In tribute to Lisa Schombert

 Vahe H. Apelian

Lisa Schubert 

Lisa Schombert broke to her friends, the news of the passing away of her biological mother Ronni Veronica Safrasian on October 12, 2023, in San Bernardino, California. She was Taniel Varoujan’s granddaughter.

During the last weeks of her life Ronni was under medical care and under supervision of her only surviving daughter Lisa, whom her mother had given away for adoption in her infancy. When Lisa turned eighteen, her adoptive parents, per the will they had stipulated upon adopting her, introduced Lisa to her biological mother Veronica Ronni Safrasian and her maternal side of the family. It was then that Lisa found out that she has a biological mother and also had a s sister who had died in infancy before Lisa’s was born. 

Ronni Veronica Safrasian, Taniel Varoujan's granddaughter (1962)

Veronica Ronni Safrasian was born in 1945. It appears that her mother Veronica named her daughter Veronica as well, to perpetuate the name her father Taniel Varoujan liked and named her. But it appears that her daughter Veronica was mostly known as Ronni. The records posted in the internet show, on April 23, 2014, Veronica applied to officially adopt the name Ronni.

 Ronni Veronica Safrasian, Lisa’s mother,  was thus the granddaughter of Taniel Varoujan, and the daughter  of Taniel Varoujan’s daughter Veronica whom the eminent poet Taniel Varoujan affectionally called Varoujnag and had a poem dedicated to her titled “Varoujnagis – To My Varoujnag”.  The eminent literary critic Hagop Oshagan has said that one has to read that poem to appreciate what fatherhood is all about and considered the poem one of the best literary pieces in Armenian poetry.

Ronni Safrasian was the inheritor of a legacy that reverberates to this day, although I am not sure if she realized that.

A little bit of Ronni’s maternal side of family background.

On August 15, 1910, after a romantic prelude, Ronni’s maternal grandfather Taniel Varoujan married her already betrothed student. On June 7, 1911, a daughter was born to Taniel Varoujan ((Tchiboukerian) and his wife Araxi (Tashjian) in Perkenik, a village of Sebastia. They named her Veronica. They would also have two son.

After Taniel Varoujan’s was brutally killed as another martyr of the Armenian genocide, his widow Araxi left Istanbul with her daughter Vernoica and her sons Hayk and Armen and settled in the United States. Veronica married artist Joseph Safrasian and lived in New York for the rest of her life and remained active in the Armenian community. In fact, it is reported that at a literally function Veronica read her father’s poem – “Varoujnagis” – which her father had dedicated to her.

Taniel Varoujan was martyred in 1915 at the age of thirty-one. “As a consolation, Varoujan's three children had long lives. The eldest son, Armen, lived for 83 years. He died in 1995 and was buried in Honolulu, Hawaii where he had moved.  The youngest son Hayk, who was born in Istanbul on the day of his father's death, died in 2002 at the age of 87 and was buried in Fresno, where he lived. 

As a further consolation, God bestowed a long life to his beloved daughter, Taniel Varoujan’s Varoujnag. Veronika Varoujan-Safrasian, who died at the age of 97, on February 26, 2009 in Purdys, New York. Veronica's biography is summarized in the cemetery of the nearby town of Mahopac” (translated from an in Arevelk.am, on 13/09/2019 by Seyran Krikorian – Սեյրան Գրիգորեան).

Taniel Varoujan's widow Araxi and their children 
Veronica, Armen, Hayk

Taniel Varoujan’s granddaughter Ronni Safrasian was 78 years old when she passed away on October 12, 2023, leaving behind her only daughter Lisa Schombert, whom, as noted, she had given for adoption as an infant. Ronni remained under Lisa’s supportive care during the last weeks of her life.

Mother Ronni and daughter Lisa relations were tumultuous as adoptive child’s relationship with the biological parents often are. But Lisa penned her appreciative lasting tribute to her mother and wrote on her Facebook page.

“Dear Ronni,

I acknowledge all of what you had to weigh and that the decision you made was pure, out of love, and made in order to give me the best chance at the best life possible. I’ve had admiration and respect in multitudes for it. But I had no choice other than to accept and forgive since the day I was born. As I got old enough to decide for myself, I still chose to accept and forgive. The moment I was given a chance to meet you, I chose to accept your presence in my life. Eventually, I chose to give you pieces of myself, and finally, I even chose to give you, my trust.  

The road was bumpy, it was worth it.

Thank you for giving me life.

Rest in peace. The pain and struggle are over….you are healed…you are reunited with my sister and family.

My love to you.

Lisa”

Lisa Schubert (far left) with her maternal grandmother Veronica Safrasian and a cousin.

Lisa Schombert has a son - Daniel Murphy – whom she has named after his great-grandfather Taniel Varoujan. Lisa is also the proud grandmother of two grandsons.

Thank you, Lisa for sharing your life’s story to your friends and in doing so perpetuated the legacy of your Armenian maternal side of the family, although as you write, “the road was bumpy”, but you lovingly note that “it was worth it.”

May your mother rest in peace and may you find comfort and solace in the the care your provided to your biological mother Ronni Veronica Safrasian, during the last weeks of her life.