Tuesday, October 4, 2016

How We Get Our Names . . .

So there he was, the first of Grandma Yepros Kurtgusian's family to arrive on the shores of the United States early in the 20th Century.  "What's your name," they asked him at immigration.  "Kurtgusian."  "What?  What was your father's name?" " Haroutioun." "Then your name shall be Haroutiounian," pronounced the immigration officer to my Grandma Yepros's brother.  That gentle man later married beautiful Makrouhi, had a family, purchased a home on Edinborough Street in Newtonville, Massachusetts, and although he had wanted to become a physician, he became a barber. Why? Because the beautiful Makrouhi couldn't bear the thought of his leaving his family in the middle of the night to attend to his patients. (In those days, doctors went to the homes of their patients; not the other way around!)  Where did he barber? In the rear of Grandpa Moses' pool hall on Washington Street in Newtonville, where presently stands the New England Telephone Company building.

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