Setroit Free Press

Pergrouhi Javizian: Gave time to Armenian church

September 4, 2004

BY JEANNE MAY
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

Pergrouhi Terzian Javizian, who spent her early life in a Turkish orphanage
and came to this country to become a pillar of St. John’s Armenian Orthodox
Church, died of pneumonia Wednesday at Regency Health Care Centre, Taylor.

She was a week short of her 97th birthday and lived in Dearborn. Her
American friends called her Pearl.

Mrs. Javizian was born in Kourtbelen, a little village outside Istanbul, and
when she was 3, her father was killed in a massacre that eventually left 1.5
million Armenians dead.

Her mother became a servant in the home of a wealthy family, and she was put
in an orphanage.

When she was 16, a friend from her village who had come to the United States
went to Barkev Javizian, a Ford Motor Co. worker, and said, “Why don’t you
save these two?’

Armenians in America helping Armenians from the old country was not unusual
in those days, but there was a hitch: a young woman would be required to
marry a man who sponsored her.

“But my dad said, ‘I will consider them to be my mother and my sister, and I
will take care of them until they get on their feet,’ ” her son Simon said
Friday.

Then Mrs. Javizian arrived, and she had blonde hair and blue eyes and her
savior was oh-so-handsome.

“When I saw your father, he looked just like Robert Taylor,” Mrs. Javizian
told her son.

And they were married.

Children came along at a fairly rapid clip, and Mrs. Javizian took care of
them and her home.

“After I was born, she would go to night school, and many times she would
take me with her,” her son said. “She never did graduate, but she went to
night school at Southwestern High School.”

When her children were old enough not to need her constant attention, she
threw herself into the life of the Armenian-American community.

She’d always attended St. John’s Armenian Church, Southfield, and she became
chairwoman of its Ladies Auxiliary. She also was secretary of the Detroit
Chapter of the Armenian General Benevolent Union.

But she was most famous for her hours in the church kitchen.

“She was a great, great cook,” her son said. “She would man the ovens. She
would be standing there, and the sweat would be pouring off her, and the
more she sweated, the better she liked it.

“She was always cooking. It gave her the greatest pleasure to present her
food and eat, eat, eat. The more we ate, the more she smiled.”

She also performed in her church’s stage presentations commemorating St.
Vartan, who fought for Christianity against the Persians in 451. He lost,
but managed to persuade the Persians that the Armenians would never give up
their religion.

Mrs. Javizian’s son owns Simon Javizian Funeral Home, Detroit.

In addition to her son, survivors include another son, Garry; two daughters,
Helen Javizian and Margaret Zadikian; 11 grandchildren; seven
great-grandchildren, and seven great-great-grandchildren.

Friends may call from 6 to 9 p.m. Monday at St. John’s Armenian Church,
22001 Northwestern Highway, Southfield, where prayers will be at 7:30 p.m.

The funeral will be at 11 a.m. Tuesday at the church, with Armenian
clergymen from all over the area participating. Burial will be in Woodlawn
Cemetery, Detroit.

The family suggests memorial donations to St. John’s, 22001 Northwestern
Highway, Southfield 48075, or St. Sarkis Armenian Church, 19300 Ford Road,
Dearborn 48128.

Contact JEANNE MAY at 586-469-4682 or may@freepress.com.