It isn’t very often I plug a business, only because it can turn into a bottomless pit. There’s no end in sight, given all the Armenians who have toed the line from one generation to the next.
Such a family is the Jaffarians, who operate a fourth-generation auto dealership in my home city of Haverhill.
Beneath the veneer is a core that prides itself on charity. It dates back to the 1940’s when Fred and Alice Jaffarian launched their operation. The Jaffarians were among the first settlers to arrive in Merrimack Valley and have carved quite an influential niche over these decades.
Anyone who needed a hand came to Fred, affectionately known as Tokey. He usually gave them both his hands and his heart, whether it was sponsoring a local football team or reaching out to the indigent.
He’s the only Armenian in our city to be enshrined in the Athletic Hall of Fame, and not because he operated a club called the Jaffarian Athletic Club. The guys would get together there, smoke their cigars, and play poker.
Ironically, it was located next to the Haverhill Gomideh and all too often, he’d pop inside and contribute his share while wife Alice handled the local ARS chapter. I don’t know anyone who chaired a chapter this long. It may have run 20 years.
Not because she was a control freak or because someone one else may have wanted the responsibility. She did the work and was good at it. The orphanage taught her that as a child.
Along came son Richard who was cast from the same mold. The only thing Dick liked better than selling cars was smelt fishing and raising his beloved Armenian tricolor at Moody Beach in Maine. Once that flag went up, it meant an open door.
Just stop by and invite yourself in for some of wife Myda’s hospitality. It was only conceivable the three boys would enter the business, having worked there through their school years. Brothers Gary, Mark, and Paul perpetuated the family trade, making it one of the more successful Volvo-Toyota dealerships in New England.
It’s not all business here. Out of it comes charity. Like their father and grandfather before them, the Jaffarians came to the aid of a budget-constrained Haverhill High School.
When the athletic department needed a new fitness room for its athletes, the Jaffarians came to the rescue. For every car sold, proceeds would benefit the athletic fund. This evolved into other areas of the school that needed financial help.
And now Gary’s children are aboard, after cutting their teeth in the business. I look no further than the hall in our newly renovated Armenian church, which continues to bear the Jaffarian name. The boys wanted to keep this tradition in the family and continued with their benevolence.
When our priest needed a car, they were given one by the family. Many acts of kindness were delivered behind the scenes—quietly yet effectively.
Talk about it with Gary and he’ll quickly admit, “It’s the Jaffarian way.”
“My brothers and I did fine together,” he says. “Dad was able to sit back the last 25 years of his life and enjoy watching us and my son Gavin working the business. His eyes sparkled when he watched us making deals. The American Dream turned out to be even more than my father and grandfather ever expected.”
The family also includes an aunt named Sara Jaffarian who spent an eon in library sciences. When a hurricane ravaged Georgia and destroyed its library in the process, Sara not only made the trip south, but joined with Laura Bush in a big fundraiser for that loss.
It wasn’t the First Lady being congratulated by Sara but quite the reverse. I recall doing the story for our local paper about this overly generous woman in her 80s flying there to make a difference.
“I’m not done yet,” she told me. “There’s other work to be done.”
She pointed right to her own city library, which was in dire need of a reading room. As you walk through the door and look to your right, there’s a sign posted that reads, “The Sara Jaffarian Reading Room,” along with a framed account of her story with Laura Bush.
Go inside any day and you’ll see students being tutored and elders doing puzzles. Yes, they do read in here, too.
Seems like I’ve known the Jaffarians all my life, each in their own generation. By the way, nobody grew flowers or made pilaf quite like Alice. She had the Midas touch.
She never revealed her secrets, except to say what’s on a dollar bill. You may have heard it.
“In God we trust.”
Tom Vartabedian
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