Armenians

Over 300 Armenians have found eternal rest at Grace Church Cemetery. Their journey to their South Providence repose is nearly as long as the world is old.

Ask an Armenian about their history – anArmenian like Providence’s Stephen Elmasian – and they’ll quote the Bible; Genesis 8:4, to be exact: “Then the ark rested in the seventh month, the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat.” The actual Mt. Ararat, they will quickly point out, resides in historic Armenia – present day Turkey.

Armenia – strategically located at the crossroads of the East-West trade route – once stretched from the shores of the Caspian Sea to the banks of Euphrates River, then south to Mesopotamia. In 301 A.D., Armenia became the first state to declare Christianity its official religion. In 405, the Armenian language was created, consisting of 38 characters. It survives to this day as a uniquely independent strand of language.

Over the next 1,500 years, the once-mighty Armenia shrank through the attrition of almost constant invasions. As boundaries shifted with the vicissitudes of history, ethnicities – and religions – began to mix. Christian Armenians living in the western region of historic Armenia ended up as part of the Islamic Ottoman Empire.

By the late 1800s, ethnic and religious clashes were becoming more and more frequent. Ottoman Sultan Hamid tried to suppress the minorities and living conditions became unbearable for the Armenians and other minorities.

A revolutionary group known as the “Young Turks” emerged and promised tolerance and reform. The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), formed in response to the oppression, joined forces with the Young Turks and succeeded in overthrowing the sultan in 1911.

For the Armenians, things changed, but not necessarily for the better. The Young Turks overthrew the Islamic government and replaced it with the ideology of a secular government. Instead of uniting the country on religion, the Young Turks’ rallying cry was nationalism: pan- Turkism. The ethnic Armenians did not fit into this plan.

In 1914, World War I began to brew. On April 24, 1915, the Young Turks put out the word that they were entering the war and called upon their old comrades, the Armenians. Trucks rounded up Armenian men from age 16 to 60 to ostensibly head off to war. But they were taken to Turkish camps instead.

There, the men were tortured: fingernails were plucked out; hot iron brands melted eyes; body parts were lopped off until the men died. Several pictures have survived of triumphant Turkish soldiers proudly displaying freshly cut Armenian heads.

Back in the towns, the women, children, and elders were forced to flee south to Syria, through the infamous Dier-el-Zohr desert. If the elders did not keep up with their caravan, Turkish soldiers shot them on the spot. Women were raped. Many of them committed suicide, either to avoid the ignominy of rape or in humiliation. Over a million and a half Armenians were exterminated in the ensuing months.

Two women eventually made their way out of the waterless desert and landed in Providence, Rhode Island, where they lived out their lives in relative peace until their repose in Grace Church Cemetery.

Elmast Melkonian was a teenager when she was forced to leave her hometown of Guren and everything she knew. After surviving the Turks and the harsh Syrian desert, Elmast made her way to Lebanon. From there, she made her way to Cuba, where she lived with her few surviving family members until 1924.

She then migrated to Providence. She and her family settled in the Smith Hill section of Providence, the largest Armenian enclave in the city. By 1924, Armenians owned most of the local shops on Smith Hill --- the butcher, the corner grocery store. Men gathered in the local Armenian civic clubs to play cards and get away from their wives and children.

Shortly after arriving in America, Elmast met and married Hagop Der Mooshegian, to whom she would be married for almost 50 years,. Hagop had been born in Malatia, Armenia in 1890 and had managed to escape the Turkish oppression with his family in the years just prior to the genocide.

In 1930, Hagop established Jewelers Lunch on Chestnut Street, a popular diner. He owned and operated that business in the same location for 25 years. He and Elmast settled in Providence and made a good home at 107 Reservoir Avenue for their two children, Sarkis and Mary.

