V.H. Apelian's Blog: KEA evening school: why and how it was opened?

The attached blog is my translation of Varkes Apelian’s recollection of the founding Lebanon’s Kessab Educational Association’s (KEA) evening school. The article was posted in the 2020 KEA Yearbook and Directory but was written in 2019 and is dedicated to the memory of Gabriel Injejikian, who passed away on April 14, 2019.

This year we had the misfortune of losing our beloved Gappi (Gabriel Avedis Injejikian),a person who was worthy of great respect and honor, as the founder of the first Armenian day school in United States of America. He also gave us reasons, as compatriot Kesabtsiand member of KEA, to be little bit boastfull and proud.

Recently, we were very happy to read an article titled "The History of a School Ferahian School" written by the honorable Boghos Shahmelikian ("Asbarez", Saturday, April 6, 2019.) Our heartfelt thanks to the honorable Mr. Boghos for this very important story. However, in this story, you wouldn't get to know about the evening school we founded with Gappi (note: henceforth Gabriel), which is what I want to introduce to you.

First of all, how did I meet Gabriel? We moved to Beirut as a family in 1939 when I was nine years old, so I did not know him in his childhood and youth. But in the fifties, when I graduated from the city's Armenian Evangelical high school, I attended the American University of Beirut(AUB), where we met. He had come from Kessab to further his education.

In AUB, Armenian students who came from Kessab and other various countries of the Middle East would get together and have a very pleasant time. Gabriel had an attractive personality and was a loving presence in this group and we soon became acquaintances and soon after close friends.

Gabriel’s father was one of the ARF party leaders. Gabriel was nurtured in that environmen. He was a member and a leader of the ARF Youth Association of Kessab. Their hearts were filled with patriotism.

The proverb says "A sweet tongue entices a snake out of its hole". I think that was said for Gabriel. He convinced me and I became a member of the ARF Zavarian Student Association. Of course, along with the Zavarian Association, we were also members of the Kessab Educational Association and active in both as members of the administrative committee.

Where did the idea of opening our night school come from?

When we were AUB students, we had a sociology class in our first year, and that class required that each student, in order to successfully complete the course, had to do voluntary work for the benefit of the community. The assistant to the teacher of that class was an Armenian student senior to us (Mr. Karegin Sadrian). He gathered the Armenian students of the class and took them to a poor school in Bourj Hammoud, surrounded by tin huts. Boys, girls and grown ups of all ages came to the school. They were divided into classes. Each class was housed in a room. We taught them to read and write Armenian. It was a voluntary work that we did with great love and joy.

We passed the course and forgot all about it, but we couldn't forget that teaching experience, which gave us so much joy. It also downed on us that in a place like greater Beirut, where there were so many Armenian schools, there still were many Armenians who did not go to school for economic and other reasons. They were forced to leave school early on and go to work in order to support their families. We wondered if there were such students in the city as well and if there were, an evening school was the only way to teach out t them to teach them. Therefore, we decided to look into the matter.

The community center where ARF Kristapor Gomideh and KEA held their meetings had a good number of rooms that remained idle for the many days of the week and served no purpose but they were very convenient as classrooms for an evening school.

Gabriel and I decided to present this issue to the KEA committee and solicit their support. That became very easy because our association is “educational” and our goal was to teach. Here, Gabiriel did not have to tire his tongue. The KEA did not object and the proposal was passed.

We also had to get permission from the ARF Kristapor Gomideh. Even though we were not strangers to them and we had the backing of the attendant of the community center, our Kessab compatriot Assadour Terterian, but we needed Gabriel to put his toque in good use. He would not stop doing that, until he got an affirmative reply, and he did.

We were now ready to start work. Gabriel Injejikian was appointed the principal of the school and I, Vartkes Apelian, was appointed as the vice principal. Rupena Pakradouni, whom we knew well from the ARF Zavarian Student Association volunteered as the secretary. The teaching staff consisted of our friends who volunteered to teach.

The motto of the school was one line from one Taniel Varoujan’s poem: “I AM OFF TO THE SOURCE OF LIGHT.”

The following taught at the school, Ms. Shake’ Momjian (Օր. Շաքէ Մոմճեան), presently Mrs. Kassabian (Տիկ. Գասապեան), Dr. Onnig Keshishian (Տօքթ. Օնիկ Քէշիշեան), the ex-principal of the Rose and Alex Pilibos Armenian School, Mr. Hagop Makhoulian (Պրն. Յակոբ Մախուլեան), Mr. Varoujan Etemezian (Պր. Վարուժան Եթէմեզեան), and many others who continued teaching after I life.

The first year we had more than a hundred students. In the beginning, our intention was to give Armenian lessons to those who did not know how to read and write Armenian, but we soon added English, because at that time the demand for English was very high.

In addition to classes, the school also had other activities such as lectures, especially on the occasion of national holidays such as April 24, May 28, and at other events related to Armenian history; as well as other activities such as trips, visiting snowcapped mountain slopes, choir and theater, not forgetting the most important and most popular, the dances. Gabriel considered these activities very important. He said that this way the youth would learn more about Armenians and get to know each other better, get closer and eventually form Armenian families and populate the the Armenian nation. This was his conviction.

At the end of every school year, it was customary to part with our beloved teachers with a banquet where we presented each one of them a valuable "Parker" pen as a keepsake and in appreciation for their dedicated work.

I would like to express my personal deep gratitude to each and every teacher who selflessly served to teach their brothers and sisters in need of education. Also, special thanks to Miss Rubena Pakradouni (Rubena is the sister of unger Seno Pakradouni, the former editor of "Asbarez" daily.) She served the longest as the secretary of the evening school from 1951 to 1963.

Gabriel left for the U.S. in 1953, to further his higher education in the field of teaching. I became the principal of the KEA evening school.

I continued in that position until 1962. Throughout those years Gabriel was in America looking for the realization of his new dream (of opening a day school. In the U.S.). Our evening school in Beirut continued and prospered year after year, bringing the number of the students to 250. The excitement the school created, gave life to the once muted center.

During 1965-1970, the ARF Kristapor Gomideh was moved to their newly purchased building. Our communal life got disrupted with the onset of the civil war in Lebanon and the school was closed. (Note: The KEA evening school continued during the early years of 1970’s where I also taught, see footnote).

Yes, very dear friend Gabriel, many skeptical persons laughed at you, "a fool would think of opening a day school in America," they said. But you showed who you are, and today, following your example, Armenian schools in Los Angeles have multiplied, and I'm sure more will open in other Armenian populated cities in America as well.

Graduates from your school and the other schools received an Armenian education and formed beautiful Armenian families, and now their children attend Armenian schools. If not one hundred percent, but a good percentage of them retain their active Armenian communal affiliation.

Many of the students of the Beirut KEA evening school were forced to migrate to America, Europe and elsewhere because of the civil war in Lebanon. Now they give a thousand praises to their foreign language teachers. The foreign language they learned in the evening school helped them make their lives a bit easier and help them adapt to their new environment. They speak with great gratitude and kindness about their teachers, especially about you dear Gabriel, as the founding principal, a great Armenian and a patriot, a Tashnagsagan and the son of a Tashnagsagan, you were the last to laugh at those who laughed at you.