AGNES M. MOORADIAN, 85, DETERMINED, KEPT FAMILY HISTORY ALIVE
Elbert Aull

Portland Press Herald
July 14, 2008 Monday
Maine

SOUTH PORTLAND

Agnes M. Mooradian and her husband disagreed about the apple tree in
their backyard.

Mrs. Mooradian thought it deprived what would be a great vegetable
garden of sunlight. Her husband thought it was a nice tree.

The way Mrs. Mooradian, who died Saturday at the age of 85, took care
of the tree became family legend, her older daughter said.

The petite, determined woman cut down the tree limb by limb, piece
by piece – slowly, so her husband wouldn’t notice.

John Mooradian was standing at his kitchen window when it finally
dawned on him.

Cynthia Young of Falmouth, the Mooradians’ older daughter, still
remembers her puzzled father’s words: "Didn’t we used to have an
apple tree in the backyard?"

That was her mother – the determined woman who pulled a sled through
the snow to deliver bread from her father’s bakery as a child and
still found time to study and take care of her siblings, Young said.

Mrs. Mooradian was born March 25, 1923, in Portland, the oldest of
John and Rose Mezoian’s four children.

Her father came to the United States with his parents in 1910, at a
time when Armenians were faced with increasing levels of hostility
in his native Turkey.

Other families would follow at the start of the Armenian
Genocide five years later. The families formed a tight-knit
community. Mrs. Mooradian’s parents were optimistic about the future.

"They knew that being here in the U.S. was an opportunity for them
to move forward and raise their children in a safe environment,"
Young said.

Mrs. Mooradian spent her youth balancing school with household chores
and work at her father’s bakery. She delivered bread from the bakery
to homes and grocery stores, pulling the food along on a sled during
the winter, Young said.

Mrs. Mooradian graduated from Portland High School in 1942.

She married John Mooradian on Aug. 24, 1947. The couple had two
daughters and, after brief stints in Portland and Cape Elizabeth,
settled in South Portland.

Mrs. Mooradian was part of the group that in 2002 founded the Armenian
Cultural Association of Maine.

She was her family’s oral historian, passing on stories about growing
up as a first-generation American to her children. One thing she
always stressed to her children was the value of an education, and
the importance of never giving up, Young said.

"My parents always felt with an education, you can accomplish anything
in life," she said.