I am one of 14 grandchildren. As the firstborn male, I was named after my grandfather Stepan. The story goes that he wanted me named Gaizag. My mother thought they would shorten it to “Guy.” My father offered a solution and suggested they name me after his father. End of discussion. Growing up on their beloved chicken egg farm in Franklin, MA (down the street from Camp Haiastan), we actually knew very little about their early lives. Of course, we knew they were born in Western Armenia and ca
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An absolutely fascinating and beautiful article, Stepan. I am so very glad you have these photos and this very important information about your family. You are right: these memories need to be passed down and preserved. Thank you for sharing your family’s story with us.
Thank you Stepan. I just read your article. Much of what you wrote was familiar to me but I learned a little more about our families. Thank you again and please continue to write
Thank you Stepan for this wonderful article that especially captured my attention because it parallels in large part the life of my Grandpa, Avedis ‘Ed’ Deranian who was born and raised in Hussenig (Kharpert province) of Western Armenia in 1899 and left with three sisters for the United States in 1911 by way of Marseilles and Lisbon. He also was a farmer, but instead of the East Coast like your Grandpa, he settled in Fresno. Some of my best memories are being on the farm with my Grandparents. I too had the opportunity to meet many of their friends, the Survivor generation of the Armenian Genocide. The stories they told were often tragic but for me as a child, also heroic and of great adventure.
Like you, I also have a photo that put my mind to wonder as a child and up to this very day. It’s a photo of my Grandpa’s family that did not survive the Genocide – his Mother, Father, younger brother, and younger sister. As my Grandpa use to tell me, the letters from the Old Country became fewer and more ominous, until one day they stopped.
That family photo so captivated me that I wrote a film script a few years back, entitled THE EMPIRE HAS ENDED, which although written to describe my Grandpa’s life, actually seems closer to your Grandpa’s life, in that it describes a young Armenian man who immigrated to the United States and later decides to join the Armenian Legion with the aim of finding his lost sister. The story follows the Armenian Legion as it fought alongside General Allenby’s campaign in Palestine and through Aleppo, and is set within the context of the eventual betrayal and tragedy of the Cilician Armenians. I hope to someday see the film made and in the meantime have been converting the script into a novel.
Thank you again for telling the story of your Grandparents. They truly came from an amazing generation of Armenians, and as you say, “Their stories need to be told to succeeding generations.”
Robert, I am Paul Piligian, Stepan Piligian was my father . Over the 15 years that we shared together on the chicken farm in Franklin, this story was gradually revealed to me piece by piece. Some of it prompted me to create a genealogy. ,also at the urging of young Stepan .more importantly was my sharing it to My son and to young Stepan. The ‘gamavors “were a tight group so I am certain our parents would have known one another.
Your story was a nice summary of your family’s journey. I hope you have passed it on to the young ones.
Stepan, that is an amazing story and the way you introduce it with the discovery of the Gamavor photograph makes it more fascinating. I am in the process of writing a historical novel which has a similar story line. Thanks for your articles, they are all required reading in our household.
Thank you for sharing this beautiful story. These stories indeed must be told and retold, and passed on to each generation. My family also migrated from Adana to Marseilles (after some years in Cypress) around similar years, and the details shared in Stepan’s story really helped me imagine the circumstances they may have lived through. We have to continue telling these stories, the stories are the glue that hold our history together.