Peter Boyajian
Eng 101-28-5
4-20-09
"Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"
-Adolf Hitler, 1939
--
One of the most defining characteristics among all of us is our approach to the concept of forgiveness. Many people regrettably view forgiveness as insignificant. It is my opinion that we should always strive to forgive those who have wronged us. This opinion is entirely influenced by my religion. In Matthew 18:21-22 it says "Then Peter came to Him and said, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven. (NKJV)" Most people are exposed to teaching such as this at some point, even if it is not specifically from a religious point of view, forgiveness is generally looked upon as a positive character attribute. Collosians 3:13 reads "bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do." Our Lord and savior Jesus Christ died for our sins, so therefore we must follow his perfect example and likewise excersise forgiveness. Over the course of my life, there is one wrong that has been committed against me and my family that I have had a hard time forgiving.
Every time the topic of the Armenian Genocide is brought up or discussed, I find myself suppressing a burning rage inside of me against those who slaughtered my fellow Armenians of generations past. In order to understand this anger however, here is a brief factual overview of what exactly happened during the Turkish Genocide of the Armenians. Acts of substantial violence by the Turks against Armenians first started around 1894, with the Hamidian Massacres, although tensions had been high for some time before. In the span of merely seven months, from April to October of 1915, the Armenian population was nearly annihilated with the merciless killing of over 1.5 million men, women, and children.
This massacre is what brought my great grandmother to the United States, luckily before the Genocide was in full swing. However, her experiences prior to emigrating were so enraging that I still struggle with whether I can honestly forgive such atrocities or not. My great grandmother Anastasia's father was a minister. In 1908, he had a new suit made in preparation for a ministers conference. While he was at the conference, Turkish officers came into the conference room and said "If you embrace the Islamic religion you will all be saved. If you don't you will all be killed. " Her father asked for 15 minutes alone with the others at the conference, about 70 men and women. As he finished reading Matthew 25 to those around him, they were all mercilessly killed. After this, the bodies were tossed into a ravine, spared even a proper burial. The story doesn't end there however, in the words of my great grandma Anastasia, "that suit my father had made, somebody wore that suit and came and walked in front of our house, just to tease my stepmothe... ...this man walked in front of the house to show that he had father's suit and his watch, that's how cruel these people are." Over the next years, the Turks made my great grandmother's life, as well as countless other Armenian's a living hell. Unable to walk the streets for fear of being raped and murdered. Even while being educated on an American school property, Anasasia and other children had to be cautious of going outside because of the Turks that would climb nearby hills and shoot down into the school. Luckily, my grandmother was able to escape this violence and marry in Amerca.
When thinking about my great grandmother's story, and those of many others that are similar, or even far worse, it is hard to imagine being able to forgive such unthinkable atrocities. However, we must remember that we are commanded to follow the example of Jesus Christ. And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins (Mark 11:25)"
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Thursday, April 16, 2009
About my Heritage: Part 2 - "Arrival at Ellis Island & The Story of Our Wedding Picture"
Arrival At Ellis Island & The Story of Our Wedding Picture
While at the American School for Girls at Talas for 4 years I never went any place, not even to Kaiseri 3 miles away, a large city in 1913. (Now in 1976 there is an airplane factory and an airport.) The first time I was there was on the way to America. While in Kaiseri my escort, a 72 years old man Mr. Haralambos Sarandes, my sister-in-law's father asked me, "Which is nearer Talas or America?" I said "Talas". He said, "No. America is nearer. Probably you'll never see Talas again." He was right. In the 62 years since we were married I never say Kaiseri again (nor talas either) except some postcards of how developed it has gotten. We stopped at Konya (Iconium) a few days at Haigopian College. Then we proceeded to Istanbul where I stayed with Victoria's family, and Mr. Sarandes stayed with some of his relatives. For two weeks we visited many sightseeing places and relatives.
It took us 27 days to cross the Atlantic Ocean to New York. In the beginning we were in 3rd class steerage - very unsatisfactory. Mr. Sarandes paid the difference and we moved to 2nd class. We had our private beds instead of lying on the floor with a bunch of turkish Armenian people, men and women. One Turkish fellow in the 2nd class lost his passport. Since I could talk English even then, he stayed close to us constantly and helped us so that I could translate for him at Ellis Island. I did quite a bit of translating for some other Turkish speaking passengers. But when our turn came, they put a mark on me and pushed me to a door. They put a mark on Mr. Sarendes and pushed him to the next door. They put a mark on the Turkish fellow and pushed him to another door. He was carrying my suitcase with all my buitiful hand made gifts from all my school mates. I told the Attendant, "I have to go with that gentleman. He has my suitcase, and I have to intercede for him because he has lost his passport in the ship." They said, "You'll meet him upstairs." Well, I never saw him again and I lost all my beautiful Trousseau Gifts. Dr. Pavlides and my fiance paul met us upstairs. I told Dr. Pavlides about my suitcase and we looked and looked but couldn't find that Gentleman.
We Came home to Conshohocken on a real cold day, January 10, 1914. The next day we went to Norristown for the marriage license. The judge said, "How long have you known each other?" We said, "Since yesterday. He said, "No, I can't give a license. Live here six months, date each other and come back if you still want to get married." Dr. Pavlides said, "That is the custom of our country. The parents choose the mates for their children and it works very well - hardly any divorces." Then the judge said, "How long have you been corresponding?" We said, "around six months." Then he said, "Go home and bring the letters you wrote to each other." So the next day we went back with all the letters. (My letters were all dictated by my grandmother.) He said, "I'll study these letters. Come back tomorrow." Son on January 13 we went back. He murmured something and reluctantly gave us the marriage license. Dad was 32 adn I was 17. The three trips that we made to the Norristown court house a local reporter followed us for a human interest story. My, what a story! (You will see later.)
On January 14, 1914 my sister-in-law called the Methodist preacher, Rev. William Ireland Reed. We got married at Dr. Pavlides' parlor. Mr. & Mrs. H. Sarandes and Dr. & Mrs. Pavlides, just four people and a 3-year old baby Ernest, that is all. No Guests. We had cake and ice cream, but no special wedding cake.
When we went to bed that night I blew out the gas jet. After a while I smelled something and it was getting worse by the minute. I asked my husband what smelled. (I found out later that his smell was very poor.) He said, "I don't smell anything." It got worse. I said, "Get up. Something is wrong." He said, "How did you put the light out?" "I blew it" I said. He quickly turned off the jet, opened the windows, and told me NEVER again to blow - just turn it off. We didn't have gas in the old country, so how could I know? We could both have been killed that night. Aren't you glad my smell is good?
Well, a couple of days later the weekly Conshohocken paper came. On the first page 3rd column: HOW A CHILDHOOD ROMANCE COMES TRUE: PAUL 22, ANNA 18. (They shortened my name and his age.) On the beach in Greece playing in the sand and building castles of sand, dreaming of going to America. Paul said to Anna, "When I go to America, I'll make money and send for you." Paul kept his promise. He showed a wad of money at Ellis Island. The Norristown paper said: TRAVELED 27 DAYS TO MARRY CHILDHOOD SWEETHEART. I was so mad when they told me it was our story which they mate up with extreme exaggeration. Our Story? I couldn't believe my eyes. There were our hames. I said, "Why, why? It is not true. That reporter followed us everywhere we were. "It isn't true!" They said, "It makes good reading and sells more papers." To this day I don't have any respect for Reporters. I wish I had saved those papers but I threw them away.
Now about the Wedding Picture
Some months later we were invited to visit some friends of my husband's. Every place we went they would show us their wedding pictures, with bridesmaids, ushers, ring boys, and flower girl. One day when we came home after a visit like that I started crying. "We didn't have a wedding. We didn't have any guists. I didn't wear a white wedding dress, and we don't even have a wedding picture to prove that we got married." Dear resourceful dad: He calls Mr. Aivazian the photographer and tells him, "My wife is crying because she does not have any wedding picture, and we can't take it now because she is seven months pregnant." Mr. Aivazian says, "Borrow a wedding dress and a dark suit for you, with a bow tie, and come over. I'll fix it and nobody can tell she is pregnant." I borrowed Mrs. Shahmian's dress, paid ten cents for the garland in my hair, $1.00 for some artificial flowers, and went to the studio. Well, you all have our wedding picture. When we had our 15th, 35th, and 50th anniversaries with many friends and relatives, he would whisper in my ear, "Does this make up for the wedding we did not have?" Dear, dear dad - he was very good!
While at the American School for Girls at Talas for 4 years I never went any place, not even to Kaiseri 3 miles away, a large city in 1913. (Now in 1976 there is an airplane factory and an airport.) The first time I was there was on the way to America. While in Kaiseri my escort, a 72 years old man Mr. Haralambos Sarandes, my sister-in-law's father asked me, "Which is nearer Talas or America?" I said "Talas". He said, "No. America is nearer. Probably you'll never see Talas again." He was right. In the 62 years since we were married I never say Kaiseri again (nor talas either) except some postcards of how developed it has gotten. We stopped at Konya (Iconium) a few days at Haigopian College. Then we proceeded to Istanbul where I stayed with Victoria's family, and Mr. Sarandes stayed with some of his relatives. For two weeks we visited many sightseeing places and relatives.
