‘The stories of our past stay with us’: Scores celebrate cleanup at Oakland Cemetery’s Armenian section

By Kelcy Dolan
Posted 6/22/16

"If there is something we can do to preserve our place in history and to bring light to it, we feel compelled to do so,” said Stephen Elmasian, treasurer for the Men’s Club of Sts. Vartanantz …

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‘The stories of our past stay with us’: Scores celebrate cleanup at Oakland Cemetery’s Armenian section

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"If there is something we can do to preserve our place in history and to bring light to it, we feel compelled to do so,” said Stephen Elmasian, treasurer for the Men’s Club of Sts. Vartanantz Armenian Church.

For the past two months, Elmasian and 45 other volunteers from the Men’s Club have been working to clean up and beautify the Armenian section of Oakland Cemetery off Broad Street on the Providence/Cranston line.

After eight Saturday mornings, 420 work hours and more than 500 filled lawn bags, the Armenian section has been revitalized, and on Saturday morning, June 18, the area and the nearly 240 Armenians resting there were blessed by Arch Priest Gomidas Baghsarian and Father Kapriel Nazarian, both of Sts. Vartanantz Church, and Pastor Hagop Manjelikian of the Armenian Evangelical Church in a brief ceremony.

Over the past 10 years, the cemetery had fallen into disrepair. Many of the graves became completely inaccessible or disappeared beneath debris, and others had even been toppled over and damaged. Elmasian said a wall made of “nature’s debris” had enveloped the Armenian section of the cemetery.

The Men’s Club made the commitment to clean up Oakland Cemetery for various reasons, one being the negative press the cemetery received several months ago when the mausoleum, which stands above the Armenian section, began to deteriorate, receiving numerous community complaints.

Tom Kizirian, chairman of the Men’s Club, said there were a lot of doubts concerning whether or not the group would be successful, but the group focused on the grave of Aghabab Kalunian, a 21-year-old survivor of the Armenian Genocide. Set in the back of the natural wall, if they could just get to him, then the group of volunteers would be able to clean the entire area.

“We got it done,” Kizirian said. “If you look at the dates on the graves you come to realize that these men and women have experienced some very sinister things. To see what all these people must have gone through, what they had to escape, it’s heartbreaking. The past never stays in the past. It stays with us.”

Many of the Armenians buried in Oakland Cemetery were survivors of the Armenian Genocide, perpetrated by the Ottoman Turkish government beginning prior to and continuing through the World War I period. Elmasian believes this connection to such a harsh part of Armenians’ heritage is why volunteers were so committed to seeing the cemetery cleaned up.

“We were slaughtered in the genocide, but some of us did survive and escaped,” he said. “One hundred years ago we started fleeing our land. We were all lost; we were orphans. We are finally coming to find each other again to restart our people. Because of that we feel a bond with other Armenians. We wanted to clean this cemetery out of respect to our ancestors who fought so hard for our futures.”

Nearly 150 people attended the cemetery blessing on Saturday, many of them having family buried there, including Warwick Mayor Scott Avedisian.

Nearly all of Avedisian’s Armenian family is buried at Oakland Cemetery, including grandparents and great-grandparents. When he came to visit the graves of his family, he was always “thankful they were accessible.”

“I would think of all the families that couldn’t visit the graves of their loved ones,” he said. “We need to put more value on our ancestors. They deserve this.”

Although Avedisian is disappointed the cemetery had fallen into such disrepair, he believes the Men’s Club of Sts. Vartanantz Armenian Church did an incredible job honoring their ancestors.

Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea attended the blessing as well and said she was “touched” by the work done by the Men’s Club. Walking through the cemetery, she was reminded of her own childhood, visiting the resting places of her family in Puerto Rico.

“There is something to be said of giving our time and thoughts to those who have passed on,” she said. “It is important to remember them. I know they are all smiling down on us today.”

The Men’s Club has adopted the cemetery and pledged to watch over it, according to Kizirian.

“We all came together for this effort. Times change and people move, but the stories of our past stay with us. We felt this place come alive today,” he said.

Elmasian said that members were never looking for a “pat on the back,” but felt connected to the cemetery. Working in the cemetery made Elmasian contemplate where he came from, where so many graves, more than 10,000 Armenian Khatchcars, have been destroyed, decimated and paved over, “forgotten.”

“This is not a forgotten place anymore. That won’t happen, not in our backyard,” he said. “We need to hold onto our past and move into the future at the same time, respecting our ancestors.”

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