A continuation of the Preface to APRAHAM HOJA OF AINTAB - This post is Part 4 of 7 Parts . . .
Soon after moving to the United States in 1912, Uncle Vartan (Rev. Vartan Bilezikian) met Elmas Melkonian. Born in a village somewhere beyond Marash and Aintab, Elmas had also escaped the Armenian genocide and was working as a cook for the Perkins Institute for the Blind in Watertown, Massachusetts. Uncle Vartan married Elmas Melkonian in Watertown. Massachusetts, in 1912.
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| Auntie Elmas & Uncle Vartan as I remember them |
Because he did not believe in accepting money for preaching the Word of God, Uncle Vartan began tailoring in his home, and soon establshed a tailor shop at 84 Bowers St., opposite the Newtonville train stain, and near the poolroom his brother Moses (Bilezikian) had established on Central Avenue in Newtonville, Massachusetts. Vartan's foresight and success as a tailor led him to buy the building where he lived with his wife in an upstairs apartment and rented out shops on the first floor, and an apartment on the second floor. Although they never had children of their own, Uncle Vartan and Auntie Elmas welcomed anyone who needed a home into their own home. At 84 Bowers Street in Newtonville, Massachusetts, there was always a ‘brother in Christ’ or a ‘sister in Christ’ being housed and fed by Uncle Vartan and Auntie Elmas. Conveniently, they lived right opposite the Newtonville train station! The lost souls didn’t have to go very far to be found!
FIrst half of the 20th Century: postcard of the Newtonville Train Station. 84 Bowers Street, Newtonville, Massachusetts
To be continued . . .
given the dominance of mountebanks and shill artists that dominate the airwaves as wolves in sheep's clothing, Uncle Vartan and Auntie Elmas would be sickened to see the declension of preaching in this country, whether in the mega churches, or on the TV airwaves. He would argue, convincingly, I am sure, that the reason the charlatans prospered so much in great public arenas was because 'there is a broad road that leads to destruction and many are found on it'. Although I miss Uncle Vartan and
ReplyDeleteAuntie Elmas, and would love to see them now both alive, albeit well into their 100's, I am glad they passed when they did and were spared the awful sight and cacophony that greets us in these massive edifices, and on TV, that house giant corporate churches doing the will of man.
i remember their home. i remember the climb up the wooden stairs, dark wood, dark walls, stairs that creaked and sagged, built of trees harvested a century before, a climb back into an earlier time, that filled my breath with the smell of the wood, the tactile cold touch of the tile floor in their kitchen reminiscent of the barber shop uncle paul, johnny and i would troop to in cleveland circle during our adolescence so that the barber could pay off a debt owed to Newtonville Electrical company through the cutting of our hair, the shaving of the bottom of the back of our necks with shave cream and a straight razor, empty chairs loaded with comic books, forbidden fruit, crab apples from the orchard of waiting for the barber to be finished with the one,or two, or more ahead of us, comic books the memory of which was indelible to me, because they were forbidden in our home. i can still remember some of the stories and visuals that coursed past my eyes and through my head, 55+ years ago. Back to Uncle Vartan's kitchen and what sat upoon tha look alike barber's fllor was a stove, one that had survived the decades of life in the apartment,a steel and fire structure, the coldness, hardness of it all, was anticeptic to the touch of my hands and the sight of my eyes. Often, uncle vartan would hold court and excitedly prepare a brew of his latest discovery, the newest in a lifelong american pursuit of the latest and best coffee to be purchased at the local grocery store. Chock full of Nuts, Maxwell...
ReplyDeleteall one had to do to flee that frontier, that new world on the edge of the wilderness, that kitchen of steel and stone, to travel out of the country and the nineteenth century of that kitchen was to enter the living room, an entree to wooden floors softened by their magic carpets, oriental rugs, thick and wooly, and scented with persia, and turkoman memories, a room that flew us back to our country of origin and the closeness of it all, the overstuffed chairs, and the overstuffed room, and conversations that brewed like coffee did in the kitchen.