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Betty Apigian-Kessel

Betty Apigian-Kessel

Betty (Serpouhie) Apigian Kessel was born in Pontiac, Mich. Together with her husband, Robert Kessel, she was the proprietor of Woodward Market in Pontiac and has two sons, Bradley and Brant Kessel. She belonged to the St. Sarkis Ladies Guild for 12 years, serving as secretary for many of those years. During the aftermath of the earthquake in Armenia in 1988, the Detroit community selected her to be the English-language secretary and she happily dedicated her efforts to help the earthquake victims. She has a column in the Armenian Weekly entitled “Michigan High Beat.”

5 Comments

  1. Dear Betty,
    Thanks so much for the lovely article. A clarification: none of my ancestors were victims of the Holodomor. My grandfather and a great uncle did survive WWI internment in Canada. As to the Turks who were interned. It is not just their names, but their dietary habits, their prayer rugs and their burial rituals that assure me they were not Armenian. Even though Armenians came from the Ottoman Empire and Canada was at war with the Ottoman Empire, it was known that Armenians were not sympathetic to the Ottoman Empire and none were interned. As well, Brantford Armenians started up a Home Guard to work with local Canadian soldiers and were not considered in any way a threat to security.

  2. Dear Ms. Skrypuch,

    I read Ms. Kessel’s article with great interest. When I saw the name of your friend/colleague Carl Georgian mentioned in the article, a thought immediately crossed my mind. A few decades ago a man by the name of George Georgian from Canada contacted my mother in search of relatives he had never known. I believe he was one of the Georgetown Boys. George came all the way from Canada to Watertown, Massachusetts in the U.S. to visit us. We had just immigrated to the US and I was a teenager at the time. The encounter and the story behind it shook us to the core. George, we discovered, was my mother’s long lost first cousin. George’s mother and my mother’s father were siblings. As a young boy, George was lost and separated from his mother during the violent and chaotic slaughters perpetrated by the Turks in 1915-23. I know his mother never stopped searching for him. It was a miracle when they ultimately found each other before she passed away. I believe George went down to see her in Montevideo, Uruguay where she had established residence after escaping the genocide. George was already an older gentleman. We never saw George since. I wonder if Carl is George’s son. If you can find out please let me know as I have no way of asking him directly. Thank you for your efforts and for your valuable genocide research and intellectual contribution.

  3. Dear Ara,
    Like so many Armenians of that generation, George has a story that would make a wonderful feature film. Too bad the Armenians have no clout in that area, and even worse, so many obstacles to overcome to get something on the silver screen.

  5. Dear Ara, I am thrilled you have been brought together with Carl Georgian, my friend from Brantford, Ontario. This is just too marvelous for words. I met Carl when I went to Brantford to a book talk for Marsha, his good friend. I am so thrilled my column has brought all of us together. I hope you contact me soon. Do you know Sonny Gavoor previously from Watertown, and Libby Amerian Miller (Azadouhie) also previosuly from Watertown and now of California?  Betty from Keghi

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