It took us 27 days to cross the Atlantic Ocean to New York. In the beginning we were in 3rd class steerage - very unsatisfactory. Mr. Sarandes paid the difference and we moved to 2nd class. We had our private beds instead of lying on the floor with a bunch of turkish Armenian people, men and women. One Turkish fellow in the 2nd class lost his passport. Since I could talk English even then, he stayed close to us constantly and helped us so that I could translate for him at Ellis Island. I did quite a bit of translating for some other Turkish speaking passengers. But when our turn came, they put a mark on me and pushed me to a door. They put a mark on Mr. Sarendes and pushed him to the next door. They put a mark on the Turkish fellow and pushed him to another door. He was carrying my suitcase with all my buitiful hand made gifts from all my school mates. I told the Attendant, "I have to go with that gentleman. He has my suitcase, and I have to intercede for him because he has lost his passport in the ship." They said, "You'll meet him upstairs." Well, I never saw him again and I lost all my beautiful Trousseau Gifts. Dr. Pavlides and my fiance paul met us upstairs. I told Dr. Pavlides about my suitcase and we looked and looked but couldn't find that Gentleman.
We Came home to Conshohocken on a real cold day, January 10, 1914. The next day we went to Norristown for the marriage license. The judge said, "How long have you known each other?" We said, "Since yesterday. He said, "No, I can't give a license. Live here six months, date each other and come back if you still want to get married." Dr. Pavlides said, "That is the custom of our country. The parents choose the mates for their children and it works very well - hardly any divorces." Then the judge said, "How long have you been corresponding?" We said, "around six months." Then he said, "Go home and bring the letters you wrote to each other." So the next day we went back with all the letters. (My letters were all dictated by my grandmother.) He said, "I'll study these letters. Come back tomorrow." Son on January 13 we went back. He murmured something and reluctantly gave us the marriage license. Dad was 32 adn I was 17. The three trips that we made to the Norristown court house a local reporter followed us for a human interest story. My, what a story! (You will see later.)
On January 14, 1914 my sister-in-law called the Methodist preacher, Rev. William Ireland Reed. We got married at Dr. Pavlides' parlor. Mr. & Mrs. H. Sarandes and Dr. & Mrs. Pavlides, just four people and a 3-year old baby Ernest, that is all. No Guests. We had cake and ice cream, but no special wedding cake.
When we went to bed that night I blew out the gas jet. After a while I smelled something and it was getting worse by the minute. I asked my husband what smelled. (I found out later that his smell was very poor.) He said, "I don't smell anything." It got worse. I said, "Get up. Something is wrong." He said, "How did you put the light out?" "I blew it" I said. He quickly turned off the jet, opened the windows, and told me NEVER again to blow - just turn it off. We didn't have gas in the old country, so how could I know? We could both have been killed that night. Aren't you glad my smell is good?
Well, a couple of days later the weekly Conshohocken paper came. On the first page 3rd column: HOW A CHILDHOOD ROMANCE COMES TRUE: PAUL 22, ANNA 18. (They shortened my name and his age.) On the beach in Greece playing in the sand and building castles of sand, dreaming of going to America. Paul said to Anna, "When I go to America, I'll make money and send for you." Paul kept his promise. He showed a wad of money at Ellis Island. The Norristown paper said: TRAVELED 27 DAYS TO MARRY CHILDHOOD SWEETHEART. I was so mad when they told me it was our story which they mate up with extreme exaggeration. Our Story? I couldn't believe my eyes. There were our hames. I said, "Why, why? It is not true. That reporter followed us everywhere we were. "It isn't true!" They said, "It makes good reading and sells more papers." To this day I don't have any respect for Reporters. I wish I had saved those papers but I threw them away.
Now about the Wedding Picture
Some months later we were invited to visit some friends of my husband's. Every place we went they would show us their wedding pictures, with bridesmaids, ushers, ring boys, and flower girl. One day when we came home after a visit like that I started crying. "We didn't have a wedding. We didn't have any guists. I didn't wear a white wedding dress, and we don't even have a wedding picture to prove that we got married." Dear resourceful dad: He calls Mr. Aivazian the photographer and tells him, "My wife is crying because she does not have any wedding picture, and we can't take it now because she is seven months pregnant." Mr. Aivazian says, "Borrow a wedding dress and a dark suit for you, with a bow tie, and come over. I'll fix it and nobody can tell she is pregnant." I borrowed Mrs. Shahmian's dress, paid ten cents for the garland in my hair, $1.00 for some artificial flowers, and went to the studio. Well, you all have our wedding picture. When we had our 15th, 35th, and 50th anniversaries with many friends and relatives, he would whisper in my ear, "Does this make up for the wedding we did not have?" Dear, dear dad - he was very good!
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
About my Heritage: Part 1 - Great Grandma Ann's Interview
This is one of several posts I will be doing in the upcoming weeks about my heritage. The following is a transcript of an interview of my Great Grandmother Ann, done by a student in 1980. I want to have such important pieces of my family's history recorded online where they will not be lost or misplaced.
Oral History Project
History 57
Professor K. Morgan
Francesca Vassalluzzo
Fall Semester 1980
F: Francesca
A: Ann
F: When were you first aware of the trouble between the Turks and the Armenians?
A: Oh, the first time, my father in 1908, I think, was supposed to go to a ministers conference, and he had a new suit made, and, he went to that conference and then just that week the massacres started, the week of the conference and some of the Turkish officers came to the conference room and told all of these ministers, there were seventy of them, ministers and laymen and a few wives - a few of the ministers took their wives with them - and the Turkish people said, "If you embrace the Islamic religion you will all be saved. If you don't you will all be killed. " And my father asked for fifteen minutes to talk to his people, to his colleagues. And he read Matthew 25th - the story of the ten virgins - some of them were prepared and some of them weren't, and he told them that this is the last chance we have and if there's anybody here that's doubtful about his Christian faith, his salvation, you better do it now; and then they were all killed. And they were not even buried, maybe you read in the book that they were thrown down to the ravine, and the reason we know that story is that after they were all thrown down the ravine, one man woke up, - he wasn't dead - he woke up and get up and said, "brethren, brethren, is there anybody alive here? I'm alive, come on, let's go out together," and i think there was somebody else, that we heard some of the things that happened through him or else we would never have known that my father had asked for fifteen minutes permission and they had given him, and then after he got done and they all disappeared, and they killed, they killed every one of them. And then the - one - that suit my father had made, somebody wore that suit and came and walked in front of our house, just to tease my stepmother - my mother had died and we were four children, the youngest was one years old. Father had remarried after a year, and she was pregnant also, and this man walked in front of the house to show that he had father's suit and his watch, that's how cruel these people are, and then my three brothers - I will always have a soft spot for ministers and missionaries because my three brothers were put in a Gerber orphanage, they called it, Mrs. Gerber was from Germany, and but there were three or four missionaries from America. In fact, one of them is still living, I saw her two months ago, Mrs. Barker, her picture is in that book, a hundred and five years old. She is hundred and five years old and she's still living and I expect to see her next week again, she doesn't live alone - she's in a nursery not too far from my daughter's house. And at the time, foing back to the massacres, the school kept three hundred people from the town and we kept twenty-six people in our house.
F: They were all Armenians?
A: All Armenians. Well, we had a couple Turkish men that they sent their children to the missionaries. Miss Lambert, that wrote that book, they ask her if she - they were not even safe because they were going here and there, and they wanted their children to be under American missionary. So we had a few Turkish people we were saving too. But one incident I remember one morning, and over there we don't have running water, we don't have electric and but we were very fortunate that we had a well 50 yards away - in our yard, at the end of our yard. And I, one morning everybody was crying and there was no water and I said, "Okay, I'll go bring some water." So I got these two big pitchers and went down and the teacher said - the men you could see their heads bobbing on the mountain across there that there - (you see because we had the American flag, we were under the American flag, they couldn't come to the grounds, but from the mountains they would shoot at us) and, you call them binoculars where you look far away? A couple of teachers said we'll look with the binoculars and if you're in danger we'll let you know. So I took these two pitchers, I went to the well and I pulled the water and they were very heavy, I was dragging coming. And I heard all of the sudden, "Anastasia, - , Anastasia, - ," that means lie down, lie down." So the pitchers I threw them and I lay down and I never told that to anybody. I didn't think they'd believe what a ten year old girl, you know. But in that book it's written that so many places they would, you know we could see their heads bobbing and they would even shoot to the American compound and they're not supposed to do that it's against international regulations. That's one thing that I remember definitely. Another thing I really remember, the youngest thing that I can remember is my father, my mother, real mother had pneumonia and she was very sick. And another man and my father were attending her and talking to her, and she got upset all of the sudden and this other man - there were no doctors in the town but this other man he knew a little about physical things and he was trying to help, and he says, "that man hurt her feelings, he insulted her, said something, " and that's when she got worse. pretty soon the bell rang and I went downstairs and here this man that was, that hurt my mother, he was there. I said, "I don't want you to come in, you hurt my mother. Go away. I don't want you to see my mother again." I just chased him. (laughing) I came upstairs and I told my father what I did and he was very upset. "He's one of my church members, you shouldn't do - " I said "Well you said he hurt her so I didn't want him to hurt her again." That's one thing i remember, and also right after the sickness there was no place for me, I was very young then, I guess I was seven, seven or eight years old. I don't know, and they put my to the school, to the nursery. There was no nursery, but they took me to the school for the day 'til somebody game. Somebody was taking care of all of us 'til they took her to Tallas, where there is a hospital there and the only thing I remember of my mother is that the school I was in said your mother is going to go through that road in about half an hour toward Tallas, and that she wanted to see you for the last time. So the teacher took my hand and took me over and my mother - and there were three, and she tied on a horse, no wagon, no nothing, and she laid on a horse and strapped on a horse and there were two - one horse in front of her and one horse in back and they were going to the hospital, to Tallas. I think which is about sixty miles or something by horse. It would take a whole day. So this teacher took me over there and raised me up and my mother embraced me and kissed my and hugged me and gave me back to that girl. That's the only thing I remember of my mother, those two incidents, my father telling that this man hurt her. So I don't remember anything else about my mother - my real mother. Of course, later on my father, as I told you, he remarried, and that man came to hassle her, hurt her, in my father's clothes. Then, from then on, we all went to Tallas where the schools - American Missionary Schools, the hospital was there also.
