Ijevan - Eleanora Aroustamian

Eleanora, who is now seventy seven years old, sits home alone waiting for the news to come on. She lives with her daughter and grandson but they have both gone to work. After a while, the news is finished and she decides to lie down and take a nap. She lies down but she can not sleep. She once again closes her eyes but this time, she starts to think of her life in the small town of Ijevan. She remembers her friends, neighbors, and her life there. She sees herself playing outside with her friends. She remembers her favorite hiding spot when they played Hide-n’-Seek. She remembers her favorite teacher, Mr. Levonyan. She can still hear his speeches on WWI ringing in her ear. She loved those speeches and remembers how happy her parents were when they saw her report card. She sees herself looking through her upstairs window waiting for her dad to arrive home from work. She doesn’t remember falling asleep but wakes up to the sound of the living room door opening and to the sight of her daughter and grandson.

I lived in Ijevan from 1942 to 1948. It wasn’t bad. I was very popular and. Some of my friends’ names are Harut, Arsine, my best friend, and Ellen. Since we didn’t have television, all of the activities we did were done outside. Everyone back then was very healthy, unlike today when everyone has Play stations and Computer games. Most of the time, we played games like hide n’ seek, tag, and soccer. I liked all the games but my favorite was tag. I liked it mostly because I was the fastest one there and also I loved the wind against my face. It was great fun. I still do keep in touch with our next door neighbors. I used to be very close with them until I moved away from them. It wasn’t easy because they were very helpful and they were there when I needed them. We had power in my house but most of the time, we had to use candles to get enough light to see each other. Our neighbors didn’t have power and most of us were poor so they usually came to our house for light. Also, we were the only house in our neighborhood with water so we had usual visitors who came to get water from us. These times were very hard for us. Well, most of us. For transportation, my father actually owned a taxi because of his job and most of time; we used his car to get around when he wasn’t working. Back then, not many women had jobs and my mother didn’t work and stayed home with me and my siblings.

World War II didn’t affect me personally, but all the older adults were reading the newspapers and talking about who they thought was responsible for the start of the war. I wouldn’t say it changed my life because we never had a part in the war. It was just all over the newspaper and everyone was reading about it. Industrialization really affected everyone, including me and my family. We had to adjust to all of the changes in the quality of products and to the factory jobs that everyone had. We had many celebrations in Ijevan. There was the annual local parade and almost everyone participated, even the mayor. Also, every Christmas, all of our neighbors gathered at the local banquet hall and we all had delicious foods and drinks. It was an amazing time every year when we would all gather and see people we hadn’t seen for a very long time.

 Once, I even saw my friends from Yerevan. I had known her in 1938 and I hadn’t seen her since 1944. She had come to visit her grandmother for the holidays. She was there for a week. I invited her for dinner with my family on her last day there. I really had a lot of fun with her. I think my best memory of Ijevan would be when I met my best friend. It was in year 1945. She had just moved in and her family needed help moving their furniture and their belongings into the new apartment. My father had gone to help them and I decided to go along with him to meet the new neighbors. We were always very nice towards each other in our town. There was one famous man in Ijevan by the name of Armen Arsenyan who was a famous show host in all of Armenia. I wasn’t really close with him. It was just a “Hi-Bye” thing. There was actually one local newspaper in which there was everything that was happening there. I can’t remember the name of it. Back then, there was no TV in Armenia so we didn’t have any stations. In those days, we weren’t as fortunate to have TV’s and computers like you kids in these days.

 The only gossip at that time was about a singer who had just been murdered in my town and everyone was gossiping about whom the murderer might have been and it turned out that the murderer was living in the building across my cousin’s apartment building. The only segregation at this time were the Persians moving into Armenia and some people thought that it wasn’t right for them to come and take over the country. My family and I were even helping some of them get the rights they deserve. They had all the same rights; they just weren’t treated the same way. Let’s say a Persian man wanted a job and the boss was Armenian, he would never give the man the job.

I went to school in Ijevan from 1935 to 1945. In Armenia, there are only ten grades. You only have two extra years. There were girls only and boys only schools but I went to a mixed school. There were lots of girls and lots of boys. I remember my fifth and sixth grade teachers from school. My fifth grade teacher’s name is Mrs. Ter - Petrossyan and my sixth grade teacher’s name is Mr. Levonyan. There were a few other languages offered there including French and Persian. I took Persian for three years and I don’t mean to brag but I can talk fluent Persian. It is great living here in Glendale and I enjoy it but if I had the chance to, I would definitely go back to Ijevan. Right now, I have two cousins and a granddaughter there. I call them about once a month. The interview was no problem, thank you very much.

                                                        Interviewed by: Hovhannes Arustamyan