Melikian / Merigian
Family Story

Mgrdich Melikian

1876 - 1937

HIGHLIGHTS

Mgrdich Melikian was probably the youngest of Arakel Melikian's four children.  He married Tschun Davitian, and had two children, one of whom died as a baby.  His wife was struck by lightning and killed.  He sent his only son, Onnik, to boarding school in Sepastia, and moved to Russia to work as head chef and chief of protocol for the wealthy Ananov family of bankers.  During his career, he worked for several other wealthy families, and had connections to the Czar.  

Just before Turkish soldiers surrounded his home village of Prapert, Mgrdich paid a visit and brought contraband guns.  His employers pulled some strings and were able to help him escape to Constantinople, under guard, but he was unable to bring his only son with him.  

Back in Russia, he was present during a 2-week revolt, part of the Russian Revolution.  He was captured and loaded onto a train for Siberia, along with many others.  He jumped from the train, and was not only injured, but knocked unconscious for 2 hours.  Luckily, he had friends in high places, and money, and was able to make his way out of the country, from St. Petersburg, to Moscow, to Tivlis, to Constantinople in 1920, where he owned an apartment building.  

The Turks eventually confiscated his real estate.  Around 1926, he was somehow reunited with Elmas Melikian, a distant cousin who was engaged to his son Onnik, and her sister, Mariam Melikian.  They had been "given" to Turkish families at the beginning of the Genocide, after the rest of their family had been killed, to work as slaves.  It is unknown whether he had any part of freeing them.  In 1927, the three of them relocated to the United States.  

Mgrdich lived in Springfield, MA, with Onnik and his growing family, which eventually numbered four children.  Mgrdich was popular around town, as he took his youngest grandson, Gorken, out for walks in his stroller daily.  One day, as Mgrdich was crossing the street, he was hit by a speeding car.  The driver, a local politician, did not want to stop because his passenger was a woman who was not his wife.  Mgrdich grasped hold of the hood ornament, but was dragged beneath the car and killed.  If the driver had stopped, he might have lived.  Onnik was so angry, he took steps to have the driver killed, but was persuaded to abandon his plan, as "that's not the way they do things in the US."