Keghetsik Hagopian-Zourikian’s life was shaped by strife, separation and loss, but ‘she never showed her sadness,’ one son said.
Keghetsik Hagopian-Zourikian was a testament to human resilience. Her life spanned more than a century and was marked by grief and hardship, yet she found joy in simple things like food and family.
Her father died in the Armenian genocide and, from the age of 6, she lived in an orphanage. She raised her three children alone after her husband died by suicide and, once in Canada, she watched a young grandson die of leukemia. Despite it all, according to her family, she never shared her sadness, but rather exuded love and optimism.
Mrs. Hagopian-Zourikian was one of the last survivors of the Armenian genocide living in Canada, according to the Armenian National Committee of Canada. She died on Sept. 26, in Montreal, of natural causes at the age of 107.
Her secret to long life, her relatives say, was walking everywhere, never drinking alcohol or smoking, and eating plenty of her homemade yogurt.
Born on Sept. 23, 1909, in Bursa in what is now northwestern Turkey, she was the third of five children of Mariam and Kevork Hagopian. In 1915, her father was taken into the Ottoman Army, and then killed for being Armenian. Her impoverished mother was forced to place six-year-old Keghetsik and her younger sister in an orphanage. Keghetsik's brother and two older sisters remained with their struggling mother.
At one point, Mariam Hagopian caught word that missionaries were about to move children from the orphanage to Greece by boat. She ran to the port to reclaim her daughters, but the boat had already left shore.
Although still a contentious issue, many historians agree that the Ottoman Empire undertook a deliberate plan in 1915, amid the carnage of the First World War, to wipe out Armenians living in the empire. By the early 1920s, when the exterminations and deportations finally ended, about 1.5 million Armenians were either dead or had been forcibly removed. In 2004, Canada officially recognized it as a genocide (one of 26 countries to have done so), a designation the Turkish government rejects. Last year, on the 100th anniversary, Mrs. Hagopian-Zourikian travelled to Ottawa to see MPs designate April as Genocide Remembrance, Condemnation and Prevention Month, and April 24 as Armenian Genocide Memorial Day.
It wasn't until the fall of 1979 that Mrs. Hagopian-Zourikian, separated from her family during that tragic period of history and for decades after, returned to her homeland for an emotional reunion with her mother, brother and sisters in Istanbul.
When she was 14, Keghetsik and her younger sister had been sent from the Greek orphanage to Egypt. There she worked as a domestic servant for an Italian-speaking Jewish family in Alexandria. She also befriended many other displaced Armenian orphans, who established a club for social gatherings.
One of them was Nishan Zourikian, who had also lost his father in the genocide, been placed in an orphanage in Lebanon at the age of 5, and been sent to Egypt after being released from the orphanage.
The young couple met in 1933 through the club, where they liked to dance, from waltzes to tangos to rumbas. They married in November, 1934. A year later, they welcomed their first son, Varoujan; followed four years later by a second son, Garo; and daughter Sona in 1945.
Tragedy befell Mrs. Hagopian-Zourkian again when her husband sank into a depression after he was diagnosed with throat cancer and died by suicide in 1954. With three children to raise, she cooked and cleaned for other families and accepted help from the Armenian community.
"I was 15 when that happened, so we had to go out and work," recalled her younger son, Garo Zourikian.
"She went many days without eating so that her kids could eat," said her grandson Nino Zourikian, Varoujan's son.
In 1962,Varoujan emigrated to Montreal with his wife and first child. He was able to sponsor his brother, sister and mother, who arrived in 1963.
For many years, Mrs. Hagopian-Zourikian lived with Varoujan's family in the Montreal neighbourhood of Park Extension, cooking, doing housework and caring for his five children, the second of whom died at the age of 6 of leukemia. The little boy was diagnosed in 1967, and she helped to care for him for three years until his death.
"She never showed her sadness, because she wanted us to be happy," Varoujan said.
In the early 1970s, she moved into her own apartment in a neighbourhood where she would spend hours in the park with her Armenian friends. She picked her own grape leaves to make dolmas (leaves stuffed with rice or meat). She walked everywhere and followed along to exercise shows on television. She spent hours doing exquisite embroidery. Her children and grandchildren visited often, dropping by after school or work for some of her delicious home-cooked food.
"For someone raised with no love, it's mind-boggling how much she was able to give," said grandson Nino.
"She had golden fingers when it came to cooking, even on the crummy stove and pots we had. She loved us with her food," he said.
Her children and grandchildren credit her with guiding them through life. "She never complained," said son Garo. "She had no education but was very wise and had a lot of common sense."
Although she never learned French or English, Mrs. Hagopian-Zourikian spoke Armenian, Greek, Italian, and a bit of Arabic.
She stayed in her apartment until she was 100, when dizziness caused her to stumble and she moved to an assisted-living residence. "She used to complain that everyone in the residence was old, but she was actually the oldest," son Varoujan said with a chuckle.
"She had a very hard life, but managed to get through all those difficulties," he said.
Mrs. Hagopian-Zourikian leaves her three children, nine grandchildren, 18 great-grandchildren, and one great-great-grandchild.