F: How many brothers and sisters did you have?
A: No sisters. Three brothers. Oh well my mother that was pregnant at that time, ah, she had a child and she's still in Athens and I correspond with her. I just wrote her a letter a few days ago. She's my half-sister. We have the same father. Yes, she's still living.
F: But the massacres at Hadjin where your father was killed, that was the first time you knew of the struggle between the Armenians and the Turks?
A: Yes actually I was raised, I was very sheltered because all my life I was with an American Missionary school in Hadjin. Also I was there but I was too young to know at that time, but by the time - one year I didn't go to school at all and when we went to Tallas I stayed with my grandmother and my grandmother was a very perserving woman. And everytime in hte neighborhood there was a fight they would call my grandmother, she was like a judge. And she went to the Tallas school and saw one of the missionaries and told them "I have six children of my own and this little girl, she's a bright little girl and her father is a martyr, if anyobody needs, deserves to go to school, she deserves it. And the missionaries would say, "I'm sorry, we'd like to have her but we don't have room and we don't have any money. " Well, next week my grandmother would go find antoher missionary and would tell her the same thing again. "If anybody deserves to go, she does, she's a bright little girl and her father is a Christian Martyr and I can't take care of her. I have six children." Some of them were grown up of course, but anyhow, so she did the rounds of all the missionaries. We had six of them and everyone of them she encountered and said the same thing. So the teachers, when they were having a staff meeting, they said "She keeps on telling about this little girl. The other three boys are in the orphanage, and this girl she wants her to be educated. " So they wrote to a grongretionalist at 10 beacon street in Boston. So they wrote them and told them about this little girl that her father was a martyr and the grandmother couldn't raise her and they sent fifteen dollars a year for me.
F: So you could go to school?
A: So I could go to school. And I did all the dirty work. I used to clean the bathrooms, everything else. But I have always been thankful to the Lord that I had the opportunity and I had, we had, a very good teacher. And I think I was a pretty god student because I always used to be the second brightest. The first highest is in Ohio and her husband together. She's still living. She's my age too. So Tallas school has been a very happy time for me because you know we all had the same background and the same thing. Everybody's uncle, aunt, father, brother, had been killed by the Turks, you know, most of them, so we all had the same sorrows and the same things. And when I was about sixteen years, nobody dates over there, you just don't date, parents arrange it for you. So one of my best friends was (my sister in law) at that time, my huband wrote that he'd like toget married, if there was a suitable girl. He was in America, in Conshohocken, living with his brother, Dr. Pavlides. And as soon as his sister heard that she said "Oh, nobody but Asnastasia, my best friend Anastasia, don't look anywhere else." And he had written two letters, one to his house and one to his aunt, and without knowing each other they both thought of me. So it was settled, I didn't have anything to say. (laughs) So then all the girls started making presents for me. You know, pillow covers, and lace bra-tops, they always put beautiful tops on petticoats and slips. All the slips had hand-crocheted tops, or everybody did something for me. And unfortunately, they got lost coming over.
F: How did you feel about America before you emigrated from Turkey? Did you know anything about it?
A: (laughing) Well, one of the first things that, in New York, this is funny to say, but I had never in my life seen a black person. And when we came into Ellis Island, when we got off there, there were three great big ladies with white dresses, shiny teeth, and just as black as can be, and great big bosoms, and they were laughing and talking and I was - I couldn't imagine what kind of people they were. That was the first thing that impressed me. But by that time, my fiance had come with his brother, Dr. Pavlides, to pick me up at Ellis Island. And I couldn't find my suitcase. One Turkish fellow he had lost his passport and he hung close to me so that I could tell it in English that he had the passport and he lost it. But when we got there, I'm sorry to say, they were very cruel at Ellis Island. They put a mark on me and pushed me on one side and they put a mark on my seventy-two year old escort and they pushed him over there and they put a mark on this turkish man and they pushed him on the other side. And I said, "He has my suitcase, I have to go to get it." "You'll meet upstairs, go on, go on." I never saw him again.
F: Have you ever heard of the Zeytoonis? I read about them in the book, Neither to Laugh, Nor to Cry.
A: Zeytoon, yes.
F: They Zeytoonis that were led by the Cholakian brothers? There were twenty of them and they were in St. Mary's Monastery and they held out against 3000 soldiers.
A: I read that book, but I don't remember.
F: But you wouldn't have heard about it when you were young?
A: I wouldn't have heard about it. One thing I think I should tell you - that the reason the Americans were in Hadjin or Tallas - there were more Armenian or Greeks over there than others. Most places are maybe eighty percent Turkish and twenty percent Armenian or Greek and this Hadjin and Tallas, where these missionaries were, they were about like fifty percent. There were a lot more Greeks. The Turkish people is very, very hard for missionaries to convert the Turks because the Turkish or Islamic people they believe in one God and they tell that we believe in three Gods, Father, Son and Holy Ghost. They cannot understand the triune God and then they think they're doing God a favor if they kill and Armenian or a Greek, a Christian. If they kill a Christian person they think they're doing a favor to God because we believe in three Gods and they believe in only one God. But as I'm telling this I also want to tell you a story that my husband told me. My husband's father was also a very nice man, like my husband, and Christians mostly lived in the ghettos. The good places would be for the Turkish people, if they couldn't rent the place, Christians couldn't rent the good sections of town. And my father-in-law was just at the end of that a good section and but the price was pretty high, so he wanted to go to the cheaper place where all the other Greek people were. And everybody liked him so much, he was such a saintly man, they gathered a petition, the Turkish people and all not to send this Mikhail, Michael Pavlides, Mikhail Pavlides, away. he's such as saintly man, he does he gives us such good advice and he's a harmless person. We want him to be among us, so don't ask him for any more rent than he can pay. See i'm telling you the good part, there are some good people among the Turkish, some good people. Some bad people among the Greek people, some of them I'm ashamed of, but many of them I'm proud of. So that's one good thing my husband used to tell me. The neighbors over there they all wanted him to be able to stay in the better section because he was so good and they signed the petition and kept him there with the cheaper rent. That's one story that's always in my mind.
F: Was your education very important to your family?
A: Absolutely. My father said that we are going to be four educated children. They used to tell me about my father, he used to go hungry and buy a book. My brother in Istanbul, when he deid, he had seven thousand books. Thirty versions of the Bible of different languages and different versions. My son Michael no is the same - books, books,books,books and my nephew in Los Agnelges is on his fourteenth volume of the book he wrote. And he's gets called to Washington once in a while for consultation. So this bookworm's in the family.
F: You told me when you first came to America you used to cry all the time?
A: Oh, I didn't know anybody. Everything was so different and I would go to the church and well it was a little hard to understand too, you know. Coming herefor was the first time I'm not, I didn't, I wasn't that fluent in the thing. And they would talk and talk about "covered-dish-luncheon." And I never knew what that meant and later they said, "Oh, didn't we have a good time and wasn't it fun." And I was so ashamed to ask what a covered-dish luncheon meant, so I asked an Armenian lady that's been longer around than me. "What's this 'covered-dish luncheon' they have and they have such a good time about it?" She says "Make some nice Greek dish and take it over and they'll love it." And that's what I did. Next time they said I took a Greek dish over there and they said, "oh, Mrs. Paulson, will you make that again? "You know? But, well, there would be so many things that I wouldn't understand when you come fro ma place like that.
F: The Customs?
A: The customs. One time I remember I had a dress on and a couple of girls laughed at me because I had a black velvet dress that had a little one-inch fur and I had a big bow that was the style then and they just laughed, made fun of me, because I had fur on fur. Or something like that. But lots, lots of things I can't tell really but coming from a country and not knowing anybody, it's not an easy thing.
F: Did you think of Turkey as your homeland, since you were born in Hadjin?
A: I was born in hadjin. I didn't know anything else. Well, like America took all kinds of people here, only American Indians are native over here, everybody is from someplace else and there were lots of Greeks and Armenians and Jewish people. And I'll tell you if it wasn't for the Jewish and the Armenians and Greeks, Turkey wouldn't go that far, they are not that smart. All the smart people were in all the Jewish and Greek and Armenian people. Turkey was my home, and even now, see my cousin called a little while ago, I talk turkish with her. I haven't, I used to talk Armenian and Greek fluently but I don't have anybody to talk to so I, my husband didn't know Greek so we talked Turkish together. So I kind of lost those two languages. I can still understand some, you know, if I hear a message I get the gist of it. Even though I don't understand everything.
F: Did you know Miss Rose Lambert, the auther of Hadjin, and the Armenian Massacres?
