Vartabedian: My ‘Menz’ Was a Big Grandmother

Her name was Vartouhi. Most Armenians called her Vart while those outside the clan simply named her Rose.

I knew her as Menz. She was my grandmother and although she was short on size, she was BIG on gumption.

Like many first-generation Armenian Americans, Menz was a genocide survivor. She survived the holocaust with my mother and together they lived in Somerville, Mass. inside a modest second-floor tenement.

Because my folks operated a luncheonette seven days a week, the maternal chores fell upon my Menz. She was an easy sell when it came to the cookie cupboard or a quick handout when cash ran short.

I remember the time she took me shopping at the grocery store. Menz had this peculiar habit of touching and feeling everything she bought. Up and down the aisles she ventured, loading her basket.

One day she got caught opening a container of cream and smelling the contents. Even though the expiration date was two weeks away, she didn’t like what she smelled.

A clerk caught up to her shenanigans.

“You’ll have to buy that,” he ordered.

“Can’t,” replied Menz.

“And why not?” queried the clerk.

“It’s already been opened.”

That was Menz. Always flip with the answers. Her common sense was Armenian cents, especially when it came to saving a dollar. Back then, a dollar didn’t buy the holes in Swiss cheese. It got you a pound of imported.

Menz had her quirks. She “froze” to death in the back seat of a car on a hot summer’s day and would trudge through the snow with two armloads of groceries in the middle of winter and not complain.

Boy, could she sing. Didn’t matter if it was Armenian or Turkish. She regaled us with music. One day I put an Elvis 45 on the turntable.

“You hippie or something?” she roared with disapproval. “I got good music for you.”

And on would come a 78 record of the opera “Anoush.”

Whenever my friends called, she sat them down and made them listen to Armenian music. A few of them thought Menz was really hip with her hair in a bun and a sense of humor at her disposal.

She had a pain in her leg so she went to see a doctor after considerable urging. The doctor inquired about her age.

“I’m 82,” she told him.

After examining her, the doctor appeared stymied as to a cause. He tried some friendly persuasion but it didn’t work.

“You problem is very simple,” he said. “You’re getting old and shouldn’t be running around like this.”

Menz was quick on her feet. “Wait a minute,” she told the doctor. “My other leg on the other side is the same age and that don’t bother me.”

Menz put her faith in God. She read an Armenian Bible each day and had rosary beads in her hands at night. She attended Armenian Catholic Church regularly and insisted I do the same. The only reason I became an altar boy was because of her. If I didn’t, she vowed never to clean my room and make my bed again.

My Menz was chief cook and bottle washer rolled into one. She would spend five days at our home and weekends with her other daughter across town. The chocolate was always ready to help a spoonful of Castor Oil go down. She gave me my first jackknife. I brought it to school to show my friends and nearly got suspended.

She never cared much for all these modern appliances. The day we brought an electric can opener into the house, she was aghast. Opening the lids by hand was far more practical for Menz. No checking account for this woman. If she couldn’t pay by cash, it didn’t get bought.

If you ever checked out my kitchen cabinet, you’d find about $80 worth of soaps, cleansers, detergents, and furniture agents on the shelves. How times have changed. Menz bought a five-cent cake of yellow soap; it cleaned the whole house, the clothes, the windows, and she washed our heads with it.

And on the wrapper was a coupon. We finally furnished the house with all the green stamps she collected at the stores.

She could thread a needle in the wisp of a second, furnish a cure for the common cold (lemon juice) when all else failed, and was a great believer in the value of education.

She wanted me to grow up using my head instead of my hands. Menz taught me that a hammer was bad and that a book was good.

I grew up trying to bang nails into a wall with a hardbound.

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Tom Vartabedian

Tom Vartabedian is a retired journalist with the Haverhill Gazette, where he spent 40 years as an award-winning writer and photographer. He has volunteered his services for the past 46 years as a columnist and correspondent with the Armenian Weekly, where his pet project was the publication of a special issue of the AYF Olympics each September.