‘THE LAST ROSE IN OUR ORCHARD’ STILL FRESH AT 100
By Maureen O’Donnell Staff Reporter
Chicago Sun-Times, IL
June 12 2006
How to list the ways that Helen Paloian is remarkable?
At age 100, she is a link to the attempted genocide of the Armenian
people. She remembers when World War I-era Turkish soldiers forced
everyone from her village. She survived by eating grass and roots,
“like a chicken.” Yet she also remembers the Turks who slipped her
crusts of bread.
“Be happy,” she likes to say. “Love.”
She has a thick head of hair and all her own teeth. She doesn’t use
hearing aids. Her hip healed nicely after she broke it at 97.
She has almost figured out the Rubik’s Cube given to her by her
grandson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology neuroscientist Robert
Ajemian, who said his MIT colleagues are “blown away” by her mental
acuity.
Helen Paloian celebrates her 100th birthday Sunday at St. Gregory the
Illuminator Armenian Church, 6700 W. Diversey. She credits her long
life to prayer, and no smoking or drinking. (KEITH HALE/SUN-TIMES)
Ask if she knows who the Beatles are, and she replies: “Oh yes! I
like Paul.” Her favorite TV show is “Everybody Loves Raymond.”
She’s a rabid White Sox fan. She does her own cooking.
Not bad for a woman born six years before the Titanic sank.
Friends and family honored her centennial birthday Sunday at St.
Gregory the Illuminator Armenian Church, 6700 W. Diversey.
Family genealogist Charles Hardy recounted her story for the crowd.
Helen Paloian’s mother and father died when she was a toddler. Two
brothers were conscripted into the Turkish army and one fled to
America.
None were heard from again.
She begged on the streets for food and went to an orphanage. She
recalled that Turkish soldiers cleared that place of children and took
them to a church packed with other Armenians. The women feared the
soldiers were going to set the church on fire. Helen decided to escape.
“I jump from the window,” she said Sunday. “No stocking, no shoe,
nothing. They don’t catch me, because I’m little girl.”
‘I always say there is a hope’
At that time, her cousin Jacob Hardy was half a world away in the
U.S. He had a strange dream.
In the dream, Helen’s late mother, Mariam, showed him a rose. “This
is the last rose in our orchard. You must pick this rose and take it
with you,” she said.
The next day, he saw Helen’s name on a list of orphans in an Armenian
newspaper. “Now, he understood the dream. Helen was the rose,”
Charles Hardy said.
Jacob Hardy found her at an orphanage in Greece. Told she had a
better chance of entering the U.S. from Cuba, they took a detour
to Havana. They arranged a sham marriage with an Armenian-American,
Zadig Paloian, to try and gain her entry to the U.S. The plan was to
have the marriage annulled later.
She and Jacob were able to emigrate to Racine, Wis., where she decided
to accept the handsome Zadig as her husband.
They settled in Chicago and were married 55 years until his death in
1986. She gave birth to four children and lost two. A daughter, Sima,
died at 31 of cancer. Mariam died in an accident at age seven. Two
others survived: her daughter Lucille Ajemian, 67, of Boston, and
her son Matthew, 66.
Helen lives with Matthew on the Northwest Side. She has six
grandchildren and four great-grandchildren who have achieved multiple
college degrees.
She attributes her long life to prayer, and no smoking or drinking.
“I walk around the block,” she said. “I read the Bible. I sing. My
voice, still young. I always say there is a hope. Hope and pray.”
She also tells young wives they don’t have to do what their husbands
say. Zadig “always said ‘Vote Democratic.’ I said ‘OK,’ but I vote
Republican.”
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