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The Armenian Weekly; Volume 74, No. 10; March 15, 2008
Community:
1. Arpie Charkoudian, Devoted ARS Servant
By Tom Vartabedian
2. AMF, NELO Celebrate Cole Porter
By Andy Turpin
3. Homage to Rona
Rona J. Vogel (Feb. 22, 1945 – Nov. 2, 2007)
By Jack Nusan Porter
4. A Tribute to My Father, Noubar Kouyoumdjian
(Nov. 10, 1929 – Aug. 20, 2007)
By Martha Kouyoumdjian Mekaelian
***
1. Arpie Charkoudian, Devoted ARS Servant
By Tom Vartabedian
Over the course of its 10 decades, the Armenian Relief Society (ARS) has
been motivated by a number of prominent and dutiful servants.
Certainly no exception has been Arppie Charkoudian, an icon whose dedication
to the ranks is truly unparalled.
At the time when the organization was going through a transition stage with
its regionalization, Ungerouhi Charkoudian left behind a job and traveled
the land to connect with different chapters.
To say she is a true missionary is putting it mildly.
"She’s definitely one of the pioneers who brought a group of volunteers
dispersed throughout the diasposa to a leading Armenian non-profit serving
the humanitarian needs of the Armenian people throughout the world," said
Murial "Mimi" Parseghian, chairwoman of the ARS Eastern USA.
"I think I speak for a lot of ARS members and more importantly to my
generation of women when I say that Arppie is truly a role model and a great
mentor."
Parseghian had the privilege of presenting her senior compatriot with the
coveted Agnouni Award two years ago at the Philadelphia Convention.
The award is given to an individual or entity that has supported ARS goals
in a significant and lasting manner. The recipient was recognized for her
unselfish contributions to the Springfield "Ararat" Chapter and work on the
executive level.
"It was a special night for her and she was humbled by the honor," added
Parseghian, who shared the presentation with Knar Kiledjian.
Few have remained closer to Ungerouhi Charkoudian than Angele Manoogian.
Both have served the upper echelon of the ARS and have remained all heart to
the cause of humanitarian service.
"Arppie always had plenty of vision and foresight when it came to internal
matters," said Manoogian. "She served as chairwoman for over nine years with
a dynamic approach. She converted the ARS to a modern road and traveled it
extensively. I don’t think she missed more than five conventions in her many
years of membership and most everyone respected her opinion."
Her activity outside of Armenian circles was equally as meritorious. Arppie
served as associate manager of the University of Connecticut Jorgensen
Auditorium.
As president of the University of Connecticut League, she led the women’s
service organization in efforts like buying tape recorders for blind
students. As Mansfield Republican town chairwoman, she helped the G.O.P.
hang on to Town Hall, despite Democratic superiority in registration.
She served as a justice of the peace and performed wedding ceremonies.
Arppie also brought her enthusiasm to the world of sports and travel. She
remained an avid basketball fan and was a crack shot with a pistol.
Her tours have taken her to the Peruvian mountains, Scottish lochs and Irish
bays. Her favorite trip of all was to Historic Armenia, land of her
ancestors.
As the eldest of four children, she maintains a tight family bond instituted
by her parents Azniv and Nishan.
"Much of my success can be attributed to my family," she says. "We admired
my parents so very much. They were both courageous and very independent. I’ve
been fortunate in knowing people from all walks of life."
Actually, politics remained her second love. Music was an important part of
the Charkoudian household. Arppie studied violin at Tanglewood and joined a
symphony orchestra as an administrator-a role in which she was best known to
Springfield music lovers.
She later became the first auditorium manager at the University of
Connecticut. In her capacity, she introduced a Young Peoples Concert Series,
which featured young performers from around the globe.
Whether it was politics, music, sports or her proud Armenian roots with the
ARS, Arppie has remained on top of a pedestal, but never looking down-always
ahead. She was a visionary at a time when the ARS needed new direction.
She answered every call, served every capacity and always upheld the tenet
of "duty above self."
"Her face is mobile with energy and thought," said a university official in
compiling a profile of the woman.
"She was always relaxed, yet constantly on the move. She gestures with
expressive hands, amplifies and connects with others. And through it all
remained her rippling Armenian chuckle."
As the centennial is celebrated in 2010, women like Arppie Charkoudian are
celebrated with affection and gratitude. They will be applauded in a
deserving manner for enriching a culture that only the ARS knows.
May the foundation she laid continue to be an inspiration toward others of
her kind.
