Hovhannes: The Last Among the Chelebian Siblings

Vahe H. Apelian

LtoR: Back row, Hovhannes Chelebian, Zvart Chelebian (Apelian)
Hovhannes Apelian, Antranig Chelebian.
Fron Row: Kohar (Apelian) Chelebian, Vahe H. Apelian, Karoun (Apelian) Chelebian, 
Siranoush (Tootikian) Chelebian

 

My maternal uncle Hovhannes Chelebian passed away peacefully in his sleep during his late afternoon nap on Wednesday 5/12/2021, after being bathed and groomed thanks to the round the clock service he received in the Ararat Nursing Facility in Los Angeles. Four years ago, on January 31, 2007,  his sister, my mother Zvart Apelian, passed away while on her chair attending the day's social for the residents of the same exemplary institution for the care of the elderly.  Hovhannes was born in Keurkune, Kessab in 1926. He lived a long productive life overcoming inordinate challenges all along. He was named after his maternal grandfather who had died during their genocidal exile.

Unlike his brother Antranig and his sister Zvart, my mother; Hovhannes had no formal education having attended school only for a few years in Keurkune, Kessab and hence had ventured into life early on. 

He was tall, handsome, athletic and was extraordinarily gifted mechanic. If the unschooled Ramanujan became a world class mathematician, Hovhannes was the unschooled mechanical genius. In his early youth, orphaned without means, he had fashioned for him a hunting gun and by the age of 25 had convinced a few Syrians to partner by investing for him and had opened the first tennis shoe factory in Damascus having designed all the pieces of the manufacturing equipment himself.  By the age of thirty the company he was instrumental in its founding was overseeing a few hundred employees. He used to tell me in a nonchalant manner but without a hint of being boastful that he does not recall having been employed by anyone or apprenticed with anyone. 

He was also an ardent nationalist and had joined the Armenian Revolutionary Federation early on and had assumed leadership position in Damascus in charge of community security, that suited his temperament. In 1961/1962, during the upheaval the Armenian community experienced in Syria, he was charged with treason and was jailed. After a long imprisonment he was acquitted of all charges and was released. That was an intense period in our family as my mother regularly went to Damascus to attend to his trial and lend her support to him and his family. Although he was not mistreated during his imprisonment but had witness the mistreatment of his friends who were jailed with him. A few of those who were imprisoned with him were sentenced for long term imprisonment or died in prison. The traumatic experience left an indelible mark on him.

Subsequent to his release there came a period of nationalization in Syria, including the factory he had brought about. Rebellious from his youth he refused to report to the Syrian government placed party official in charge of the factory and opted to resign but was not allowed. He eventually had his way but at a great financial cost. It took him a few years until the governed released him from duty upon him relinquishing his claims to the factory he had built from the ground up.

He returned to Latakia and set up a manufacturing shop. His specialty was in designing and fabricating mechanical presses for the large-scale manufacture of pickaxes, spades, and other farming implements. He also purchased properties in keurkune and set up his apple orchard. He came up in innovative way of digging a deep well for irrigating his orchard and designed a method of watering the trees by a network of pipes that dripped water at the base of the trees. He also fabricated a machine that sorted different size apples and lastly, he fabricated his own pistol which to his great regret was stolen from his house during the past civil war unrest in Syria. Previously, he fabricated a larger than life size April 24 memorial for the Armenian community in Latakia in the form of a decapitated tree trunk, with the axe embedded in it, having a branch rise from the periphery. The trunk consisted of 12 leaning panels, much like the number of stone slabs of the Genocide memorial in Armenia, but covered at the top to give the shape of a decapitated tree trunk flattened on top.

He married young, when he was in his early twenties to Kohar Apelian, also from Keurkune . They became parents to Nora, Khachig and Haig. Nora passed away a few years ago and his wife a little bit more than a year ago before his admission to the nursing home after incurring a stroke. For all practical purpose he became handicapped without his wife. Brilliant with machines but he could not fix a cup of coffee for him and relied on his wife. They were inseparable. 

He was the exact opposite to his brother Antranig who was fastidious and not impulsive. But both were talented. Antranig, a historian, cartographer, calligrapher, and a medical illustrator, was a long-time instructor of physiology for the medical, pharmacy and nursing students in the American university of Beirut. In his youth, Antranig had assumed a leadership role helping organize the great repatriation to Armenia in 1947. He believed that the security and the viability of Armenia was better assured in the Soviet Union and hence he supported Soviet Armenia, while his brother Hovhannes opposed it on ideological ground. During my childhood and early youth, I experienced intense debates in our household. Both in their own ways were resolute and firm believers in what they advocated and stood firm. During those years, many families split apart because of their opposing views. But the Chelebian siblings, who had lost their father very early on and had grown up as driven orphans, remained a family to the end, with my mother acting as the peacekeeper between her two brothers. The sons and surviving daughter of the Khatcher and Karoun (Apelian) Chelebian, Antranig, Hovhannes and Zvart, enriched my life beyond measure. I would not have wanted my life otherwise and it would have been much poorer without them.

Hovhannes kept his creative streak to the very end. During my last visit to him he showed me a support he had fabricated that he dragged behind him while working in the backyard. Time had ravaged his body and he had tripped and fallen a few times while doing gardening in his home in Los Angeles where they had moved to be close to their son. The wooden structure he had fabricated was a combination of stepstool in a frame that he said would help him crawl into it and step by step enable him to sit on a step at a time and thus  help him rise on his feet. 

He was also tinkering to build a mechanical perpetual wheel that would turn around on its own with ball bearing falling on levels he explained to me. He was still figuring the intricacies of the design in his mind, he said.  After long and productive years, he now has the time at his hand to see his device come to fruition. I am sure, in one way or another, he will accomplish it in heaven what physics on earth claims that it is a mechanical impossibility 

I take comfort knowing that the sons and daughters of Khatcher and Karoun Chelebian, Antranig, Zvart, Hovhannes, and Anna, the youngest child whom the family lost at young age due to illness, are now united in eternity. 

LtoR: Hovhannes, Khatcher, Zvart, Antranig, Karoun, Anna Chelebian.

Hovhannes and Kohar Chelebian family, Haig, Khatchig, Nora in Keurkune