Obituary-Armen S. Kouymjian (1936-2019)

Armen Sahag Kouymjian 

(1936 Tulcea, Romania –

2019 Pasadena)

Armen Kouymjian was the third and last child of Zabelle Calusdian Kouymjian and Toros Kouymjian. He was born an American citizen while his father, mother and older brother Dickran were visiting his father’s parents in Romania where they had fled after the Kemalist’s burning of Izmir (Smyrna) in 1922. His mother’s family was from Samson, whence she and her brother Archavir (Archie) were orphaned, the only survivors of a large family. They were discovered at the Qadi Köy orphanage by their uncle Levon in Chicago who saw their names on published lists of orphans and brought them to America.  His father Toros had left home as a young man before the Izmir massacres making his way to Chicago where he began to work for one of the large Armenian oriental carpet companies.  His parents met at an Armenian ball, fell in love, and quickly had their first child Janie, who they took on their first trip to Bucharest in the late 1920s to meet her paternal grandparents. Tragically, Janie died in Chicago of pneumonia and shortly after to ease their sorrow, the couple returned to Rumania where their first son Dickran was born, followed by Armen two years later.  When WWII broke out, the American Consulate in Rumania advised the Kouymjians to return to America immediately.  The family of four arrived in Chicago in the fall of 1939 and started all over.

The first years were difficult but happy with Armen and his brother going to public school, concentrating with the help of their mother on learning good English.  Their father picked up where he left off in the Oriental rug business. But fate was unkind to Armen.  During a banal appendix operation performed by their close friend Dr. Hampartzoum Kelekian, ether was accidentally administered to Armen’s brain putting him in a coma.  After six weeks in an oxygen tent, he survived, but it soon became apparent he suffered from total amnesia. The young boy was forced to learn everything again like a new-born child: to recognize and identify his surrounding and those around him, to eat, and to speak. With the heroic effort of his family and private tutors, after a few years he learned to speak.

In 1950 with his family Armen moved north to Racine, Wisconsin where there was an Armenian community who knew the Kouymjians. There he went to special classes at a vocational school, eventually learning the rudiments of reading and writing.  They lived close to Lake Michigan, where he would go with father, brother, and sometimes mother line-fishing on the stone piers jetting out into the lake.

Racine was a highly industrial town, and eventually Armen got a fulltime job working on the furnaces of a steel smelting company.  Some years after the untimely death of his father, a pillar of St. Hagop’s Armenian Church and their choir director, he and mother Zabelle decided to move to Pasadena to be close to cousin Flora Calusdian Dunaians, the daughter of Zabelle’s brother Archie.  During those wonderful California years, Armen started working in shipping and receiving at Western Medical Supply, owned by Flora and George Dunaians.  After his mother died 1983, Armen lived alone, going to work five days a week while being guided by his cousins.

A few years ago, he was hit by a car and was unable to work any longer.  Eventually he moved into the Pasadena Wellness Center, where he was loved.  Earlier this year he suffered kidney failure coupled with an infection which took his life.

All of those who knew Armen loved him for his joyfulness, curiosity, perfect manners, and a willingness to help whenever he could.  As his cousin Karnic Kouyoumdjian, son of his father’s older brother living in New Jersey put it:

“Armen was a courageous individual and did the best he could with the hand he was dealt; he never made people feel sorry for him, on the contrary he had a positive attitude and, I would call it, an angelic smile. He is now, I feel, next to the people that loved him most, aunty Zabelle and uncle Toros. I pray that he is also happy to be there.”

Armen is survived by his brother Dickran and his sister-in-law Angèle, both living in Paris and his maternal cousin Flora Dunaians and children Gigi and Suzi and their families, and paternal cousins Karnic and Hagop Kouyoumdjian and their children and families.

Dickran Kouymjian

Haig & Isabel Berberian Professor of Armenian Studies, Emeritus