it with his hands? They didn't have no machines.
27:13
GJ: What kind of bread is that, when you say, I don't know that bread.
27:17
RO: Pahtz hatz! Armenian bread.
27:20
GJ: Oh, the flat, the flat bread. Yeah. And how many would they make at a time?
27:25 - 27:31
RO: Oh, he used to have a barrel full, so we had enough for like a month or whatever.
27:31
GJ: Wow, that's so cool.
27:32 - 27:42
RO: Then they'd make it again, if they ran out. Where do you think they got it? They couldn't buy it, but they all had Pahtz hatz. They all made it.
27:42
GJ: And they made it in just the regular oven?
27:45
RO: It was a wooden oven. That was good. Wood and coal.
27:55
GJ: Wow.
27:56
RO: That's how they made it beautiful.
28:00 - 28:04
GJ: So you, tell me the names of your brothers and sisters.
28:05 - 28:26
RO: Well, the ones I know was, uh, Yeghsapet. Elizabeth. Yeghsapet. Turvanda. And my mother was Almas. I don't remember any others. She had another sister, I know. I don't know, I think it was Mariam, I'm not sure.
28:27
GJ: How about your brothers and sisters?
28:29 - 28:44
RO: My brothers and sisters? It was me, my sister Agnes. She was older. My brother John. My brother Suren. And my brother Eddie. It was five of us.
28:46
GJ: And how many children did you have?
28:49 - 28:54
RO: I've got three boys. I got the three boys. They were born in Worcester.
28:55
GJ: Larry, Bobby and Richie?
28:56 - 29:04
RO: Larry, Bobby and Richard and I married Larry, and I never knew Larry. I only met him at a picnic.
29:06
GJ: Uh huh. How long did you know him before you got engaged?
29:09
RO: About nine months.
29:11
GJ: Okay.
29:16
RO: Not long. I don't think it was long. You know, we dated, but not much.
29:23 - 29:32
GJ: Uh huh. Did your parents and his parents know each other? Did your parents and his parents know each other?
29:33 - 29:57
RO: From Whitinsville. Yeah. But they weren't buddies, you know. They just knew each other. They were Keghitsi. We were Sursuretsi. And they lived up on Elm Street. And we lived up on the other end of Church Street. But we know them. They were Dashnaktsagan (an Armenian political party). So we all went to the same club. We used to have dances in that club.
29:58
GJ: I love that club. I remember that as a young child. It was fantastic.
30:02 - 30:53
RO: We used to have dances in there. We used to have a hantes there. Once, the soldiers came home from the war, and we had a group of girls like myself. So we wanted to honor them, soldiers. So we put on a big shindig in that club.

And Sue and I were in the, you know, we were part of that and we put on a big dance and we made money. Well, this is before they came home, when we made money to send over to make packages. So we put on that affair. And then when they came home, at the Pythian Building, we gave a big dance. We had a big dance and we all went to that dance.
30:55
GJ: Wow. Lucy has pictures of that in her photo album.
31:58
RO: I don't have any pictures of that.
31:00
GJ: Lucy does.
31:03
How did she get those?And I never did?
31:05
GJ: Well, they're on the website. So Richie can show you.
31:11
RO: I'd like to see them.
31:13 - 31:31
GJ: Yeah, some of them. The parade. She has pictures of the parade that happened when people came home. So what was it like dating when everybody was at war? Because you were probably like, 18, 19, 20 years old. Did you date any young men?
31:31
RO: Who, me?
31:32
GJ: Yeah.
31:32 - 31:44
RO: Yeah, there was. But it was funny. A lot of times, somebody would ask me and I didn't want to go. Because, I don't know, I would look at them and I'd go "No." I'm funny like that.
31:45
GJ: So you moved to Worcester in the 1940s?
32:49
RO: Did I what?
32:50
GJ: When did you move to Worcester?
31:52
RO: When I got married.
31:55
GJ: What year was that?