A: No. Let me tell you how I met, twenty-two years ago my daughter and son-in-law moved to Florida, Largo. They went for a vacation one summer and they liked it so much and they came, he was, he used to be our foreman at the shop, they said, "We like Florida, we're going to sell our house and go to Florida." So they moved to Florida and I went to the church over there, the Methodist Church with them and they were having Mid-Eastern drama - what do you call it - skit? And a luncheon and I talked to the chairman of the Missionary Society, I said, "I was born in Hadjin, Turkey. I know all about those things. I had a string-bean dish that you make in Turkey." I said, "I know those things." "Oh," she said, "Why didn't you come, get up and say something?" I said "First time I'm in your church and you have an organized meeting and I'm going to get up and say something?" And next Sunday she saw me at the church and she said, "Will you come and speak at our Ladies Circle?" And I said, "oh, I'm not a speaker. I could just say a few things, but I'm not a speaker." She said, "There will only be sixteen, seventeen people." So I said, "All right." And so I told about the massacre and how wonderful it was for the missionaries to come there and they had a hospital even with the school - Dr. Dodd, Dr. Post, Dr. Irving - all these good doctors. So that it was a complete American compound. And, oh, then I started I said something about Hadjin because most of this was in Tallas. I told them about Hadjin and that man that came, with my father's suit. and one of the ladies over there said, "Did you know Miss Rose Lambert?" I said, "Oh, everybody knows Miss Rose Lambert, she's our favorite missionary." She said, "She's my sister." Can you beat that? And it was the very first time she had gone to that church! And it was the very first time I had gone to that meeting. They had just moved to Largo and she said, "My sister wrote a book about the Hadjin massacres." I said, "Honest? I'd like to see it." So next Sunday she brought it to church and gave it to me. And I started thumbing through it and I saw our house, my father mentioned in it, and all that stuff. So then I started talking to, I talked to six circles with that book. You know, so I became pretty popular over there.
F: In 1918 you were already in the United States - when the Armistice was signed at the end of the World War.
A: Yes. I left 1913, December.
F: So you left right before the World War?
A: Yes, Yes.
F: So you wouldn't have noticed any change during or after the war?
A: No, no. And I have never been back there except to Istanbul a few years back.
F: I was just curious whether the Armenians you knew accepted the treatment the Turks gave them passively? I know there were massive deportations.
A: Well I tell you some of the Armenians tried to organize and fight back, but I'm not on authority to talk about it. But there wasn't enough of them and in that book you notice that the long-range Martinis, long-range guns, were American manufactured and the Turks were using them. So you know Americans were quite friendly with the Turks and they were selling stuff. I don't want to talk politics, it's not my line, but it says in the book that if it wasn't for the American-made long-range Martinis guns that they wouldn't kill so many people. But of course if one manufacturer sells it you can't blame the whole America for it, you know. Well I don't want to go to politics.
F: So how would you describe most of your childhood? Can you remember happy things about it?
A: Well my childhood. As long as my father was living we had a very nice house. We had a house that, it had a porch all around the house. We could run around and the kitchen was so beautiful, it had a nice big kitchen. And three steps you went up and it had a nice dining room there and with all shelves all around it so that it was very pretty for that. I think we had almost the best house except for the missionaries. Over there, so my childhood was pretty happy except for the massacre time, but then thanks to my grandmother's perseverance. I wanted to go to an American school so all my, anything I know I owe to the Americans. And that's why I keep for the last twenty-thirty years, we have been keeping some orphan children, because I'm so greatful for them. And I don't buy expensive clothes, I'm not ashamed to go to the exchange sale and buy some nice clothes over there and then give the money. I keep three orphans for many years. Because American people did to us, they kept us, all my three brothers were in an orphanage.
F: Did you see your brothers much after your father was killed?
A: Well yes. They were not too far away. It was about two hours ride by carriage.
F: They were in Tallas, too?
A: No, they were in Sinsjedara - well it's another town. But then after we came in here we brought my two brothers here and they lived with us for many years. And we brought my cousins - my cousin and my huband's mother, brother, sister, we brought all, all our relatives. We paid for them as time went on and then we had a big seven-bedroom house and most of them, there's something I wrote. Thirty-eight people came and stayed 'til they got a job 'til they went to college, 'til a week, two weeks, two months, four months, a year, according. So we had a big house, it was open. And I'm glad that we could do that, we could help so many people.
F: Before your father was killed, when you lived in the pastorage at Hadjin, did you and your brothers play together often? You were about ten or eleven years old.
A: I guess when he was killed I was about ten or eleven. We had a happy thing because we were with the Americans. All our neighbors were Americans. American missionaries, in Tallas. Dr. Dodd, in fact, Dr. Dodd's son used to be the reporter at WOR for a long while, he's not on now. I mean I used to hear him years ago. I'm talking about many years back. We were poor, we were very poor, but everybody else was poor so we didn't know what it meant. Now sometimes I think all the nice things and I have to pinch myself that I'm the same person. But after I came here to get used to the Americans was pretty hard too. But I got used to it. One thing happened, the night we got married. We didn't have any wedding. Dr. pavlides, his wife and seventy-two year old man who was my escort, my sister-in-law's brother and his wife. Four people, we got married and no wedding, no party. No white dress. And years, months later, we would go visit the friends and every time we went someplace they'd bring their wedding pictures and show the wedding pictures - ring boy, flower girl. And one time I came home and I cried, "Gee," I said, "What kind of a wedding was this? We didn't have anybody in the house but four people and I didn't have a white dress and I didn't even have any cake. And I don't even have a picture to prove that we were married." And he called up the photographer and he said that Mr. Hadazian, was it? "My wife is crying because we don't have wedding pictures." He says, "Tell your wife to borrow a wedding dress and get yourself a dark suit and come and I'll take it" "You can't - she's seven months pregnant" he says, "You just do what I tell you." So we, I borrowed a dress and he got a thing and I have to show - I paid ten cents for the garland in my hair and I paid a dollar for the artificial flower and he mad me sit down and made my husband stand up and got a beautiful picture. I have to show you. The wedding night something happened that, I think was interesting. I almost killed both of us. I had never seen gas light in my life and when we were ready to go to bed I blew the gas and went to bed. And then after a while, I smell something, I said, "Paul, I smell something." And his smelling isn't very good - I found out later that he hardly smells anything. "I don't smell anything," he said. And I kept smelling, it's getting worse and I said, "Get up, Paul." I said, "Something's terrible smelling." And he got up. He said, "How did you turn off the gas?" I said, "I blew it out." And he said, "Never do that - you should turn it off." And right away he open the windows and turned the thing off and or else the night we were married we were gonna get killed. And the same thing is in that Pearl, that if you ever come across the story of Pearl.
F: Do you know the author?
A: Daiy-, its much worse than mine. He was, they were much poorer. She didn't even know how to write Armenian and they taught her just to write "arrive safely" in Armenian. Just she learned that much to write and it's very interesting story. It's something parallel to mine, but I was much more educated than she was - she didn't have any education. Oh, about the story of the - I never had a new dress after my father had been killed. Everybody would give me, and one Easter, some of the girls, I was making some pretty lace and one of the missionaries said if I make one big doily and six small soilies she'd buy them from me. And she was going to send them for Christmas, a present to somebody in America. So I finished it. And as a rule, one Saturday my grandmother would come to visit me and the next Saturday I would go to visit her. It's walking distance, not too far - about ten minutes walk. And this one Sautrday she said she wouldn't be able to come. So that saturday we hired a carriage to go to take us to Kayseri - that's the next town. This is but a small town, that's a big town. We were going to buy some material and the girls were going to make a new dress for me, so I could have a new dress. And just as we were getting ready to go, grandmom came and she said, "Did you finish the thing?" I said, "yes." "Did you sell it?" I said, "Yes." "How much money did you get?" I said, "I got one madjid." "One madjid," she said. "We can get half a beef with that. We can get half a beef with that and that would be all our year's meat. "Over there in the basement, under the basement, they have another basement, a small basement. And they have three, four crocks there and they put different kinds of foods in there and the meat they salt them real heavily and put on top of each other and once a week they get, they can have meat. And she said, "You let us buy that beef, that will be enough beef for the whole year for us, and we'll make you a new dress." So I went over there to the house and like in that "Sound of Music" she cut the curtain, took the curtains down and made me a dress and just these things were starting to show. So she put three rows in, right on the breasts, a little ruffle and the ruffle was added with fine pink piping-blue, blue puping and three rows of ruffles. I wish I had a picture of that dress. It was, I was so proud of it. And for five cents they bought a pair of shoes for me and somebody gave me a ribbon for me hair. So for easter I had a new outfit. Over there they get one outfit, one Easter that's all. So next year becomes your everyday dress in two-three years, whatever. Then they never have so many clothes. I'm ashamed of all the clothes I have now. All we would have to eat was a handful of raisins and a few nuts which is very good lunch. We didn't appreciate then, but I realize now that's all you need.
Oral History Project
History 57
Professor K. Morgan
Francesca Vassalluzzo
Fall Semester 1980
F: Francesca
A: Ann
F: When were you first aware of the trouble between the Turks and the Armenians?
A: Oh, the first time, my father in 1908, I think, was supposed to go to a ministers conference, and he had a new suit made, and, he went to that conference and then just that week the massacres started, the week of the conference and some of the Turkish officers came to the conference room and told all of these ministers, there were seventy of them, ministers and laymen and a few wives - a few of the ministers took their wives with them - and the Turkish people said, "If you embrace the Islamic religion you will all be saved. If you don't you will all be killed. " And my father asked for fifteen minutes to talk to his people, to his colleagues. And he read Matthew 25th - the story of the ten virgins - some of them were prepared and some of them weren't, and he told them that this is the last chance we have and if there's anybody here that's doubtful about his Christian faith, his salvation, you better do it now; and then they were all killed. And they were not even buried, maybe you read in the book that they were thrown down to the ravine, and the reason we know that story is that after they were all thrown down the ravine, one man woke up, - he wasn't dead - he woke up and get up and said, "brethren, brethren, is there anybody alive here? I'm alive, come on, let's go out together," and i think there was somebody else, that we heard some of the things that happened through him or else we would never have known that my father had asked for fifteen minutes permission and they had given him, and then after he got done and they all disappeared, and they killed, they killed every one of them. And then the - one - that suit my father had made, somebody wore that suit and came and walked in front of our house, just to tease my stepmother - my mother had died and we were four children, the youngest was one years old. Father had remarried after a year, and she was pregnant also, and this man walked in front of the house to show that he had father's suit and his watch, that's how cruel these people are, and then my three brothers - I will always have a soft spot for ministers and missionaries because my three brothers were put in a Gerber orphanage, they called it, Mrs. Gerber was from Germany, and but there were three or four missionaries from America. In fact, one of them is still living, I saw her two months ago, Mrs. Barker, her picture is in that book, a hundred and five years old. She is hundred and five years old and she's still living and I expect to see her next week again, she doesn't live alone - she's in a nursery not too far from my daughter's house. And at the time, foing back to the massacres, the school kept three hundred people from the town and we kept twenty-six people in our house.
