Here is a black and white photo of the three J's in 1957, with Carolyn Giomi (our second cousin once removed) on the roof of their apartment building in San Francisco. That was a wonderful trip for our family, and we remembered Carolyn with great fondness in the subsequent years. Her mother, Nevart (Neva) Eguinian Giomi, and Aunt Zabelle Eguinian Hansen were Grandma Kedersha's* first cousins. Carolyn's Grandfather (Haigag Eguinian) had been an important Armenian newspaper publisher, first in Jersey City, NJ in the late 1800's and then in Fresno, California.**
My Grandma told me that her uncle Eguinian had offered (back in the early 1900's) to arrange a marriage for her to a "nice Armenian man" in California if she would travel to California from Diyarbakir, Turkey. Grandma declined and married Grandpa Kedersha (also an arranged marriage) because she did not want to leave her widowed mother. In the end, she left her mother for America in 1912 with her husband, ended up living in New Jersey, and never saw her mother again. She told me countless times while we washed dishes together how much she regretted the decision not to go to California.
* Almast Bakalian Kedersha, 1892-1986, was the daughter of Kevork Bakalian and Takui Eguinian, sister of Haigag. She was born in Diyarbakir, Turkey. She married Jacob Kedersha of the same city in 1911, and they arrived in the USA in 1913.
** Carolyn recently filled me in on the details of Haigag Eguinian's life and career. Haigag Eguinian became a US Citizen in April 1888 at Jersey City. He married Azniv Altounian on September 7, 1902 at Trinity Armenian Church in Fresno, CA. When he died of heart failure at the age 9f 42, he left two daughters, Nevart (7) and Zabelle (14). They and their mother moved to San Francisco after their father's death. Haigag published Nor Giank (New Life) in New Jersey and upon relocateding to Fresno, published Nor Or (New Day) which is still being published in Armenian. Publication moved to Los Angeles 10/27/64-2/17/87, and then to Altadena CA 2/20/87 to the present. Haigag's daughter donated her father's papers to UCLA in April, 1976.
