Kooloian family legacy, eternal love honored at Armenian flag raising

LuzJennifer Martinez
The Valley Breeze

NORTH PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND – Town resident Nina Tegu Kooloian says it’s wonderful that her parents are being honored by the town at this year’s Armenian flag raising ceremony on April 25, the date of what would have been their 71st wedding anniversary.

Her mother, Elizabeth Kooloian, will be honored posthumously, after she died on March 9.

“They made it to 71-plus years, which is pretty special and wonderful,” Nina said. “They were very connected throughout the entire relationship, right until the end.”

According to Nina, Azarig, who is now in his 90s and has a bit of dementia, is pretty sad over his wife’s passing, and hasn’t really spoken much about it.

Nina’s maternal grandmother came to the U.S. after the first wave of genocide against Armenians from Turkey in the early 1900s.

Though Azarig and Elizabeth were born and raised in Rhode Island, Nina said her paternal grandmother was a genocide survivor, while her paternal grandmother was also born in the U.S., after her parents left Armenia in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

“Being part of the diaspora and just being Armenians and wanting to start their lives here, both (held) onto their Armenian heritage and all that their families and community went through,” Nina said. “They were also proud to be Americans and to really prosper and work hard and show other Americans who we are as people and what our culture is.”

While growing up in the public school system in the 1960s, Nina said that many didn’t know who Armenians were, and her family did their best as the first generation born here to become very successful Americans and to help fellow Armenians.

“When the Iron Curtain started coming down, and the Soviet Union was allowing people to leave the country more easily, my parents and godparents did all that they could do to support people that were coming here from Soviet Armenia, to try to start their lives,” she said.

“They gave them apartments, they gave them jobs, and they had made it themselves, so they had the wherewithal to be able to do that, and they did with many families.”

For Nina, being Armenian means “so many things,” including the basic one that every culture and heritage has, such as amazing food, music, dance, and art.

“But for us, having gone through the first genocide of the 1900s that wiped out so many people and tried to wipe out their existence, I think the thing that speaks loudest to me is the strength and endurance of survival,” she said.

Growing up, Nina said she learned about community through her church and in school and heard the stories as a youngster of what the family went through.

However, her maternal grandmother never spoke about her experience directly until she was under the care of Nina’s mother and father.

Nina’s maternal grandmother went on to find love and settle down once she came to the U.S., owning a home with her husband. “She was a homemaker, always held a job, and volunteered at our church, while bringing up my mom and her two sisters. She was proud to be an American, while holding on to her Armenian heritage.”

Nina’s paternal grandmother owned a dress shop and two Armenian restaurants on Douglas Ave, as well as a small convenience store with a soda fountain.

“She was really a brilliant, talented woman, and there wasn’t anything she couldn’t do,” Nina said. “My dad’s mom lived with us all our lives, and their devotion to family and to our heritage was just a constant.”

Azarig, who grew up on Douglas Avenue in Providence, and Elizabeth, who grew up on Superior Street in Providence, remained united when Azarig started his construction business in North Providence during the 1950s, not long after they got married in 1954, Nina said.

Though Nina’s mother stayed at home and took care of Nina and her four other siblings, she also served as the vice-president and secretary of A. Kooloian Construction.

“My dad always had the office at home and so there was constant work in the midst of us growing up and them being devoted parents, and taking care of my dad’s mother,” she said.

“The food, the music, and going to church to be with other Armenians really connected us,” she added. “They just taught us to be involved and dedicating time and energy. Those are the big things they passed on.”

Azarig started building homes in North Providence for many Armenians, Nina said.

“There was more than a handful of homes that my dad built all for Armenians, and of course, he built homes for many people, not just Armenians, and that’s how he got started, and how he and my mom grew the business,” she said.

Azarig also wanted to give to the town as well, so he joined the Zoning Board, where he served as the chairperson, also providing the town a parcel of land at Stephen Olney Park across from where his home was.

“He just wanted to always make whatever he was involved with better, and my mother was right there with him,” Nina said. “And they had so many friends from the Armenian community, church, and other organizations they were involved with, and they just always had community, and also had each other.”

Up until Elizabeth died, Nina said that being able to witness her parents taking care of one another by attending doctor’s appointments together, holding hands, or teasing each other was an honor.

When Nina’s parents were dating, she said her father made sure to let her mother know that he would always take care of his mother, and that her mother “didn’t hesitate.”

“My mom took care of her until she died at home; she was that kind of daughter-in-law,” she said.

As far as receiving the honor from the town, Nina said she knows her mother “would be so proud and be really focused on her parents and the other people in her family that made it here and all of those who didn’t make it here.”

Regarding both of her parents, Nina said, “I think they worked hard, they had lots of fun in their lives, and went back to Turkey to find the villages where their parents came from, which was huge. I know both my parents are so proud to be able to have carried on their strength, their heritage, and the people.”

To her parents, Nina says, “thank you for your legacy, and all you taught us about being Armenians, coming from the families we came from and instilling the importance of growing and moving forward and doing the best you can but also always carrying on where we came from.”