31:56
RO: He was already here.
31:57
GJ: What year was that?
31:58
RO: 1950 something, ‘51 or something.
32:04
GJ: Ok, so what, you lived here? In this house?
32:12
RO: No, I lived on Dewey Street.
32:15
GJ: Okay.
32:16 - 33:37
RO: My father-in-law owned a three-family house, and we moved there. And my father-in-law and brother-in- law lived with me. In those days, it was different. Then my brother-in-law got married and my father-in-law lived upstairs with his daughter, which was, that's the way it should be. You don't want to live with your daughter-in-law. But it was all right with me. It was all right, you know, and we owned, and that was on Dewey Street. When we went from Dewey Street to a--then my husband bought the three decker and that's where my sister-in-law lived in the second floor. She got married. Louise. Louise got married. She was born in Whitinsville. Marjorie was born in Whitinsville. What's his name? Berg. These are my husband's family. Berg was born in Whitinsville. My sister-in-law was a Jaffarian. Her mother was my mother-in-law, but not her father-in-law. But it was one family. Lucy. Remember Margaret Jaffarian and Horan?
33:37
GJ: Uh huh.
33:38
RO: Well, their mother was my father's oldest sister.
33:42
GJ: Oh, wow.
33:45
RO: Yeah. They died early.
GJ: Uh huh.
33:48 - 34:21
RO: Horan died early. Margaret died early. I don't know what ever happened to their son, Michael. I don't know. I haven't heard anything. He's alive or not. But you know, Carol and Laura Jaffarian, from Worcester. They're part of that family, but they're nice. You know, they, they're very, they're teachers. One works for the hospital. She's a medical thing and they're nice. They work for our church.
34:22 - 34:28
GJ: Do you know anything about your, do you know anything about your husband's ancestors?
34:30 - 34:47
RO: I'm trying to think. His mother and father. My, my husband's mother and father. Well, my husband's father lived with me, but his mother was living, yeah.
34:47
GJ: When did they come over?
34:47 - 35:05
RO: Well, they came. Well, I don't know. When they came over, my father-in-law was a bachelor. He was a widower. And my mother-in-law was already here, I think. I don't know, I'm guessing. And. And they got matched up.
35:05
GJ: Uh huh.
35:07 - 35:58
RO: And then my, my husband, my brother-in-law Berg, Marjorie, and Louise were born. They got the same mother and father. Then Sandra's father wasn't even in the picture. He was across, somewhere. So I guess when my father-in-law first got married, I don't know how my brother-in-law, Kiko, was in a prison in Turkey. I don't know if you know that? In Turkey and he escaped. And I don't know how he did it, but he swam and he got out of there and he ended up in the United States somehow, and he found out where all the Keghitsi were. Came to Whitinsville.
35:59
GJ: So it was common that a lot of people from the same village moved to the same place.
36:03
RO: That's why my mother and father were in Providence.
36:06
GJ: So they created a community, kind of like in Turkey, but here, in a way,
36:12
RO: Yeah.
36:13
GJ: So, what do you think was so special about Whitinsville?36:18 - 36:36
RO: Well, the work, for one thing. They were very...I don't know, we all ended up in Whitinsville. And we....Because they are the same Keghitsis, most of them, Bazmashentsis, Sursuretsis, Keghitsis.
36:39
GJ: But there was a special community? You thought it was a special community?
36:41
RO: They all knew each other.
36:43
GJ: Yeah.
36:47
RO: They knew their parents in the back.
36:51
You know, back years.
36:55 - 37:07
GJ: Yeah. That's interesting. Did I, I can't think of any more questions, but if you were going to leave a message to your great grandchildren, what would you want to say to them, ten years from now?
37:08 - 37:24
RO: Well, my my son Bobby used to talk to that one, he’s half odar, Tahleen, she knows all about the Armenians. They sang in the Armenian church. Tahleen, Nishan, and Zaven, they all got Armenian names.
