Anna-the-Bride and Her Grandson

Vahe H. Apelian

In memory of Kevork George James Apelian. Updated

George James Apelian

Kevork George Apelian's paternal grandfather Kerop eloping Anna for his bride from the Titizian family of Kaladouran, undoubtedly was the sensational news of the time in greater Kessab even though young couples eloping against the patriarchal choice for a spouse was not that uncommon in Kessab. Dr. Avedis Injejikian had eloped his wife Mary Apelian, the daughter of the well known medical doctor Soghomon Apelian.

But, Kerop's and Anna elopement had been altogether different. Anna had done the unthinkable. She had crossed all by herself, in the darkness of the night and through the eerie silence of the Kaladouran gorge and walked all alone all the way from the coastal village Kaladouran to Keurkune to her lover's house to the total surprise of lover Kerop's parents and his only sister, my maternal grandmother Karoun. Something had gone terribly wrong. Trusted intermediaries had worked out a plan for them. Kerop and his friends were to meet her in the cover of the night and escort her. But the lovers missed either the rendezvous point or the timing and Anna took upon herself to finish the task and wait for her lover's return in her lover's parental house. Never in greater Kessab had a girl walked all by herself to her lover's house before. She had always been free spirited with a mind of her own and was also known for her beauty. Anna, however, was not to experience the tranquility of family life with the man she chose to love.

Their elopement resulted in a bitter feud among the families involved. Anna's father had her engaged to a promising young Kessabtsi and their wedding was imminent. The families were in the midst of preparations for the upcoming wedding that would do justice to their social status. Their escapade must have been so sensational that a folk song evolved about them that continued to be sung during wedding celebrations in Kessab long after Anna, Kerop and most of their contemporaries were not around anymore.

Few years after the birth of their first child, a son whom they named Kevork, Kerop decided to move to America to join his two brothers in New York leaving behind his pregnant wife under the care of his parents. His brother Diran was a pharmacy graduate from Istanbul. His other brother Serop had run a store in Kessab selling candies and goodies of the day. That's why he had come to be known as shakarji, a Turkish word which means someone who deals with sweets. It was a moniker that stayed with him throughout his life much like the other endearing nicknames Kessabtsis gave to each. Kerop was to bring his family after he settled in the New World and saved enough to cover the expenses for his family's journey to America. 

In due time Anna gave birth to their second son. Kerop sent word from America to his wife letting her know that he wanted to have their son named James. The infant was destined to be an American citizen, therefore it was fitting for him to have a Western name but the family's reunion was never to be.

On June 1915 the local Ottoman authorities transmitted to the Kessabtsis the order for their deportation. James was a child when he also embarked on the perilous forced march along with his mother Anna, brother Kevork, grandparents Hanno (Hovhannes) and Anna, and his aunt, my maternal grandmother, Karoun. It would not be hard to envision that all the adults shared in caring  the young deportees. The ordeals of their forced marches to their elusive final resettlement destination decimated the family. Only James and his paternal aunt survived. My maternal grandmother Karoun,   became his guardian angel even though she was still in her mid teens. 

The popular account in Kessab is that their 1915 ordeal lasted three years and three months placing the start of the return of the survivors to their ransacked villages sometimes in the fall of 1918 only to face the bitter winter ahead without having the provisions to weather it. 

The returning survivors had seen fit that the young orphaned girl Karoun, be married to the most eligible bachelor, Khatcher Chelebian (Chalabian). Their wedding took place in their makeshift camp in the outskirts of Deir Attiyeh on their way home. The town is an hour's drive from Damascus. They were married in their rag tags. Their wedding was officiated by the groom's brother Stepan who was known for his piety and knowledge of church liturgy. There was no registry to record their marriage. They were to do that after their return and when a semblance of law and order was established. They were married by the grace of God and the consent of their fellow Kessabtsis. The young family moved to Karoun's parental vacant house, that stood in the center of the village, when they reached Keurkune, Kessab. James became a bona fide an adopted son.

Once the overseas communication resumed, James' father Kerop managed to have his son join him in America. The records of Ellis Island indicate that James set sail to the U.S. on June 1923 from Havre France, on a French ocean liner called France. He had started his journey from Beirut. He was on his way to see his father whom he had not seen before. He was to live in a country that was alien to him. He had witnessed harrowing realities of the Genocide and was growing up in Keurkune where electricity or a faucet at home was not even in their wildest imagination, let alone movie theaters or ice cream parlors. However enticing the latter may seem to be, they were alien to James along with the language spoken. He spoke only Armenian and Kesbenok, the local dialect. In 1928 he applied for naturalization but his acculturation to the New World proved to be impossible. His father and his two uncles made arrangements for him to return home, to Keurkune where his grandfather's lands would secure him a livelihood. He was the only male inheritor among the three brothers. 

The French ocean line France

The departure of his only surviving son must have been heartbreaking for his father Kerop. The 1915 Genocide had already deprived him of the cherished family life he must have dreamed.  His wife Anna, his first-born son Kevork, his parents had died during the Genocide. Throughout those heart-wrenching war years, Kerop must have kept faith to preserve his sanity and energy to work to make a living while awaiting news from the home front. After the war was over the news that one of his sons and his sister had survived may have given him hope. After the return of his son James, the realization of the enormity of his loss may have weighed heavy on him anew. A sense of hopelessness may have dampened his spirits and broken his will. It was rumored that he even attempted suicide. He passed away in Bronx, New York. It is not hard to surmise that he was a broken man, a far cry from the dashingly handsome young man who stole Anna's heart. He had become another victim of the Genocide although oceans and continents away from the killing fields.

Kerop's surviving son James would start his own life in Keurkune, Kessab.

