BY STEVE ODABASHIAN
You think you’ve never heard of Garabet Odabashian, but you have. Garabet was a slight man who stood about 5 feet 5 inches tall and weighed 120 pounds. He was very plain looking and walked with a noticeable limp. Nevertheless, he truly was an Armenian hero.
He lived in a small farming village in the northern section of the Ottoman Empire, close to a river and a long way from any city. When he was young he fell out of a tree and broke his leg. His mother made him swim in a pond to strengthen his crippled leg. He would fool her by swimming underwater, making her worried that he needed help. She would wade into the pond, getting her dress wet, and shout “Garabet swim, swim!” until he eventually surfaced, laughing.
Due to his leg, Garabet could not work the fields. He stayed home and helped his mother and aunt sew clothes to sell at the marketplace. He would make dyes and had a keen eye for creating bright colors out of the them. His four older brothers would make fun of him for working with the women, as they went out to the fields to put in a long day tending to the crops and animals.
Early one Fall, word got back to the village that the Turkish Government was sending a cavalry brigade and foot soldiers in order to round up all the men and send the women and children into the desert. Garabet’s father and brothers joined the rest of the village’s men to confront the Turks, while he stayed with his mother.
The cavalry charged the men and slaughtered them like dogs. Then the Turkish soldiers rounded up the women, children, and even the elderly and infirm, to march them into the desert. They marched them to the banks of the river. The Captain of the brigade said, “Finish them all. Put the bodies into the river to leave no trace.” As one of the soldiers lifted his rifle, the Captain said, “Soldier, do you know how much a bullet cost? No Armenian is worth the price of a bullet!” The soldiers fixed bayonets and the cavalry drew their swords, and they charged into the Armenians.
Garabet was at the river’s edge, where there was a drop of three to five feet to the water. He heard the screams of the women and children as the sabers and bayonets tore through their bodies. He turned to face his destiny as a soldier on a large horse was heading right for him, sword drawn, charging at full speed. At the last second, he ducked under the slashing sword, but the horse hit him head on and tossed him into the river. He sank like a stone, dazed and confused. He started to swim, remembering what is mother would say: “Swim, Garabet, swim!”
He swam down river, underwater, his lungs bursting, craving air. He held fast and swam as far as he could. He saw something floating on the surface, headed toward it, and surfaced next to it. It was the body of one of the villagers. He clung to the clothes on the body and floated down the river. It was dusk and no one was in sight as he made his way to the river bank. Tired, cold, hungry, and scared, he wondered what to do.
He saw a small house with clothes on a line. He snuck to the line and grabbed the clothes, limping away as fast as he could. “Now what?” he said to himself. He thought long and hard on what to do next. Alone and afraid, he needed help, but who could he trust? Then it struck him: the one place that he could go, be safe and get help was the Church.
He walked along the walls of this village’s building, making his way to the Church. When he finally got there, he looked through a crack in the door to see what was inside. As he was watching the priest inside, the church’s caretaker saw him spying on the priest. A large hand grabbed the back of his shirt and pushed him inside. The priest said, “Son what are you doing here?” Garabet explained to the priest what had happened and begged him not to turn him in to the Turkish Authorities. The priest said, “Son do not be afraid, we will take care of you.”
The priest had done this before. He gave Garabet shelter in a special hidden room adjoined to the Church. The priest knew that if the Turkish authorities found out, they all would be tortured and killed. The priest contacted other parishes. They had established an “underground railroad” to smuggle out Armenian refugees. Garabet moved from church to church. He joined other men, women, and children that had escaped the Turks. They traveled at night in small groups, hiding in cellars and animal pens, making their way to a port where they could escape the country. When they reached the port, the priests found sympathetic captains and paid them for passage to ports all over the world. They bought passage on any ship that would take the refugees.
During his journey, Garabet found that he became less afraid. He helped his fellow refugees, taking on the harder tasks along the way. In those short weeks, he gained internal strength and resolve; he did not realize he was becoming a man.
At the port, he said goodbye to the priest that helped him, and boarded a ship to America. He was from a small village and had never been to a city or port. He stood on the ship as it sailed out of the harbor, amazed at how this big ship would not sink. He was housed in the third-class deck at the bottom of the ship. The ship sailed for five days, and the third-class passengers never left the bottom of the ship. All of the passengers were violently sea sick. The one thing Garabet always remembered, years later, was the smell; the air was heavy with the smell of vomit, sweat and urine.
The ship sailed into the great port of New York. They disembarked at Ellis Island, the starting point for many immigrants to America. They led him to a communal room where he showered and was given a change of clothes. He was medically checked out and sent on to the next station. They checked his one bag of personal belongings and then sent him to a great auditorium. It was rows and rows of benches, filled with immigrants from all over the world. At the front of the auditorium was a huge podium with a very large immigration officer calling out names and sending the immigrants to their final destinations.