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2. AMF, NELO Celebrate Cole Porter
By Andy Turpin
BOSTON, Mass. (A.W.)-On March 7, the New England Light Opera company (NELO)
and the Andreassian Music Fund presented "Night and Day: A Cole Porter
Celebration" at Emmanuel Church on 15 Newbury St.
The show paid homage to the iconic American music scribe by performing many
of the major pieces he composed, such as "Anything Goes" (1934) and "Night
and Day" (1932), along with other pieces that are historically less well
known from his charismatic timeline.
Interspersed between musical numbers were press and diary excerpts read by
the cast, along with witty friend and family recollections from or about
Porter, which gave context to each epoch of his life and career.
Porter was born in 1891 in Peru, Ind., and was educated at Yale. He is among
the most performed, well-known and quintessentially American songwriters in
history. His music, alongside that of his peers George Gershwin, Irving
Berlin and Johnny Mercer, has come to essentialize the senses of decadence,
free social moray and American optimism during times of levity and woe from
the 1920s to the 1950s.
Highlights from the show included a brassy and comic rendition of "Anything
Goes" sung by June Baboian, the music director of Watertown’s Armenian
Memorial Congregational Church, who is reminiscent in jaunt and canto to an
Armenian version of Queen Latifah from 2002’s "Chicago"; a sexy and charming
follied singing of "The Physician" by Liane Grasso; and a heartwarming
reminder of Porter’s glory days in Brian De Lorenzo’s crooning of "I Love
Paris."
Existing somewhere between James Lipton and your family’s fatherly
accountant was "Night and Day" cast member and NELO co-founder and artistic
director Mark Morgan. His rendition of the mid-life-crisis ditty "Where is
the Life That Late I Led" from Porter’s 1948’s show "Kiss Me, Kate" was
exquisitely suited and well-vocalized.
In May 2008, NELO will commence performances of its similarly themed revue
"The Roaring 20s."
For more information and details on upcoming performances of both "Night and
Day" and "The Roaring 20s," visit
——————– ————————————————– —-
3. Homage to Rona
Rona J. Vogel (Feb. 22, 1945 – Nov. 2, 2007)
Rona Vogel, my wife, died in the service of the Armenian people. This may
sound hyperbolic but it is true. A bit of a back-story. Rona was born in
Newton, Mass., to Melvin and Charlotte Webber. They were an affluent family
in the furniture business but through a series of embezzlements, her father
lost his money and the family became déclassé. Rona worked as a bookkeeper
for her father and later for John Hancock insurance for 30 years. She
married Sydney Vogel but they divorced after 20 years.
Rona was a "preemie," born premature and with many ailments-heart, kidney,
etc.-and was of small stature, just a shade over five feet tall, but she was
resilient. She never wanted to be side-lined but mainstreamed, as they say,
by being put into regular classes and graduating with her high school just
like any normal girl.
I met her about three years ago at a party at her sister’s house, where she
was living when she divorced Sydney. She did need some supervision, someone
to drive her to doctor’s offices and hospitals, but she did a lot herself. A
problem was that the sister was not honest. So, she wanted desperately to
leave and I helped her to leave the house and move into my home.
She knew she would not be able to live a long life or even an "average"
lifespan. I, for one, thought that she had beat the odds and had lived long
after others in her condition had died. I attribute this to her sense of
humor, her faith in God and a powerful determination to live.
I learned several things from her: one is not to complain, or as they say in
Yiddish, to kvetch. First, no one cares any way and two, no one can do
anything about it. Life serves you a dish, and that is the way it is. True,
once she said to me: "Jack, you don’t know how lucky you are to be healthy,"
but that was not kvetching.
Second, she did everything. If I said, let’s drive to New York, she said
"great." If I said, let’s catch a movie tonight, she said "fine." True, she
was retired and we had no children to care for (I have two grown children),
but still it is a good bit of advice for couples: Be spontaneous, do it.
Because if you kvetch too much and do not act spontaneously, your marriage
or relationship will not be a happy one.
And the last lesson I learned from Rona is that "life is what it is"-the
good and bad, take it in stride. We try to raise perfect children in perfect
marriages; there are no such animals. Life is imperfect and tragic and sad
and hurtful. It is what it is.
Rona attended every single meeting last fall in 2007 in New England towns
fighting the Foxman "amendment" and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
Everyone who met her was impressed with her self-composure and her smiling
generosity. She died in a New York City hotel room, the day after we
traveled to New York to picket Abe Foxman and the ADL. She was too sick to
attend the picket line. She died in peace, with me and a rabbi attending.