37:26 - 37:35
GJ: But what what would you want to say to them? What, what lessons would you want them to take away from their heritage?37:38 - 38:06
RO: That we are a very intelligent race. They know that, because we got a lot of smart people. Our foods are great. They know that. They love all the Armenian foods. I would say, they're lucky to be Armenians. We, we came from a wonderful country. But this is what happened to us. So they know the history. My grandchildren know the history already.
38:07
GJ: Good.
38:08 - 38:17
RO: Because their mother was, my daughter-in-law is Armenian. His mother was French. She knows something, but not at all.
38:18
GJ: Uh huh Well, great. Well, thank you.
38:22 - 38:36
RO: They, they went to all the Armenian affairs and they went to Camp Haiastan. My grandchildren, even he [RO points] even he went to Camp Haiastan. My three boys were at Camp Haiastan every year.
38:36 - 38:46
GJ: Well, there's a friend of mine whose kids are half Armenian and half French, and he said, "My kids are 100% Armenian and they're 100% French."
38:47
RO: Yeah.
38:49 - 38:53
GJ: Which I think is a nice way of thinking about it. Well, I think that's about it. Is there anything else you'd like to say?
38:53
RO: So, I don't know what you're going to do with that?
38:55
GJ: Well, I'm going to put this....
38:57
RO: Not the whole thing.
38:59 - 39:05
GJ: Probably not. But part of it's going to the University of Southern California for Richard Hovannisian's research library.
39:05
RO: We got relatives in Fresno, you know, but I don't know if they're gone.
39:09
GJ: That's just, that's just for the research library. And then parts of this will go on to our website for the Armenians of Whitinsville, with your family's story.
39:20 - 39:29
RO: There was a lot, there was a lot, but mostly Bazmashentsis in Whitinsville. The Arakelians, there was a slew of them.
39:29
GJ: We're Parchanjtsis. My family's Parchanjtsis
39:34
RO: Say that again?
39:36
GJ: My family's from Parchanj and Arapkir
39:39
RO: Oh.
39:40
GJ: My mother's side is from Arapkir. My father's side is Parchanj.
39:46
RO: I never heard of them.
39:48
GJ: Well, good.
39:52
RO: Now, was that...
39:56 - 40:00
GJ: In Kharpert. It's in Kharpert. It's in the Kharpert area. It's in the Kharpert area.
40:01 - 40:03
RO: Oh, Kharpert area? They must know of it.
40:03
GJ: Yeah.
40:06
RO: Yeah, because my son found Sursure on the map.
40:09
GJ: Uh huh.
40:14 - 40:24
RO: You know, in Kharpert, the school, what do they call it? The school…and you go further down, about this much on the map, and you see Sursure.
40:25
GJ: So I think that's where the earthquake hit, right? Recently, the earthquake was in Sursure?
40:29 - 40:45
RO: See, my Uncle Haigaz must have gotten educated because he used to write in Mshag, the newspaper. He used to write in the Mshag all about what went on in Armenia. And the genocide.
40:46
GJ: This was your uncle?
40:48
RO: My Uncle Haigaz. But he didn't live in Whitinsville. He lived in Pawtucket and Worcester.
40:56
GJ: And he was your mother's relative?
40:58 - 41:05
RO: He's the one I said they called him their brother, but he was a first cousin. But as far as we know, he was my mother's brother.
41:07 - 41:14
GJ: Wow. Do you guys have any of those writings left? Do you have any of those newspaper articles? Was it in the Hairenik?41:15
RO: I thought about it one day. I said, "How come I never kept one?"
41:18
GJ: Wow.
41:20
RO: The Mshag.
41:21
GJ: Interesting. Okay. Well, I think that's about it. Thank you.
41:26
RO: It was a paper like the Hairenik. It was a newspaper.
41:31
GJ: Oh, it was called the Mshag?
41:35
RO: And he used to write about my mother and his sisters.