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James married Sirvart Chelebian, the young sister of my maternal grandfather, Kacher. Not all the children they had survived. They named their son Kevork in memory of the brother James lost during the Genocide. They named their other son Kerop in memory of James' father and named their daughter Annais in memory of James' mother Anna.  The matriarch of the family, James' aunt, my maternal grandmother Karoun, had ruled naming daughters Anna anymore because she had named her youngest daughter Anna in memory of her mother but tragedy struck her teenage daughter as well. She died in her teens while her namesakes had become victims of the Genocide. Instead of Anna,  Annie and Annais had come into the family.

Kevork and his two younger siblings were raised in Keurkune. The allure of the village life did not seem to have left him. After graduating from Haigazian University, as one of the first graduates of the College then, he embarked on his career as a teacher in Anjar where he also settled down, married and raised his family. After a teaching career that spanned some two decades, he established a trade school and then his own business supplying school needs. In the midst of his labor to make a living, he made time to write. The writing was and remained his passion and over time he emerged as a prominent writer.

George published several books, namely, "Հելէ, Հելէ, ՀելէՔեսապ" (Hele, Hele Kessab), «Աննա հարսը" (Anna-the Bride), «Ցկեանս նահատակութիւն' (Martyrdom for Life), «Պէյրութ" (Beirut), «Նետենք¬բռնենք", "Աղբարի՜կ, ափիկ մը ջուր" (Brother, A Palmful of Water)« "Մաքարոնի թիլէկ-թիլէկ» (Makarone Teleg Teleg), «Քոյրիկս մի՛ծախեր, մա՜մ»  ( Do Not Give Away My Sister, Mom).

His first book «Հելէ, Հելէ, Հելէ Քեսապ» (Hele, Hele Kessab), is a collection of stories about Kessab and Kessabtsis. 

His second book «Աննա հարսը (Anna-the Bride), is a novel whose central character is Anna, his paternal grandmother. In reading the novel Anna emerges as the independent, free-spirited, stunningly attractive girl who eloped and wanted the man she chose to love against the will of her parents but  she died during while her husband waited for her and they their two sons in America. . The book was translated into English by Annie Chelebian Hoglind, George's grandniece.

Anna-the-Bride

«Պէյրութ" (Beirut), is a short novel about Beirut where George visited as a youngster and then moved to continue his education. No other city has had the allure Beirut has had for generations of Kessabtsis. The novel is a tribute to that allure.

His «Ցկեանս նահատակութիւն" (Martyrdom for Life) became a popular reading and was translated into Arabic, Spanish and English. His second book of the same series «Աղբարի՜կ, ափիկ մը ջուր" ( Brother, A Palm-full of Water) posthumously was translated into Arabic as well. Hagop Pakradouny, a member of the Lebanese Parliament gifted a copy of the book to each member of the Parliament.  Recently the former Prime Minister of Lebanon penned an appreciative letter addressed to the Lebanese Armenian community about the book. These two books are a collection of life stories of the survivors of the Armenian Genocide many of whom were raised by local Arab Muslim families. Some of these Muslim Armenians have organized themselves into a tribe in Syria known as "The Armenian Islamic Tribe". George was the first to interview members of this tribe and wrote about them.

 His last book "Մաքարոնիթիլէկ-թիլէկ" (Makarone Teleg Teleg), is titled after a satirical one-liner – Makarone Teleg Teleg- sang during festivities in Kessab. It is reported to be a collection of folk stories about Kessab and Mussa Dagh. 

George's other two books are for a younger audience. "Նետենք¬բռնենք" is a collection of four stories from Kessab that stretched the imagination. "Քոյրիկս մի՛ծախեր, մա՜մ"  (Do Not Give Away My Sister, Mom) is reported to be a rendering of the stories that appeared in the  Martyrdom for Life series intended for young readers.

Along with the books he authored, George kept a weekly column in Aztag Daily under the pen name «Ձիւնական (Tsounagan), a named derived from the Armenian word snow. The column depicted the ongoing issues with humor and satire but with much insight. Some likened his column to snowballs that hit the intended targets but never caused an injury. As one of his commentaries noted that George was a gentle and an unassuming man with a not unassuming literary talent and output.

George wrote that his natural inclination and preference is to write humorous and satirical stories. Oddly though he may be remembered by his depiction of the lives of the Genocide survivors he presented to his readers.

His baptismal name was Kevork but he remained socially more known and continued to be addressed as George. A name he kept and often times used interchangeably with Kevork or at times as his middle name. He also adopted his father's name -James - as his middle name as his still Facebook account indicates, George James Apelian..

George was born on March 24, 1941, and passed away on December 4, 2011. He is reported to have left behind yet unpublished material comprising several more volumes. After graduating from Haigazian College he started teaching in the Armenian village Anjar where he got married, raised their family  and continued to live until the end. The people of Anjar adopted this Kessabtsi as one of them and named their library after him.

Anna (Titizian), the beautiful and strong-willed girl from Kaladouran who broke her father's heart and left his choice for her to pursue her heart's calling did not live the promise of the life she must have dreamed. She succumbed much like the rest of the 1.5 million Armenian victims of the first Genocide of the twentieth century. Much like the rest of the victims of the Genocide, she also does not have a known burial site, let alone a tombstone. Unlike most of the victims who remain nameless and anonymous, Anna became an exception thanks to an appreciative grandson Kevork George James Apelian who never had the pleasure of knowing her paternal grandmother Anna in person but cherished the legacy she left behind and kept her memory alive for perpetuity within the covers of his popular bilingual novel, "Anna-the-Bride". 

Note: Dates and the picture of the ship courtesy George Aghjayan