She died happy.
-Jack Nusan Porter
Dr. Porter is treasurer of the International Association of Genocide
Scholars (IAGS).
—————————————— ——————————-
4. A Tribute to My Father, Noubar Kouyoumdjian
(Nov. 10, 1929 – Aug. 20, 2007)
By Martha Kouyoumdjian Mekaelian
As we watched the yerakouyn-draped casket of my father, Noubar Kouyoumdjian,
being put into the funeral car, I realized how precious his teachings to us
four girls (my sisters Rose, Anoush, Virginia and myself) were and how the
things he taught us will never die. Among them, his unconditional love which
transcends time, his compassion for others, his refusal to be judgmental
regardless of the action, and his all-powerful faith.
He taught us that in order to be happy, we must believe that God is in
everything, and to seek Him even in our defeats and trials.
Anybody who ever entered our home was greeted with his traditional jokes.
Within 10 minutes of a visit, one was completely comfortable and laughing as
if there were no problems on earth. To make another happy was my father’s
happiness.
He taught us to forgive, to forget and never to hate. He taught us that one
of life’s conditions is that we must limit ourselves and we must choose. We
cannot take every possible journey, or embrace every type of career or
lifestyle.
He taught us the wealth of life; but indeed, money has very little to do
with it. It has been said to measure wealth not by the things you have, but
by the things you have for which you would not take money.
Theodore Roosevelt summed it up perfectly when he wrote, "No other success
in life-not being President, or being wealthy, or going to college, or
writing a book, or anything else-comes up to the success of the man or woman
who can feel that they have done their duty and that their children and
grandchildren rise up and call them blessed."
This quote might as well have been written for my father because it was his
grandchildren, Ardemis and Kevork Mareshlian, who called him blessed in the
most moving eulogies I have ever heard.
It was his grandson, Khoogas Arsen Mekaelian, who read the scriptural
reading on the day of the funeral. It was his granddaughter, Martha Vartouhi
Mekaelian, who sang "Amazing Grace" as a tribute to my father.
It was his daughter, Anoush Mareshlian and myself who delivered eulogies on
behalf of the family. It was his grandchildren who escorted his coffin to
its final resting place and together, as the yerakouyn was being folded,
sang "Verkerov Li."
My father was the most blessed and wealthiest person on earth. He could not
possibly have loved us any more, and he would not love us any less.
Even though this is a tribute to my father, my family could not overlook
those who came to pay their last respects. It was humbling to learn that
some came in wheelchairs, that some, in spite of their own medical
conditions, found the strength to see my father one last time. Some had
buried their own loved ones just two weeks prior.
We were not surprised to see these wonderful friends, as it is their nature
to be so compassionate. Rather, it was amazing that they ignored their own
pain to reach out and comfort us.
One month before his death, his grandchildren, Michael Bokovitz, Kevork
Mareshlian, Noubar Mareshlian Ardemis Mareshlian, Mikhail Noubar Mekaelian,
Martha Vartouhi Mekaelian, Khoogas Arsen Mekaelian, Dziadzan Datevig
Mekaelian, Christian Najarian and Paul Vasken Najarian would visit him daily
in his hospice room, complete with a joke book, to lift his spirits and
encourage him with the gift he has given to countless others: the gift of
laughter.
They told jokes for as long as my dad had the strength; and he received
strength for everything because of the most powerful and virtuous woman on
earth, my mother, Vartouhi Kouyoumdjian. She stayed with him until his final
breath. She never left his side, not even to go home to sleep. She stayed in
the hospice day and night for him and with him.
My sister, Anoush, in her eulogy gave the perfect account of my father’s
life. She said, "As children, my sisters and I prided ourselves in knowing
that whenever we attended any party, it would be dad who, when approaching
the dance floor, would generate crowds around him to watch with amazement
and delight. Dad loved to dance."
My father was a professional dancer in Jordan and performed throughout the
Middle East.
Anoush continued, "It was in this past month that dad would express himself
with the following words, ‘Took irar lav nayetzek’ (Look after each other
well)."
If a response could be given, it would be this: May God bless those words.
And in your passing, that we find impossible to bear, as you place Mom’s
hand in ours and our families’ hands together, along with friends and loved
ones, you will always be with us.for one day we will meet again.
www.NewEnglandLightOpera.org.