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.