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Silences: My Mother's Will to Survive by Alice Tashjian Table of Contents Acknowledgments Foreword Preface Introduction Appendix Frances' Story-Ch. 1 Four Sons-Ch. 2 ThreeDaughters-Ch. 3 Missionaries-Ch. 4 Deportation-Ch. 5 To America-Ch. 6 Leon's Story-Ch. 7 
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Chapter 2 Four Sons I had four brothers. My oldest brother, Hemayag, helped my father in the family dry goods store. At home he was responsible for the care of the animals we housed in a shelter lean-to connected to the house. He, his wife, Propion, and their small child lived with us. We had a nice, large house. Early in my parents' marriage, my mother rented out half of it. When the children grew, and Hemayag married, the family enjoyed the space of the entire house. Hemayag was taken with my father to the prison; we heard they were separated and that they later killed Hemayag. When Propion was on the march, the Turkish soldiers killed her child. She, like many others like her, lost her mind and wandered until she died. We never heard about her again. My second oldest brother, Hamazasb, emigrated to the United States at the age of twenty. At that time, it was the custom of the Armenian families to find passage money and send at least one male member to another country to escape the Turks. Life as a male teenager was very precarious in those times. Many felt that they should save one member of the household to preserve the family name, and continue the lineage. One day I came home from school to find my mother crying. My father had decided that he must send Hamazasb away because there was again fear of another military conscription. Hamazasb elected to go to the United States for two reasons. First, he had studied English in addition to the required study of the Turkish and Armenian languages. Others had studied French. Second, and perhaps more enticing, he had classmates from Sivas who invited him to come to stay with them in an upstate village in New York State called Lestershire. My mother knew she would never see her son again. One who has never parted from one's child, knowing she will never see him again, will not realize how difficult separation is. It was this brother, Hamazasb, who later sent the money to bring me to America. On his arrival into the United States, this small, gentle, scholarly man lived in a room with five other young men from Sivas. They all found work in the local Endicott-Johnson Shoe factory. Immigrants from Greece, Italy, the Ukraine, Poland, Italy, Russia and Czechoslovakia worked side by side at the machines. The hands of this scholar once held the classics. Soon they were stained with black polish. When the finished shoe camet o his bench, he would touch-up any spots where the dye had not taken. That was his job from seven in the morning to six in the evening, five days in the week. The fact that such an educated man spent all his adult years enduring the monotony of piecework seems ironic. In the evenings, my children would watch him count several piles of coupons that measured the day's work. Nevertheless, it was work, in a country that was free, in a country in the depths of the depression, and he was grateful. Later Hamazasb moved into our home where he lived for more than ten years until he died. He never married. He had problems with his heart and was eventually unable to work. Ever present, he noticed and commented critically on all my cooking and housekeeping. Knowing he was ill and would be unable to work again, he saved every penny he could. He always made me feel obligated for the passage money he had sent me. Leon, my husband, never complained, but I muttered incessantly. Our house was small and an extra person was an added responsibility to me with my three children and a husband in the dry-cleaning business with demands and problems of his own. My brother was another person to feed, and the cause of additional laundry and cleaning. He never thought to thank me. He had a long illness. Because he had worked in the local shoe factory, with a company health plan, he, fortunately, managed to meet his needs. Looking back I realize he was a good man, an educated man who had left his homeland at a young age, alone, to make a new life in a new and very different country. He enjoyed being a warden of the Armenian Church and gave more generously to its support than I approved. He read an Armenian quarterly, called the"Gotchnag," regularly. He spent much of his time reading American as well as Armenian newspapers. He had definite, conservative political views that often differed from my husband's. Many an evening was spent in argument over the content of the evening news on the radio. In the end he did give me all the money he had left. I saved it. The amount was ten thousand dollars. The third son in the Parounagian family was Nishan. In Istanbul, at a Turkish College, he studied architecture and civil engineering. Before and during the first World War, he worked for the Turkish government. I remember one day when Nishan invited his Turkish employers to our house and, at his request, my mother cooked several courses of food for them. This was the custom in those days. Everyone was always welcome to come and enjoy a meal with us. We all helped. I was young, but old enough to serve with my sister. One of the guests suggested to mother, "Your girls are in danger. Perhaps, you should let us take these young women and protect them for what will inevitably come." My mother said nothing. However, from that moment on, she kept us girls in the kitchen and insisted that her sons continue with the serving. I have always felt the men meant well and, perhaps, our lives would have ended differently had the Turkish guests hidden us. Nishan was not among the men killed since he was needed by the Turkish government to work on the roads. Always under guard, he worked throughout World War I as slave labor. After the war, he returned to Sivas and begged me, his only surviving sister, to join him there. He felt so alone. I also missed my family and for a long time I considered returning. Much later, Nishan wrote from Armenia to Hamazasb and me in America. He had married a sweet girl named Araxie and asked money for his growing family, now living in the ravages of Sivas after the war. Hamazasb and I would send thirty-five dollars each month with our letters. We did this willingly, even if we too were hit by a depression that required careful evaluation of monies spent. My husband, Leon, approved and we were happy to help him. The names of his children were Zavag, Mourad, Antranig,and Sebu. These names were very foreign to my three children who gleefully enjoyed reciting them in unison. Each of Nishan's children was named for an Armenian freedom fighter. Our children, who enjoyed the pretty foreign stamps,were excited that they too had living cousins. Then, we did not hear from Nishan anymore. No further letters came. No longer did he ask for money. There were rumors that he took his family to Soviet Armenia. Their mail must have been intercepted. News reached us that he was working in reconstruction in Armenia. His work had been to tear down buildings and rebuild safe dwellings. We heard from a person who had returned with news from Armenia that a house under reconstruction fell on him and he died. We never had news of his family. Everyone was sad. Now all who remained from our very large family were Hamazasb and myself. The youngest son in our family was Karekin. Less than a year older than I, there were many occasions we would share interests and secrets with each other. He was kind and gentle and the whole family adored him. Early during the march, he left our group and hoped to escape. We never saw or heard from him again. None of us ever knew what happened to him. I think he was caught and killed that night. |
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