Interview with my Grandmother-Julietta Tolmoyan

 My grandmother is sixty five years old. She has three children and six grand children. She is very educated in terms of school and also life. In Hoktemberian, Armenia she had a doctor’s degree. She has seen hard days in her life especially in the year of 1988, the earth quake of Lenakan that shook all of Armenia that caused a whole lot of death and destruction to Armenia especially Lenakan the main city that the earthquake took place in. Although my grandmother was a good student at school it didn’t mean she didn’t have to do her chores at home. She was a hard working lady and a lady with a lot of passion to strive for the best.

I was born May 28, 1939, in Lenakan, Armenia. I have worked and learned all my life until we came to Glendale, California in December 21, 1991. I have had a lot of experiences in my life good and bad. There have been changes in my life that I can not take out of my head; whether it would be advancements in technology that made our lives easier or events in life that made history. I am an old fashioned woman that was raised in Armenia. Technology does not interest me; all I have ever cared about is the well being of my family and my self. But one change that did literally change my life towards the more appalling way was the falling of communism. I can not say that communism suited all the families in Armenia. My family and I lived tremendously well; nothing was an issue for us; until that day came when who would of thought a strong nation like the Soviet Union would collapse. That was the end of the success of Armenia and our lives, our life savings went down the drain, my two sons, lost their jobs.

The fall of communism was the biggest change in my life that went toward the negative; we lost all that we had. My husband decided that we all come to America. Our family had no other choice we lost 140,000 rubles along with my two son’s business. That was the change in my life which most affected me. I being a woman with success and having passion to learn, know have to worry about bills that I have to pay and my health to worry about. But still I thank God that I have four grand children from which one has a baby. I live with my family thanking the lord everyday that I am still living and seeing my grandchildren growing up and being successful in life. I am a woman of truth and reality, change can be tragic or glorious you just have to learn to cope with it that’s all.

Interviewed by Hakop Tolmoyan