Hagop and Elmast were both dedicated members of the local Armenian Apostolic Church of Sts. Sahag and Mesrob, located on Providence’s Jefferson Street. The church was, and is still, the focal point of the Armenian community – a preservation of their ancient Christian tradition and cultural heritage. Both Hagop and Elmast were also active in charitable foundations to benefit those they left behind – Hagop as part of the Educational Society of Malatia and Elmast in her efforts within the Armenian General Benevolent Union.

At the beginning of 1974, Hagop became ill. He struggled for three months, but finally succumbed on April 27, 1974 at the age of 84. Elmast moved to a smaller place on Orlando Avenue in Cranston, closer to her children and grandchildren, where she lived happily for over 20 years. On June 18, 1996, she passed away in Rhode Island Hospital.

Another woman buried near Elmast in Grace Church Cemetery shared a similar history. Born in Armenia, Serpoohy Zooloomian was 10 years old when the genocide began. She watched Turkish soldiers cut unborn babies from Armenian mothers’ wombs – and take bets whether it was a boy or a girl. Like Elmast, she survived the desperate exodus across the barren desert and made her way to Providence as well.

There, she met Leon Zooloomian. Born in Armenia in 1893, Leon also survived the genocide and migrated to the United States in 1916. He had graduated from Yeprad College in Harpoot in 1914.

Once in Providence, Leon enrolled in the Rhode Island College of Pharmacy and upon graduating in 1920, he began what would become a 35-year career as a retail druggist. He and Serpoohy were members of the Armenian Euphrates Evangelical Church on Hammond Street in Providence, another focal point in the tight-knit Armenian community life.

Serpoohy, like Elmast, was a typical Armenian wife. Homemakers, they loved their children and enjoyed cooking Armenian specialties like kufta porov --- balls of ground meat mixed by hand with a cracked wheat called bulgour, then stuffed with bits of onion and rolled into small circles the size of a half-dollar. The stuffed kufta was then indented on one side and dropped into a pan of boiling water.

Armenian meals are typically festive occasions. On Sundays, Elmast and Serpoohy would often fix mounds of food, including kufta, a vegetable salad known as sahlotah, pickles, Armenian cheese, and cakes.

He and Serpoohy made a home for themselves and their two children on Oak Hill Drive in Cranston, and in 1939, Leon bought the Lee Drug Company near their home. As the years passed, the Armenian community, originally situated almost exclusively in Smith Hill, began to branch out. Small clusters of families formed new Armenian communities throughout Rhode Island and nearby Massachusetts.

Leon operated his drug store for 15 years, until his death on June 15, 1954. Serpoohy stayed in Cranston, near her daughter, May Perrino, and her granddaughter, Pamela M. McEleney. In her later years, Serpoohy moved to the Kent Nursing Home in Warwick, where she died on May 18, 1998.

Nishan Kuzirian was also born in Armenia – and is yet another Armenian who is buried in South Providence’s Grace Church Cemetery. He was born in 1884, but his parents migrated to Providence in 1900 as part of the first wave of Armenian immigrants running from the oppressive Sultan Hamid. Rev. Fr. Vartan Kassabian, who served as a priest to the Armenian community in Providence for many years, recalled that Nishan was the Providence reporter for the Armenian newspaper Baikar during his younger years. In 1919, he was ordained a deacon in the Armenian Apostolic Church. He served at Sts. Sahag and Mesrob Church on Jefferson Street for 45 years. For his service, the Armenian bishop ordained him as archdeacon in his later years.

During the Depression, Nishan began working as a retail grocer, which he did for 27 years until his retirement in 1956. During those years, he was heavily involved in the Armenian community, both inside and outside the church. He served as a trustee of the Church and as chairman of the Providence chapter of the Armenian Democratic League. He made his home with his wife Sarah and their four children on 84 Enfield Street until his death on August 6, 1964.

Hagop and Elmast, Leon and Serpoohy, and Nishan now all lay in eternal rest together at Grace Cemetery Church. They were among the last of the first generation in Providence, but their legacy has not faded. Their children and their churches still flourish today, and they bear more than just an Armenian name. They bear the legacy of the Armenian story.