F: They were all Armenians?
A: All Armenians. Well, we had a couple Turkish men that they sent their children to the missionaries. Miss Lambert, that wrote that book, they ask her if she - they were not even safe because they were going here and there, and they wanted their children to be under American missionary. So we had a few Turkish people we were saving too. But one incident I remember one morning, and over there we don't have running water, we don't have electric and but we were very fortunate that we had a well 50 yards away - in our yard, at the end of our yard. And I, one morning everybody was crying and there was no water and I said, "Okay, I'll go bring some water." So I got these two big pitchers and went down and the teacher said - the men you could see their heads bobbing on the mountain across there that there - (you see because we had the American flag, we were under the American flag, they couldn't come to the grounds, but from the mountains they would shoot at us) and, you call them binoculars where you look far away? A couple of teachers said we'll look with the binoculars and if you're in danger we'll let you know. So I took these two pitchers, I went to the well and I pulled the water and they were very heavy, I was dragging coming. And I heard all of the sudden, "Anastasia, - , Anastasia, - ," that means lie down, lie down." So the pitchers I threw them and I lay down and I never told that to anybody. I didn't think they'd believe what a ten year old girl, you know. But in that book it's written that so many places they would, you know we could see their heads bobbing and they would even shoot to the American compound and they're not supposed to do that it's against international regulations. That's one thing that I remember definitely. Another thing I really remember, the youngest thing that I can remember is my father, my mother, real mother had pneumonia and she was very sick. And another man and my father were attending her and talking to her, and she got upset all of the sudden and this other man - there were no doctors in the town but this other man he knew a little about physical things and he was trying to help, and he says, "that man hurt her feelings, he insulted her, said something, " and that's when she got worse. pretty soon the bell rang and I went downstairs and here this man that was, that hurt my mother, he was there. I said, "I don't want you to come in, you hurt my mother. Go away. I don't want you to see my mother again." I just chased him. (laughing) I came upstairs and I told my father what I did and he was very upset. "He's one of my church members, you shouldn't do - " I said "Well you said he hurt her so I didn't want him to hurt her again." That's one thing i remember, and also right after the sickness there was no place for me, I was very young then, I guess I was seven, seven or eight years old. I don't know, and they put my to the school, to the nursery. There was no nursery, but they took me to the school for the day 'til somebody game. Somebody was taking care of all of us 'til they took her to Tallas, where there is a hospital there and the only thing I remember of my mother is that the school I was in said your mother is going to go through that road in about half an hour toward Tallas, and that she wanted to see you for the last time. So the teacher took my hand and took me over and my mother - and there were three, and she tied on a horse, no wagon, no nothing, and she laid on a horse and strapped on a horse and there were two - one horse in front of her and one horse in back and they were going to the hospital, to Tallas. I think which is about sixty miles or something by horse. It would take a whole day. So this teacher took me over there and raised me up and my mother embraced me and kissed my and hugged me and gave me back to that girl. That's the only thing I remember of my mother, those two incidents, my father telling that this man hurt her. So I don't remember anything else about my mother - my real mother. Of course, later on my father, as I told you, he remarried, and that man came to hassle her, hurt her, in my father's clothes. Then, from then on, we all went to Tallas where the schools - American Missionary Schools, the hospital was there also.
F: How many brothers and sisters did you have?
A: No sisters. Three brothers. Oh well my mother that was pregnant at that time, ah, she had a child and she's still in Athens and I correspond with her. I just wrote her a letter a few days ago. She's my half-sister. We have the same father. Yes, she's still living.
F: But the massacres at Hadjin where your father was killed, that was the first time you knew of the struggle between the Armenians and the Turks?
A: Yes actually I was raised, I was very sheltered because all my life I was with an American Missionary school in Hadjin. Also I was there but I was too young to know at that time, but by the time - one year I didn't go to school at all and when we went to Tallas I stayed with my grandmother and my grandmother was a very perserving woman. And everytime in hte neighborhood there was a fight they would call my grandmother, she was like a judge. And she went to the Tallas school and saw one of the missionaries and told them "I have six children of my own and this little girl, she's a bright little girl and her father is a martyr, if anyobody needs, deserves to go to school, she deserves it. And the missionaries would say, "I'm sorry, we'd like to have her but we don't have room and we don't have any money. " Well, next week my grandmother would go find antoher missionary and would tell her the same thing again. "If anybody deserves to go, she does, she's a bright little girl and her father is a Christian Martyr and I can't take care of her. I have six children." Some of them were grown up of course, but anyhow, so she did the rounds of all the missionaries. We had six of them and everyone of them she encountered and said the same thing. So the teachers, when they were having a staff meeting, they said "She keeps on telling about this little girl. The other three boys are in the orphanage, and this girl she wants her to be educated. " So they wrote to a grongretionalist at 10 beacon street in Boston. So they wrote them and told them about this little girl that her father was a martyr and the grandmother couldn't raise her and they sent fifteen dollars a year for me.
F: So you could go to school?
A: So I could go to school. And I did all the dirty work. I used to clean the bathrooms, everything else. But I have always been thankful to the Lord that I had the opportunity and I had, we had, a very good teacher. And I think I was a pretty god student because I always used to be the second brightest. The first highest is in Ohio and her husband together. She's still living. She's my age too. So Tallas school has been a very happy time for me because you know we all had the same background and the same thing. Everybody's uncle, aunt, father, brother, had been killed by the Turks, you know, most of them, so we all had the same sorrows and the same things. And when I was about sixteen years, nobody dates over there, you just don't date, parents arrange it for you. So one of my best friends was (my sister in law) at that time, my huband wrote that he'd like toget married, if there was a suitable girl. He was in America, in Conshohocken, living with his brother, Dr. Pavlides. And as soon as his sister heard that she said "Oh, nobody but Asnastasia, my best friend Anastasia, don't look anywhere else." And he had written two letters, one to his house and one to his aunt, and without knowing each other they both thought of me. So it was settled, I didn't have anything to say. (laughs) So then all the girls started making presents for me. You know, pillow covers, and lace bra-tops, they always put beautiful tops on petticoats and slips. All the slips had hand-crocheted tops, or everybody did something for me. And unfortunately, they got lost coming over.
F: How did you feel about America before you emigrated from Turkey? Did you know anything about it?
A: (laughing) Well, one of the first things that, in New York, this is funny to say, but I had never in my life seen a black person. And when we came into Ellis Island, when we got off there, there were three great big ladies with white dresses, shiny teeth, and just as black as can be, and great big bosoms, and they were laughing and talking and I was - I couldn't imagine what kind of people they were. That was the first thing that impressed me. But by that time, my fiance had come with his brother, Dr. Pavlides, to pick me up at Ellis Island. And I couldn't find my suitcase. One Turkish fellow he had lost his passport and he hung close to me so that I could tell it in English that he had the passport and he lost it. But when we got there, I'm sorry to say, they were very cruel at Ellis Island. They put a mark on me and pushed me on one side and they put a mark on my seventy-two year old escort and they pushed him over there and they put a mark on this turkish man and they pushed him on the other side. And I said, "He has my suitcase, I have to go to get it." "You'll meet upstairs, go on, go on." I never saw him again.
F: Have you ever heard of the Zeytoonis? I read about them in the book, Neither to Laugh, Nor to Cry.
A: Zeytoon, yes.
F: They Zeytoonis that were led by the Cholakian brothers? There were twenty of them and they were in St. Mary's Monastery and they held out against 3000 soldiers.
A: I read that book, but I don't remember.
F: But you wouldn't have heard about it when you were young?
A: I wouldn't have heard about it. One thing I think I should tell you - that the reason the Americans were in Hadjin or Tallas - there were more Armenian or Greeks over there than others. Most places are maybe eighty percent Turkish and twenty percent Armenian or Greek and this Hadjin and Tallas, where these missionaries were, they were about like fifty percent. There were a lot more Greeks. The Turkish people is very, very hard for missionaries to convert the Turks because the Turkish or Islamic people they believe in one God and they tell that we believe in three Gods, Father, Son and Holy Ghost. They cannot understand the triune God and then they think they're doing God a favor if they kill and Armenian or a Greek, a Christian. If they kill a Christian person they think they're doing a favor to God because we believe in three Gods and they believe in only one God. But as I'm telling this I also want to tell you a story that my husband told me. My husband's father was also a very nice man, like my husband, and Christians mostly lived in the ghettos. The good places would be for the Turkish people, if they couldn't rent the place, Christians couldn't rent the good sections of town. And my father-in-law was just at the end of that a good section and but the price was pretty high, so he wanted to go to the cheaper place where all the other Greek people were. And everybody liked him so much, he was such a saintly man, they gathered a petition, the Turkish people and all not to send this Mikhail, Michael Pavlides, Mikhail Pavlides, away. he's such as saintly man, he does he gives us such good advice and he's a harmless person. We want him to be among us, so don't ask him for any more rent than he can pay. See i'm telling you the good part, there are some good people among the Turkish, some good people. Some bad people among the Greek people, some of them I'm ashamed of, but many of them I'm proud of. So that's one good thing my husband used to tell me. The neighbors over there they all wanted him to be able to stay in the better section because he was so good and they signed the petition and kept him there with the cheaper rent. That's one story that's always in my mind.
