Of Arukians and Sevags

 Vahe H Apelian

 

A souvenir from the Arukians, Ethiopian made with
porcupine quills

In the close knit Armenian community I know and know of, one thing led to another that led me reflecting on the Arukian and Sevag families. The trigger happened when Hagop Tcholakian, the eminent Armenian rearcher, academician, histoiran in Armenia asked me about Mr and Mrs. Samuel and Dikranouhi Arukian, who had taught at the Armenian Evangelical high school in Anjar when Hagop was a student there. 

Mr and Mrs. Samuel and Dikranouhi Arukian, were from Ethiopia. He had been a principal of the Armenian School in Addis Ababa. Mrs Dikranouhie had also taught there. That remarkable community  had been formed when Emperor Haile Sellasie had forty Armenian orphan boys from Jerusalem settle in Ethiopia. Over the years the community, through arranged marriageս and interracial marriages, had grown in size and prosperity and had played a historic role in the Ethiopian community at large. A lot has been written about the community but I do not think that a historian has put a definite word on the founding, contribution and the evolution of the Ethiopian community that started to unravel due to the political upheavals in 1970's. I am sure that Mr an Mrs Samuel and Dikranouhi Arukian would be veiwed among the pillars of the Ethiopean Armenian community.

 When i met them, they were on their way to the United States to join their son Hratch, where the family would settle.  On their way to America, they stayed at Hotel Lux, the inn my father ran. A bond was thus formed that continued in the United States. The Arukians were among the first who visited us as we settled in the United States.

I learned that Hratch Arukian had passed away a few months ago, on July 22, 2023. My father and I attended his wedding.  He was a quintessential gentleman, who had forged his life in the New World as an exemplary citizen and a membe especially r of the Ethiopian Armenian-American community. He told me that his friends secured the intervention of the United States Congress for him to pave his way to U.S. citizenship of which he became  productive and a prominent  citizen in his own right. Indeed congressional records indicate that there was a special act passed for the benefit of Hratch, It reads: "For the relief of Hratch Samuel Arukian" (see below).

Internet search engines revealed that Hratch's father Samuel was born on February 7, 1896 in Marash. He passed away on December 15, 1970 in New York. Hratch's mother Dikranouhu (Boyadjian) was born in 1902 and passed away on June 30, 1999. Their elder son Vahe Arukian was born on Novemmber 9, 1927 and passed away on May 20, 2014. Hratch was born in 1935, passed away on July 22, 203.

Mr. Samuel Arukian would speak to me about his friend and classmate Dr. Manasseh Sevag.

*****

Dr. M. G. Sevag, 70, a bacteriologist

Armenian-born researcher dies -taught at Penn

New York Times, Nov. 26, 1967

«NEW BRITAIN, Con. Nov. 25 – Dr. Manas G. Sevag, a biochemist who did important work on the drug resistance of disease-producing bacteria, dies at New Britain General Hospital on Thursday. He was 70 years old and lived at Newtown Square, Pa.

In April 1962, Dr. Sevag reported to the Society of Armerian Bacteriologists that he and two associated had successfuly induced resistance to two antibiotics in disease-causing bacteria by manipulating the «nutritional evniroment» of the microorganisms, using amino acids as «food».

Dr.Sevag said that the possible applications of the discovery was insect contro in areas where mosquitoes and lied had become resistant to DDT.

As associate professor of the University of Pennsylvania School of medicine, Dr. Sevag also did research into allergy, the choloform method of removing protein, determination of ovulation time in women and other scientific problems.

A Nomadic Education

He was born in Sis Cilicia, Armenia, (now Kozan, Tureky), and finished his secondary education at the American Missionary College in Tarsus, also in the Ottoman Empire, in 1915. Shortly thereafter, the Turks deported him and hundreds of thousands of other Armenians to the Arabian desert where Dr. Sevag escaped to Damascus and to Port Said, Egypt. He returned to Armenia as a warrant officer in the British Army of Occupation after World War I.

He received his bachelor’s degree from St. Paul’s college in Armenia, in 1929, then came to the United States. He worked as a chemist at the Flower Hospital in New York from 1922-1924, attended Yale University for a year and received his Ph.D. degree from Columbia University in 1929.

He was a research chemist with Combustion Utilities Corporation in New Jersy from 1929 to 1931, then did more graduate work at the University of Munich, Germany. He was  a Rockefeller Fellow at the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin from 1932-1935, then worked for Schering-Kahlbaum, a drug manufacturing concern, in 1925-36.

Dr. Sevag became a research assistant in bacteriology at the University of Pennsylvania in1936, and assistant professor in 1938 and an associate professor in 1948. He retired in 1966.

Mr. and Mirs. Samuel Arukian with their son Vahe with Dr. Manasseh Savag
Courtesy Talin & Arpi Arukian

In 1959, he became the first scientist from outside the Soviet Union to lecture to the Armenian Academy of Science at Erivan in the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic. He returned three times later.

He was the first non-Soviet to be elected a member of the academy.

Dr. Sevag published more than 125 scientific articles here and abroad, and several books and articles in Armenian.

He founded the American Historical Research Association in 1963 and served as its first president. He was a charter member of the American Academy of Bacteriology, and fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the New York Academy of Sciences, and numerous other scientific organizations.

He did research for the United States Public Health Service, the Office of Naval Research, the National Cancer Institute, and the National Institutes of Health.

Survinfg are his widow the former Helen Terzian, two sons Paul and Aris; a brother Samuel Karagheuzian, and sister Osanna Arxoumian both of Beirut, Lebanon.

*****

Aris Sevag

Aris Sevag, courtesy Armenian Weekly

I quote: "Aris Sevag, loving husband, father, educator, writer, editor, and translator, passed away on April 28 in his home in Jackson Heights, N.Y., after a courageous battle with cancer. Born in 1946 in Philadelphia to Dr. and Mrs. Manasseh Sevag, his intellectual curiosity and commitment was evident from his early years. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, this curiosity took him around the country and around the world. Ultimately, he focused on his life’s mission: to serve his Armenian nation that he loved.

In a lifetime of service as a teacher, educator, writer, activist, editor, and most notably, expert translator, his meticulous intensity, discipline, and passionate intellect allowed him to honorably and humbly serve his people throughout his distinguished literary career. His kindness, generosity, warm heart, passion for life, and robust sense of humor touched and inspired all who knew and loved him.

He is survived by his loving wife Asdghig, son Armen, daughters Aida, Alice, and Ani, and brother Paul.” (Armenian Weekly, May 11, 2012).

*****

 

The caption reads: PROUD OF HIS DEGREE: Mother looks on Hratch Samuel Arukian – ‘man without a country’ -accepts congratulations of President Eric A. Walker at University Commencement exercises. Mrs. Arukian flew from Ethiopia for ceremony. Arukian who worked his way through college, hopes to continue his studies and qualify for for U.S. Citizenship in five years. (Saturday June 10, 1961)