Remembering Unger Mesrob Adishian

Vaհe H Apelian

 

Mesrob Adishian, Arshavir Shiragian
Courtesy Haig Adishian

Stepan Dardouni ended his memorial album - ARF Memorial of North America 1900-1984” (see the note below) - listing the death of unger Mesrob Adishian (Մեսրոպ Ատիշեան) on December 27, 1984, eight years after I immigrated to the U.S., having landed on this hospitable shore on June 9, 1976, at the Kennedy International Airport.

I do not recall the circumstances that brought us together as friends. It surely had to the do with the New Jersey ARF. Unger Adishian and I struck a friendship in spite of the difference in our ages. He had stopped driving when I befriended him. I used to pick him from his house to attend ARF meetings and other social functions, all centered at the St. Vartanants Church of New Jersey.  His house was not far from the Vartanants church. He had purchased the property on which he had his house built before the George Washington bridge was built. After the construction of the bridge, the area naturally had changed and his house now sat at the junction of a major route and busy street to his and especially his wife’s expected dissatisfaction, a complaint I would hear at times when at their home, especially from his wife, who turned out to be a relative of a classmate of mine at the Armenian Evangelical College HS in Beirut, Arshag Srabian who left for the U.S. before graduating.  Unger Mesrob had a vast collection of ARF literature and newspaper clippings that had to do with the assassination of Archbishop Tourian. He was an avid reader of ARF literature.

 At the time, he appeared well into his eighties. I recently found out from his son Haig that he was born in the town of Hussenig in 1894. Records his son Haig Adishian shared with me indicated that he had landed in New York on September 16, 1913 from a New York bound oceanliner that had left Le Havre seaport. There is no record as to when he left Husseinig to immigrate to the New World. True to that generation, his son Haig noted to me that “that generation didn’t tell us too much. I know he lived in Marseilles for a while. We were never given information about when and how they got to America.” That was the case with my paternal grandfather who was born in 1898/99 in Keurkune, Kessab. He survived the genocide and returned to his native village orphaned. All my youthful inquiries about his experience during the genocide were met with evasive answers.  

The last time I met him was when he was hospitalized. In all likelihood it might have been a Saturday afternoon.  Somehow, he found me that I had dressed up more than the usual and wondered if I was attending an ARF function. From stories and anecdotes, he told me, I envisioned he was among the last of the Mohegans of that Armenian American generation whose lives involved, evolved and revolved in and around the ARF, as a sort of an extended home for them, away from their ancestral homes. The centerpiece of their social lives appeared to be the Hairenik building on the Stuart Street. Stepan Dardouni who eulogized him at his funeral, had indicated on his immigration declaration,  212 Stuart Street as his destination address and had James Mandalian, as his contact. 

When I wrote his son Haig that Stepan Dardouni  wrote that when he first met Unger Mesrob Adishian in the Hairenik building, he wandered what this handsome Irishman doing there. Haig found it endearingly amusing and commented to me saying “Vahe, I found it amusing that you knew about that Irishman observation”, and added that "the enclosed photos (see attacherd) may reveal that the Tavloo players at the Hairenik building may not have been so mistaken.  My father was one of eight, four of whom had red hair. “

 I remember to this day when I received the phone call from him letting me know of his wife’s death. He said I was the first person outside his family he called. Naturally he was all shaken and emotional. I never forgot what he said: “Unger Apelian”, he said sobbing, “I had not experienced death in my immediate family before. Most of my parental family members died during the genocide, but I was not there.” 

I found it fitting that Stepan Dardouni ended his memorial album listing Unger Mesrob Adishian’s death. I imagine that generation, paraphrasing Tom Brokaw,, as the greatest Armenian American generation. In mid 1970’ an influx of Armenians from Middle East, such as I, came to the United States. As I reminisce about the past four decades and a bit more, we attended and mostly continue to attend community functions centered around the churches built by the Unger Mesrob Adisshian  generation whose whole life was spent to lay the foundation of community for the free and independent Armenia eventuality. 

Unger Mesrob Adishian, much like his ARF generation, “spent his whole life with one goal, a free and independent Armenia”, wrote to me his son Haig.

Note 1: Mementos from Unger Mesrob Adishian’s journey to the U.S.

 

Note 1: Stepan Dardounis’ memorial album dedicated to his beloved father Hagop and mother Mariam.  “Հ.Յ.Դ. ՅՈՒՇԱՄԱՏԵԱՆ Հիւսիսային Ամերիկայի 1890-1984”, Պոստոն, 1988. ՁՕՆ՝ ԻՄ ՍԻՐԵԼԻ ՀԱՅՐԻԿԻՍ ՅԱԿՈԲԻՆ ԵՒ ՄԱՅՐԻԿԻՍ ՄԱՐԻԱՄԻՆՍ ԽՆԿԵԼԻ ՅԻՇԱՏԱԿԱՆ