F: Was your education very important to your family?
A: Absolutely. My father said that we are going to be four educated children. They used to tell me about my father, he used to go hungry and buy a book. My brother in Istanbul, when he deid, he had seven thousand books. Thirty versions of the Bible of different languages and different versions. My son Michael no is the same - books, books,books,books and my nephew in Los Agnelges is on his fourteenth volume of the book he wrote. And he's gets called to Washington once in a while for consultation. So this bookworm's in the family.
F: You told me when you first came to America you used to cry all the time?
A: Oh, I didn't know anybody. Everything was so different and I would go to the church and well it was a little hard to understand too, you know. Coming herefor was the first time I'm not, I didn't, I wasn't that fluent in the thing. And they would talk and talk about "covered-dish-luncheon." And I never knew what that meant and later they said, "Oh, didn't we have a good time and wasn't it fun." And I was so ashamed to ask what a covered-dish luncheon meant, so I asked an Armenian lady that's been longer around than me. "What's this 'covered-dish luncheon' they have and they have such a good time about it?" She says "Make some nice Greek dish and take it over and they'll love it." And that's what I did. Next time they said I took a Greek dish over there and they said, "oh, Mrs. Paulson, will you make that again? "You know? But, well, there would be so many things that I wouldn't understand when you come fro ma place like that.
F: The Customs?
A: The customs. One time I remember I had a dress on and a couple of girls laughed at me because I had a black velvet dress that had a little one-inch fur and I had a big bow that was the style then and they just laughed, made fun of me, because I had fur on fur. Or something like that. But lots, lots of things I can't tell really but coming from a country and not knowing anybody, it's not an easy thing.
F: Did you think of Turkey as your homeland, since you were born in Hadjin?
A: I was born in hadjin. I didn't know anything else. Well, like America took all kinds of people here, only American Indians are native over here, everybody is from someplace else and there were lots of Greeks and Armenians and Jewish people. And I'll tell you if it wasn't for the Jewish and the Armenians and Greeks, Turkey wouldn't go that far, they are not that smart. All the smart people were in all the Jewish and Greek and Armenian people. Turkey was my home, and even now, see my cousin called a little while ago, I talk turkish with her. I haven't, I used to talk Armenian and Greek fluently but I don't have anybody to talk to so I, my husband didn't know Greek so we talked Turkish together. So I kind of lost those two languages. I can still understand some, you know, if I hear a message I get the gist of it. Even though I don't understand everything.
F: Did you know Miss Rose Lambert, the auther of Hadjin, and the Armenian Massacres?
A: No. Let me tell you how I met, twenty-two years ago my daughter and son-in-law moved to Florida, Largo. They went for a vacation one summer and they liked it so much and they came, he was, he used to be our foreman at the shop, they said, "We like Florida, we're going to sell our house and go to Florida." So they moved to Florida and I went to the church over there, the Methodist Church with them and they were having Mid-Eastern drama - what do you call it - skit? And a luncheon and I talked to the chairman of the Missionary Society, I said, "I was born in Hadjin, Turkey. I know all about those things. I had a string-bean dish that you make in Turkey." I said, "I know those things." "Oh," she said, "Why didn't you come, get up and say something?" I said "First time I'm in your church and you have an organized meeting and I'm going to get up and say something?" And next Sunday she saw me at the church and she said, "Will you come and speak at our Ladies Circle?" And I said, "oh, I'm not a speaker. I could just say a few things, but I'm not a speaker." She said, "There will only be sixteen, seventeen people." So I said, "All right." And so I told about the massacre and how wonderful it was for the missionaries to come there and they had a hospital even with the school - Dr. Dodd, Dr. Post, Dr. Irving - all these good doctors. So that it was a complete American compound. And, oh, then I started I said something about Hadjin because most of this was in Tallas. I told them about Hadjin and that man that came, with my father's suit. and one of the ladies over there said, "Did you know Miss Rose Lambert?" I said, "Oh, everybody knows Miss Rose Lambert, she's our favorite missionary." She said, "She's my sister." Can you beat that? And it was the very first time she had gone to that church! And it was the very first time I had gone to that meeting. They had just moved to Largo and she said, "My sister wrote a book about the Hadjin massacres." I said, "Honest? I'd like to see it." So next Sunday she brought it to church and gave it to me. And I started thumbing through it and I saw our house, my father mentioned in it, and all that stuff. So then I started talking to, I talked to six circles with that book. You know, so I became pretty popular over there.
F: In 1918 you were already in the United States - when the Armistice was signed at the end of the World War.
A: Yes. I left 1913, December.
F: So you left right before the World War?
A: Yes, Yes.
F: So you wouldn't have noticed any change during or after the war?
A: No, no. And I have never been back there except to Istanbul a few years back.
F: I was just curious whether the Armenians you knew accepted the treatment the Turks gave them passively? I know there were massive deportations.
A: Well I tell you some of the Armenians tried to organize and fight back, but I'm not on authority to talk about it. But there wasn't enough of them and in that book you notice that the long-range Martinis, long-range guns, were American manufactured and the Turks were using them. So you know Americans were quite friendly with the Turks and they were selling stuff. I don't want to talk politics, it's not my line, but it says in the book that if it wasn't for the American-made long-range Martinis guns that they wouldn't kill so many people. But of course if one manufacturer sells it you can't blame the whole America for it, you know. Well I don't want to go to politics.
F: So how would you describe most of your childhood? Can you remember happy things about it?
A: Well my childhood. As long as my father was living we had a very nice house. We had a house that, it had a porch all around the house. We could run around and the kitchen was so beautiful, it had a nice big kitchen. And three steps you went up and it had a nice dining room there and with all shelves all around it so that it was very pretty for that. I think we had almost the best house except for the missionaries. Over there, so my childhood was pretty happy except for the massacre time, but then thanks to my grandmother's perseverance. I wanted to go to an American school so all my, anything I know I owe to the Americans. And that's why I keep for the last twenty-thirty years, we have been keeping some orphan children, because I'm so greatful for them. And I don't buy expensive clothes, I'm not ashamed to go to the exchange sale and buy some nice clothes over there and then give the money. I keep three orphans for many years. Because American people did to us, they kept us, all my three brothers were in an orphanage.
F: Did you see your brothers much after your father was killed?
A: Well yes. They were not too far away. It was about two hours ride by carriage.
F: They were in Tallas, too?
A: No, they were in Sinsjedara - well it's another town. But then after we came in here we brought my two brothers here and they lived with us for many years. And we brought my cousins - my cousin and my huband's mother, brother, sister, we brought all, all our relatives. We paid for them as time went on and then we had a big seven-bedroom house and most of them, there's something I wrote. Thirty-eight people came and stayed 'til they got a job 'til they went to college, 'til a week, two weeks, two months, four months, a year, according. So we had a big house, it was open. And I'm glad that we could do that, we could help so many people.
F: Before your father was killed, when you lived in the pastorage at Hadjin, did you and your brothers play together often? You were about ten or eleven years old.
A: I guess when he was killed I was about ten or eleven. We had a happy thing because we were with the Americans. All our neighbors were Americans. American missionaries, in Tallas. Dr. Dodd, in fact, Dr. Dodd's son used to be the reporter at WOR for a long while, he's not on now. I mean I used to hear him years ago. I'm talking about many years back. We were poor, we were very poor, but everybody else was poor so we didn't know what it meant. Now sometimes I think all the nice things and I have to pinch myself that I'm the same person. But after I came here to get used to the Americans was pretty hard too. But I got used to it. One thing happened, the night we got married. We didn't have any wedding. Dr. pavlides, his wife and seventy-two year old man who was my escort, my sister-in-law's brother and his wife. Four people, we got married and no wedding, no party. No white dress. And years, months later, we would go visit the friends and every time we went someplace they'd bring their wedding pictures and show the wedding pictures - ring boy, flower girl. And one time I came home and I cried, "Gee," I said, "What kind of a wedding was this? We didn't have anybody in the house but four people and I didn't have a white dress and I didn't even have any cake. And I don't even have a picture to prove that we were married." And he called up the photographer and he said that Mr. Hadazian, was it? "My wife is crying because we don't have wedding pictures." He says, "Tell your wife to borrow a wedding dress and get yourself a dark suit and come and I'll take it" "You can't - she's seven months pregnant" he says, "You just do what I tell you." So we, I borrowed a dress and he got a thing and I have to show - I paid ten cents for the garland in my hair and I paid a dollar for the artificial flower and he mad me sit down and made my husband stand up and got a beautiful picture. I have to show you. The wedding night something happened that, I think was interesting. I almost killed both of us. I had never seen gas light in my life and when we were ready to go to bed I blew the gas and went to bed. And then after a while, I smell something, I said, "Paul, I smell something." And his smelling isn't very good - I found out later that he hardly smells anything. "I don't smell anything," he said. And I kept smelling, it's getting worse and I said, "Get up, Paul." I said, "Something's terrible smelling." And he got up. He said, "How did you turn off the gas?" I said, "I blew it out." And he said, "Never do that - you should turn it off." And right away he open the windows and turned the thing off and or else the night we were married we were gonna get killed. And the same thing is in that Pearl, that if you ever come across the story of Pearl.
F: Do you know the author?