41:40
GJ: Oh, my God.
41:41
RO: He was smart. You could tell by his handwriting, that he was educated.
41:48
GJ: It's too bad you don't have those.
41:49
RO: I know. What a shame.
Richie:Maybe Anna has them, Ma.
41:51
RO: Huh?
41:52
Richie: Maybe Anna has them.
41:54
RO: No, I never saw it. I don't know.
41:57
Richie: Anna?
41:58
GJ: Maybe Anna? Anna?
42:02
RO: I don't know. I'm not in touch with Anna.
42:05
Richie: She lives in Fresno.
42:06
GJ: You should ask her. I mean.
42:08
RO: I don't know, if she kept them. I don't know.
42:11
Ritchie: My cousin Johnny is friends with her on Facebook.
42:13
RO: Do you talk to her?
42:15
Richie: No, but she's on Facebook.
42:18
RO: Well, ask her.
42:21
GJ: Yeah. Ask her, Rich.
42:22
Ritchie: I sent her a request and she didn't get back to me.
42:24
RO: Because there was a lot of stories in there that he wrote about.
42:28
GJ: Was he Dashnaktsagan also? Yeah.
42:33
My family, the whole family, the whole clan was Dashnaktsagan, except my Aunt Turvanda.
42:40
GJ: What was she?
42:41
RO: Her husband was a Ramgavar (Armenian political party).
42:43
GJ: My relatives were Dashnak and Hnchak (Armenian political parties).
42:47
RO: Oh, Hnchak. That's what Lucy is, a Hanchag.
42:51
GJ: Oh, I didn't know that.
RO: Yeah, Lucy's family was Hnchak.
42:57
GJ: Wow.
42:57 - 43:10
RO: But the Hnchakans were a cross between the Dashnaks and the Ramgavars. They were in the middle, but they kind of leaned a little bit on the Ramgavar side, because they went to the Ramgavar church.
43:11
GJ: Oh, interesting.
RO: Yeah.
43:12
GJ: I had an uncle who was picked to assassinate another Hnchaktsagan when he was 19.
43:18
RO: He was a Dashnak?
43:20
GJ: Hnchak.
43:21
RO: And he was assassinated by who?
43:24
GJ: He was picked to shoot somebody else, to shoot another Hnchak. A journalist. Years ago. 1910 in Roxbury.
43:33 - 43:57
RO: I remember one time my husband said he was traveling on the train. I was married to him and he met a guy that was Hnchak, but he didn't tell him what he was. But he knew he was Hnchak, so they were just conversing and he listened to him. He says, "I let him talk, but I knew he was a Hnchak," but he sat next to him in the train.
43:59 - 44:04
GJ: Yeah, the Armenian community was really split by the politics early on, unfortunately.
44:05
RO: You know what? That politics split up all the Armenians.
44:09
GJ: It did.
44:10 - 44:43
RO: It did get a job on them. It was a shame, because you married a boy that was, you went with a boy that was Ramgavar. Then the families get involved. No, it's my church. No, it's my church. You know what I mean? If you married your own, you had no problem. But if you married a boy on the other side or a boy married someone on the other side, families would get involved, make it very hard for the kids.
44:43
GJ: It was hard enough marrying an Armenian, never mind marrying an Armenian from the right political party.
44:47 - 45:16
RO: They used to say “Hye ar, Hye ar, Hye ar” ( “take an Armenian”) get married to an Armenian girl or boy. And when you met somebody that was Ramgavar or Dashnaktsagan, then they'd get involved, let it alone. No, they didn't. Yeah. They made it very difficult, the families would. But I had no problem. And my brother didn't either.
45:20
Okay. Well, thank you.
45:21
RO: The one in Brockton. He married an Armenian, they were Dashnagzagan.
45:27
GJ: I think we're done. I'll shut this off.
45:31
RO: Oh, my God. I don't know. Will I ever see what you put in there?
45:36
GJ: You can if you want.

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