As he waited on the bench, he was in awe of the great buildings he could see out the windows. He had never seen anything like that — so big and majestic. The immigration officer called out his name and ordered him to come up front. The officer looked Garabet up and down. He looked at his small frame, dark skin with curly jet-black hair. The officer looked at his destination sheet for a place to send him, he saw a sponsorship for an apprentice tailor in Little Italy district, in a booming voice he asked Garabet, “Are you an Italian?”
Garabet, not understanding English, said the only English word he knew. In a sheepish voice he said, “Yes.” The officer said, “Then Little Italy it is.” Garabet gathered his things and waited for the bus to take him on a new adventure to his new home in America.
The immigration bus left the port’s terminal full of immigrants heading to their new homes over the many bridges in New York, stopping along the way to drop off people who were greeted by their families and friends. Garabet was alone on the bus and had no one. The bus stopped in front of a small tailor shop and he got out, the bus left him at the curb and moved on to the next stop.
He stood in front of the shop and looked inside, a man was working with a mannequin fitting a jacket, the man saw Garabet and came outside. He knew that Garabet was arriving as he was informed they were sending the new apprentice to his shop. As the man stood outside he looked at Garabet and knew right away he was not Italian. He was upset and ready to send him back. If this young man couldn’t speak Italian, let alone English, what good would he be? As he started to send him away, he remembered what it was like coming to America and being alone. He did not know how this would work, but he brought Garabet in, gave him a cot in the back of the shop and taught him to be a tailor.
Garabet thrived on the work. He learned Italian and a little English, and soon he mastered the craft. He worked hard and saved his money. His mentor was homesick for his native home of Italy, the warm sun and colorful rolling green hills. He was tired of the cold snowy winters and wanted to go back home. He told Garabet that he was selling the shop and he would need to find another place to work. Garabet did save money, but did not have enough to buy the shop. He knew he needed to borrow money to buy the shop, but how?
A few of the shop’s clients were well-connected. Garabet worked out a deal with some of the clients to borrow the money, which he would pay back weekly, while also giving them discounts on the custom suits he would make for them. He knew this was a bad deal for him, but it was the only way he could swing buying the shop. Soon, he bought the shop and changed the style of the suits from being very conservative to a little flashier, as his specialty was custom suits with very colorful ties. He remembered when he was sewing clothes with his mother he made colorful dyes, bright reds, purple, lemon yellow and a teal blue. The ties became his signature mark, everyone wanted a suit made by the little Armenian tailor. His business was booming, the loans were paid back and his clients were very satisfied with being a sharp dressed man in New York City.
As his business continued to be successful, Garabet felt sad and lonely. He saw all the families in the neighborhood and dreamed of one of his own. He decided he need a wife and to start a family. He thought long and hard on this: How was he going to get a wife? Even though he was in America, he wanted an Armenian wife.
Garabet read an article in an Armenian newspaper about a matchmaking service. He contacted them and wrote a short description of his life, his success and failures, his desire to share his life and goals with someone like-minded and not afraid of working hard. They sent him pictures and personal aspirations on three women looking for husbands. He only read the first introduction letter and gazed at her photo, he knew this was the one. He threw the others away and immediately sent a letter to Shake introducing himself and asking her many questions. This correspondence went back and forth for months before Garabet finally proposed. He waited weeks for her answer: “YES” she wrote back.
He sent a ticket for her and her chaperone to come to New York. He was waiting for her on the dock, and she was more beautiful than he imagined. They married later that day at the Armenian church and started a wonderful life together.
Garabet and his wife Shake became United States citizens and voted in every election. He endured the Great Depression, yet always provided for his family. He proudly sent his four sons to the Army and the Navy to fight for liberty in the Second World War. He lived through the Cold War, which brought fear to his neighborhood, but always remembered that freedom has a price. He saw in the 60’s how the Civil Rights movement changed so many lives. He flew on his first airplane to see his grandchildren traveling form New York to Los Angeles at 70 years old.
Garabet became ill and went to the hospital. As he lay in his hospital bed, his entire family was there to be with him. His wife, sons, their wives and grandchildren. He had each one sit by his bed and hold his hand as he spoke to each person and felt the love of his family. When it was his grandson’s turn to talk, Stephen sat by the bed and asked, “Grandpa you lived such a hard life, are you sad?” Garabet paused for a moment, the corner of one lip raised slightly, and he smiled and said, in broken English, “Good life. Good life.” He called over his son Peter and whispered in his ear. Garabet passed at age 78.
If you have not guessed it yet, every Armenian has a grandparent, friend, acquaintance or a relative that has a similar story, every one of them is an Armenian hero. Surviving the Genocide and retelling the story for the next generation is their legacy. Everyone must remember.
What were the final words Garabet whispered to his son?: “Never Forget.”
