A Century in Central New York

Born in Boston and transplanted in infancy to Syracuse, Arpena Mesrobian never witnessed the Armenian massacres that ravaged her family's homeland around the turn of the century.

But when the time came for her to investigate Armenian history, she knew right where to turn: Syracuse's century-old Armenian community.

"The community is small enough, and I've lived here long enough that I knew where to go," Mesrobian says.

Jennifer Grimes / Staff Photographer

ARPENA MESROBIAN started interviewing people in 1982 for her book, "'Like One Family': The Armenians of Syracuse."

After she retired as director of Syracuse University Press (where she worked for more than 30 years) in the mid-1980s, Mesrobian resumed her abandoned graduate studies in social science, which included writing a paper about the Armenians of Syracuse.

Impressed with the piece, her adviser urged her to expand the project. And now, 15 years later, Mesrobian has her first book: "'Like One Family': The Armenians of Syracuse" (Gomidas Institute, $25).

Armenians started to arrive in Syracuse as early as 1894, according to Mesrobian's research, which included documents, letters and interviews. That year, the brutal campaigns against the Armenian subjects of the Ottoman Empire began.

"In 1982, 1 started interviewing, and it's a good thing I did because the older people are all gone now," Mesrobian, 81, says. "I wrote up my notes and tucked them away."

Armenians who traveled to the United States during the tail end of the 19th century planned to earn some money and then return home.

Conditions in Turkey, however, worsened while they were here. And the Turkish government eventually ordered the deportation of more than 1.7 million Armenians to Syria and Mesopotamia in 1915. During the exodus, some 600,000 Armenians died of starvation or at the hands of Turkish soldiers. About one-third escaped deportation.

"Many families were destroyed at that time," Mesrobian says. "There was a lot of reconstruction work to do."

Many chose to pick up the pieces in upstate New York because it was a prosperous area, "vibrant with business activity," Mesrobian says.

Many Armenians found work in factories, then saved enough money to open their own shops.

"They lived in clusters all over the city," Mesrobian says. "South Avenue, Butternut Street, different sections of the city."

At its height, the Armenian population in Syracuse numbered between 300 and 400.

In the 1920s and '30s, many young women who survived the deportations and massacres came to the United States as mail-order brides, essentially. Armenian men who made the transatlantic trip would look at a list of orphans, pick a name and send money for their brides' passage to America.

"There was the understanding," Mesrobian says, "if a bride didn't like her intended once she arrived, she could back out."

Once here, the young brides would try to re-create their mothers' Armenian homes by stitching together bluff childhood memories. Mesrobian remembers her mother wandering out into the countryside to find wild grape leaves for a recipe and to the state fair to get wool for a woolen quilt.

Today, the city's Armenians are American in every way, Mesrobian says. American-born, American-educated.

"As time passes, it's harder and harder to define what is Armenian about that community," Mesrobian says.

The book, has brought something unexpected to Mesrobian, who has given a few local talks: readers who are not of Armenian descent.

Although numerous books about Armenian communities have been written, Mesrobian says hers stands out because it covers an entire century and puts the local narrative in an international context.

"I provided a historical backdrop, explaining the events going on that had an impact on the (local) community," Mesrobian says.

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For example, Mesrobian explains how the Soviet domination of the Armenian Apostolic Church divided Armenian communities throughout the world, including Syracuse, by forcing "the diasporan communities to choose between pro-Soviet and anti-Soviet positions," she writes.

"The Armenian Cold War is a complex story," Mesrobian says. "It's simple and yet, complex and not one that I'm especially proud of. I'd rather not talk about it, but you have to talk about it."