A: Daiy-, its much worse than mine. He was, they were much poorer. She didn't even know how to write Armenian and they taught her just to write "arrive safely" in Armenian. Just she learned that much to write and it's very interesting story. It's something parallel to mine, but I was much more educated than she was - she didn't have any education. Oh, about the story of the - I never had a new dress after my father had been killed. Everybody would give me, and one Easter, some of the girls, I was making some pretty lace and one of the missionaries said if I make one big doily and six small soilies she'd buy them from me. And she was going to send them for Christmas, a present to somebody in America. So I finished it. And as a rule, one Saturday my grandmother would come to visit me and the next Saturday I would go to visit her. It's walking distance, not too far - about ten minutes walk. And this one Sautrday she said she wouldn't be able to come. So that saturday we hired a carriage to go to take us to Kayseri - that's the next town. This is but a small town, that's a big town. We were going to buy some material and the girls were going to make a new dress for me, so I could have a new dress. And just as we were getting ready to go, grandmom came and she said, "Did you finish the thing?" I said, "yes." "Did you sell it?" I said, "Yes." "How much money did you get?" I said, "I got one madjid." "One madjid," she said. "We can get half a beef with that. We can get half a beef with that and that would be all our year's meat. "Over there in the basement, under the basement, they have another basement, a small basement. And they have three, four crocks there and they put different kinds of foods in there and the meat they salt them real heavily and put on top of each other and once a week they get, they can have meat. And she said, "You let us buy that beef, that will be enough beef for the whole year for us, and we'll make you a new dress." So I went over there to the house and like in that "Sound of Music" she cut the curtain, took the curtains down and made me a dress and just these things were starting to show. So she put three rows in, right on the breasts, a little ruffle and the ruffle was added with fine pink piping-blue, blue puping and three rows of ruffles. I wish I had a picture of that dress. It was, I was so proud of it. And for five cents they bought a pair of shoes for me and somebody gave me a ribbon for me hair. So for easter I had a new outfit. Over there they get one outfit, one Easter that's all. So next year becomes your everyday dress in two-three years, whatever. Then they never have so many clothes. I'm ashamed of all the clothes I have now. All we would have to eat was a handful of raisins and a few nuts which is very good lunch. We didn't appreciate then, but I realize now that's all you need.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Best Night Ever as the Chic Fil A Cow
So, I work as the cow at Chic Fil A. Every Tuesday night, there is a car show that is held at a next-door store. I got to go over there the other night dressed as the cow, and was immediately accepted into the group. As seen in the pictures below, it was a rather unique experience.
I am pretty darn sure that, ironically, dressing up as an 8 foot tall cow is the only way I will ever fit in with that crowd.
I am pretty darn sure that, ironically, dressing up as an 8 foot tall cow is the only way I will ever fit in with that crowd.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Economic Stimulus Package
NOTE: Sorry about the strange formatting, blogger spazzes out with word docs...
The United States is currently in the most severe economic recession this country has seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Unemployment has risen “to 7.6%, its highest in 16 years.” What has the United States come up with to combat this economic downturn and unemployment rise? Congress recently passed a bill proposed by President Barack Obama enacting 787 billion dollars in various spending plans. I believe that this spending plan will eventually fail and ultimately prolong our current economic recession. In the following pages I will inspect the Great Depression of the 1930s, referencing the policies implemented by President Roosevelt, and applying my observations to our current economic situation. I will be applying the “broken window” economic principal and examining why the stimulus bill is applying the fallacy of this principal to attempt to fix our economy.
To thoroughly examine any issue, you must always start at the beginning. In this case, I believe that means understanding the events that occurred during our nation’s most dreadful period of economic instability. Thomas DiLorenzo tells us that the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) was “39 percent below trend at the trough of the Depression in 1933” (Page 1). In 1932, the unemployment rate reached nearly 30%. However, after seven years of spending policies creating new jobs under Roosevelt’s New Deal Policies, the unemployment rate was still just over 17%. Many people revere President Roosevelt as the savior that finally got us out of the Great Depression. On the contrary, I view him as the undeservedly idolized president who prolonged our stay in economic instability.
Roosevelt’s administration took the depression to have been caused simply by underpriced merchandise, and so “high prices–enforced by threats of violence, coercion and intimidation by the state–would be the ‘solution.’ Moreover, it is hardly a secret that if less production takes place, fewer workers will be needed by employers and unemployment will subsequently be higher” (DiLorenzo, Page 2). The argument, of course, is that obviously, in the seven year period between 1932 and 1939, the unemployment percentage dropped dramatically, and therefore the New Deal policies must have been working. However I would argue that just because the unemployment rate dropped doesn’t mean that it is attributable to Roosevelt’s policies. In addition to the poorly-implemented New Deal policies, Roosevelt also tightened the governments regulation of private businesses and companies. We know that Roosevelt’s plan to shock the economy back to normal did not play out like expected, however we have not learned from our mistakes, and are currently in the process of “shocking” ourselves further into a recession.
Government is becoming increasingly involved in private business matters, giving out money and making these businesses directly accountable to the state. In recent news, the company AIG, recently bailed out with huge sums of taxpayer money, imprudently gave several huge bonuses to company executives. While this is unwise and in many ways morally deplorable, it is admittedly the normal way the company operates. Many people were understandably outraged at this, and as a result congress consequently passed a cruel tax on company bonuses that ultimately resulted in AIG losing large sums of money as a result of this retribution tax. Without saying that the bill congress passed was just, ask yourself if it is really a good idea to have private corporations so connected to the state that they can be controlled to the point of being punished for giving bonuses to employees. Our government is being socialized at a much faster pace and to a much greater extent than was even considered during the Great Depression during Roosevelt’s time. Even if economics worked under shock and awe tactics, at this pace, by the time our economy recovers, we will have grown increasingly socialistic; and historically, socialism always leads to communism.
So if the New Deal didn’t end the depression, what did?
“The abandonment of FDR’s policies "coincided" with the recovery the 1940s is very well documented by another author who is also ignored by Cole and Ohanian, Robert Higgs. In "Regime Uncertainty: Why the Great Depression Lasted So Long and Why Prosperity Resumed after the War" (Independent Review, Spring 1997), Higgs showed that it was the relative neutering of New Deal policies, along with a reduction (in absolute dollars) of the federal budget from $98.4 billion in 1945 to $33 billion in 1948, that brought forth the economic recovery. Private-sector production increased by almost one-third in 1946 alone, as private capital investment increased for the first time in 18 years. In short, it was capitalism that finally ended the Great Depression, not FDR’s harebrained cartel, wage- increasing, unionizing, and welfare state expanding policies” (DiLorenzo, Page 3)
The farther we grow from capitalism, the further we dig ourselves not only into economic recession, but socialist policies, contrary to the principals our country was founded under. So what is the economic rule of the “broken window”, as discussed by Henry Hazlitt.
Hazlitt uses the example of a young mischief-doer, who tosses a brick through a shop window then runs out of sight. Ignoring the resulting pandemonium Hazlitt describes, the point of this principal is what follows. In order to do Hazlitt’s explanation justice, I will let him lay it out for you:
“After a while the crowd feels the need for philosophic reflection. And several of its members are almost certain to remind each other or the baker that, after all, the misfortune has its bright side. It will make business for some glazier. As they begin to think of this they elaborate upon it. How much does a new plate glass window cost? Two hundred and fifty dollars? That will be quite a sum. After all, if windows were never broken, what would happen to the glass business? Then, of course, the thing is endless. The glazier will have $250 more to spend with other merchants, and these in turn will have $250 more to spend with still other merchants, and so ad infinitum. The smashed window will go on providing money and employment in ever-widening circles. The logical conclusion from all this would be, if the crowd drew it, that the little hoodlum who threw the brick, far from being a public menace, was a public benefactor.”
While this might seem like a logical conclusion for this crowd to make, Hazlitt goes on to explain why this is the wrong reaction for the bystanders to have.
“Now let us take another look. The crowd is at least right in its first conclusion. This little act of vandalism will in the first instance mean more business for some glazier… But the shopkeeper will be out $250 that he was planning to spend for a new suit. Because he has had to replace a window, he will have to go without the suit (or some equivalent need or luxury). Instead of having a window and $250 he now has merely a window.”
Hazlitt Concludes:
“The glazier’s gain of business, in short, is merely the tailor’s loss of business. No new “employment” has been added. The people in the crowd were thinking only of two parties to the transaction, the baker and the glazier. They had forgotten the potential third party involved, the tailor. They forgot him precisely because he will not now enter the scene. They will see the new window in the next day or two. They will never see the extra suit, precisely because it will never be made. They see only what is immediately visible to the eye.”
As you begin to apply the broken window principal of economics, you will begin to realize that both President Roosevelt’s New Deal and President Obama’s Stimulus Package only displace money towards one specific aspect of improving the economy (in both cases, creating temporary jobs).
In conclusion, I again remind the reader that the 787 billion dollar economic stimulus package is merely an ill-planned attempt to jump-start our economy and kick it back into motion. Remember that the New Deal implemented under Roosevelt was much cheaper, and despite this, dug us deeper into our already serious depression. If we expect to get out of this recession, let alone avoid falling all the way back into depression, we need to stop these wasteful stimulus bills, and stop getting the government involved in the private business sector. Finally, as we saw by examining the “Broken Window” economic principal, while the stimulus package might appear to have short term positive effects, all it really does is displace, decrease, and destroy the value of our money and investments. In the long run, the stimulus bill will do nothing except delay our recovery from this tragic recession.
The United States is currently in the most severe economic recession this country has seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Unemployment has risen “to 7.6%, its highest in 16 years.” What has the United States come up with to combat this economic downturn and unemployment rise? Congress recently passed a bill proposed by President Barack Obama enacting 787 billion dollars in various spending plans. I believe that this spending plan will eventually fail and ultimately prolong our current economic recession. In the following pages I will inspect the Great Depression of the 1930s, referencing the policies implemented by President Roosevelt, and applying my observations to our current economic situation. I will be applying the “broken window” economic principal and examining why the stimulus bill is applying the fallacy of this principal to attempt to fix our economy.
