Jennie Garabedian
Jennie Garabedian has always thought about the future generations in her family. In her family, everyone has married non-Armenian and she was afraid that the family stories of the Armenian Genocide would be lost. During the pandemic, Jennie began to write everything she knew about her mother, Dirouhi Der Torossian's story about the genocide, her family tree and their background.
"I thought their children might wanna know a little bit more about our family. We've now become very Americanized."
Jennie was able to leave her mark as a descendant by providing information on a document that could be passed down. This way future generations to come from Jennie's family remember what their ancestors went through and the struggles they faced, so it is never forgotten.
Jennie's father, Toros (Thomas) Garabedian, had left Armenia in 1909 to join his brother, Astoor (Austin) Garabedian, working in New Haven, Connecticut. In this story written by Jennie, she had explained the life her father and her uncle both went through while the genocide occurred. Both Jennie's father and uncle were clueless and beyond worried when the genocide broke out as their families were still left behind.
Jennie's father was able to find his wife and two children in 1924 when he went back searching for his family in a refugee camp.
Her uncle on the other hand had done the impossible to find his family. Recently, Jennie had found letters and money that her uncle had given to organizations in hopes of finding his wife and children.
"It made me realize that these people in the genocide were going through a hard time. But so were the people in America. They didn't know whether their families were alive or dead or what had happened to them."
With this book, Jennie has shown that the Armenian Genocide affected those who lived away and had family in Armenia during the time. Stories like these are valuable to future generations to understand because we usually only hear the stories from survivors and forget about those who also suffered from afar.
After the genocide, many Armenian survivors were orphans. Jennie had noticed that a whole community of Armenians had lived in an orphanage and decided to write a book. In the book, Jennie talks about the Armenian community and how they created the community from scratch. Jennie mentions that the first thing Armenians did was raise money for a church since religion was very important for the community. Jennie also interviews many families and tells their family story and focuses on assimilation. In her last chapter, Jennie writes about the hope that survived with the Armenian communtiy because many of them are intellectuals who have built a name for themselves.
"And, so I'm very proud of them, let me put it that way. I'm very proud of these people."
Jennie's book highlights that after such dark and horrific experiences the survivors still found hope. Jennie has shown that future generations must know everything that connects to the Armenian genocide. It is just as important to learn about what happened after, how communities recovered, the hardships and even the stories of families who suffered from afar.