To thoroughly examine any issue, you must always start at the beginning. In this case, I believe that means understanding the events that occurred during our nation’s most dreadful period of economic instability. Thomas DiLorenzo tells us that the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) was “39 percent below trend at the trough of the Depression in 1933” (Page 1). In 1932, the unemployment rate reached nearly 30%. However, after seven years of spending policies creating new jobs under Roosevelt’s New Deal Policies, the unemployment rate was still just over 17%. Many people revere President Roosevelt as the savior that finally got us out of the Great Depression. On the contrary, I view him as the undeservedly idolized president who prolonged our stay in economic instability.
Roosevelt’s administration took the depression to have been caused simply by underpriced merchandise, and so “high prices–enforced by threats of violence, coercion and intimidation by the state–would be the ‘solution.’ Moreover, it is hardly a secret that if less production takes place, fewer workers will be needed by employers and unemployment will subsequently be higher” (DiLorenzo, Page 2). The argument, of course, is that obviously, in the seven year period between 1932 and 1939, the unemployment percentage dropped dramatically, and therefore the New Deal policies must have been working. However I would argue that just because the unemployment rate dropped doesn’t mean that it is attributable to Roosevelt’s policies. In addition to the poorly-implemented New Deal policies, Roosevelt also tightened the governments regulation of private businesses and companies. We know that Roosevelt’s plan to shock the economy back to normal did not play out like expected, however we have not learned from our mistakes, and are currently in the process of “shocking” ourselves further into a recession.
Government is becoming increasingly involved in private business matters, giving out money and making these businesses directly accountable to the state. In recent news, the company AIG, recently bailed out with huge sums of taxpayer money, imprudently gave several huge bonuses to company executives. While this is unwise and in many ways morally deplorable, it is admittedly the normal way the company operates. Many people were understandably outraged at this, and as a result congress consequently passed a cruel tax on company bonuses that ultimately resulted in AIG losing large sums of money as a result of this retribution tax. Without saying that the bill congress passed was just, ask yourself if it is really a good idea to have private corporations so connected to the state that they can be controlled to the point of being punished for giving bonuses to employees. Our government is being socialized at a much faster pace and to a much greater extent than was even considered during the Great Depression during Roosevelt’s time. Even if economics worked under shock and awe tactics, at this pace, by the time our economy recovers, we will have grown increasingly socialistic; and historically, socialism always leads to communism.
So if the New Deal didn’t end the depression, what did?
“The abandonment of FDR’s policies "coincided" with the recovery the 1940s is very well documented by another author who is also ignored by Cole and Ohanian, Robert Higgs. In "Regime Uncertainty: Why the Great Depression Lasted So Long and Why Prosperity Resumed after the War" (Independent Review, Spring 1997), Higgs showed that it was the relative neutering of New Deal policies, along with a reduction (in absolute dollars) of the federal budget from $98.4 billion in 1945 to $33 billion in 1948, that brought forth the economic recovery. Private-sector production increased by almost one-third in 1946 alone, as private capital investment increased for the first time in 18 years. In short, it was capitalism that finally ended the Great Depression, not FDR’s harebrained cartel, wage- increasing, unionizing, and welfare state expanding policies” (DiLorenzo, Page 3)
The farther we grow from capitalism, the further we dig ourselves not only into economic recession, but socialist policies, contrary to the principals our country was founded under. So what is the economic rule of the “broken window”, as discussed by Henry Hazlitt.
Hazlitt uses the example of a young mischief-doer, who tosses a brick through a shop window then runs out of sight. Ignoring the resulting pandemonium Hazlitt describes, the point of this principal is what follows. In order to do Hazlitt’s explanation justice, I will let him lay it out for you:
“After a while the crowd feels the need for philosophic reflection. And several of its members are almost certain to remind each other or the baker that, after all, the misfortune has its bright side. It will make business for some glazier. As they begin to think of this they elaborate upon it. How much does a new plate glass window cost? Two hundred and fifty dollars? That will be quite a sum. After all, if windows were never broken, what would happen to the glass business? Then, of course, the thing is endless. The glazier will have $250 more to spend with other merchants, and these in turn will have $250 more to spend with still other merchants, and so ad infinitum. The smashed window will go on providing money and employment in ever-widening circles. The logical conclusion from all this would be, if the crowd drew it, that the little hoodlum who threw the brick, far from being a public menace, was a public benefactor.”
While this might seem like a logical conclusion for this crowd to make, Hazlitt goes on to explain why this is the wrong reaction for the bystanders to have.
“Now let us take another look. The crowd is at least right in its first conclusion. This little act of vandalism will in the first instance mean more business for some glazier… But the shopkeeper will be out $250 that he was planning to spend for a new suit. Because he has had to replace a window, he will have to go without the suit (or some equivalent need or luxury). Instead of having a window and $250 he now has merely a window.”
Hazlitt Concludes:
“The glazier’s gain of business, in short, is merely the tailor’s loss of business. No new “employment” has been added. The people in the crowd were thinking only of two parties to the transaction, the baker and the glazier. They had forgotten the potential third party involved, the tailor. They forgot him precisely because he will not now enter the scene. They will see the new window in the next day or two. They will never see the extra suit, precisely because it will never be made. They see only what is immediately visible to the eye.”
As you begin to apply the broken window principal of economics, you will begin to realize that both President Roosevelt’s New Deal and President Obama’s Stimulus Package only displace money towards one specific aspect of improving the economy (in both cases, creating temporary jobs).
In conclusion, I again remind the reader that the 787 billion dollar economic stimulus package is merely an ill-planned attempt to jump-start our economy and kick it back into motion. Remember that the New Deal implemented under Roosevelt was much cheaper, and despite this, dug us deeper into our already serious depression. If we expect to get out of this recession, let alone avoid falling all the way back into depression, we need to stop these wasteful stimulus bills, and stop getting the government involved in the private business sector. Finally, as we saw by examining the “Broken Window” economic principal, while the stimulus package might appear to have short term positive effects, all it really does is displace, decrease, and destroy the value of our money and investments. In the long run, the stimulus bill will do nothing except delay our recovery from this tragic recession.
Friday, April 3, 2009
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Pre-New Years Resolutions?
Why Wait?
I feel like I should write this stuff down as I think about it or I won't remember. Also, some of these I've already been working on. They are sort of in order of importance, although not completely.
-More Consistent with Daily Devotions and Fasting every other week
-Weigh 185 lbs (Down from 228, [-43lbs (already lost 13 lbs)])
-Bench Press 185 lbs
-Run a 27 minute 5k (Current time - 33:45)
-Finish out the school year w/ good grades
-Get better at snowboarding
Stupid stuff:
-Learn how to ballroom dance
-Learn how to dance...
-Get video documentation of me doing something stupid with some friends.
-Go to Six Flags
-Learn how to play Guitar
-Write a song
-Learn how to moonwalk
I feel like I should write this stuff down as I think about it or I won't remember. Also, some of these I've already been working on. They are sort of in order of importance, although not completely.
-More Consistent with Daily Devotions and Fasting every other week
-Weigh 185 lbs (Down from 228, [-43lbs (already lost 13 lbs)])
-Bench Press 185 lbs
-Run a 27 minute 5k (Current time - 33:45)
-Finish out the school year w/ good grades
-Get better at snowboarding
Stupid stuff:
-Learn how to ballroom dance
-Learn how to dance...
-Get video documentation of me doing something stupid with some friends.
-Go to Six Flags
-Learn how to play Guitar
-Write a song
-Learn how to moonwalk
Saturday, November 22, 2008
My Parents
How do I put this...
Thank God for my Parents. Guess that pretty much sums it up. I guess I'm writing this because it has really been on my mind how much we all owe our parents and how little acknowledgment they get. Being the know-it-all teenager is not only an incredible amount of responsibility (what if you get something wrong =0) but it's also a flat out lie (sucks doesn't it?). Anyway, not a super long post listing everything I owe them... besides, it'd be way too long to list. All I'm going to say is thanks Mom for being such a great cook, being so patient with us when we're out of hand, always being willing to open up the home to our friends, and doing everything that we take for granted on a daily basis without even one word of complaint. And Thank You Dad for your firm, yet kind and gentle hand in dealing with all of our shenanigans; Thanks for being there to give your guidance and encouragement when we need it most; Thanks for ALWAYS being the reliable source of advice and counsel when needed, and the one who I can always confide in when looking for encouragement. Above all, Thanks for Loving your wife and family more than anything else and putting them first in your life.
Love you guys!!
Thank God for my Parents. Guess that pretty much sums it up. I guess I'm writing this because it has really been on my mind how much we all owe our parents and how little acknowledgment they get. Being the know-it-all teenager is not only an incredible amount of responsibility (what if you get something wrong =0) but it's also a flat out lie (sucks doesn't it?). Anyway, not a super long post listing everything I owe them... besides, it'd be way too long to list. All I'm going to say is thanks Mom for being such a great cook, being so patient with us when we're out of hand, always being willing to open up the home to our friends, and doing everything that we take for granted on a daily basis without even one word of complaint. And Thank You Dad for your firm, yet kind and gentle hand in dealing with all of our shenanigans; Thanks for being there to give your guidance and encouragement when we need it most; Thanks for ALWAYS being the reliable source of advice and counsel when needed, and the one who I can always confide in when looking for encouragement. Above all, Thanks for Loving your wife and family more than anything else and putting them first in your life.
Love you guys!!
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Phillies, World Champions 2008!
The Philadelphia Phillies won the world series last night with a final score of 4-3! Kudos to Brad Lidge for his perfect season!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)