INTERVIEW: Sophie Daniels Shares Her Harrowing Journey from Iran to the United States

 Inteview with Sophie by her grandson Mike (Cory) De Corte

Sophie Daniels Interview Transscript 

Sophia Mooshie-Daniels (nee Babian) recounts her journey to America Date of recording: circa 1977
Date of transcription: 02/22/2021

As recorded by Michael “Cory” DeCorte and transcribed by Gary E. Daniels

NOTES:
Around 1977 Cory had interviewed our Grandmother Sophia recounting her journey and experiences from her village of Shirabad near Urmia, Persia (now Iran) to Chicago, Illinois. The interview was on two cassette tapes which have been digitized to an .mp3 audio file. From the audio file this transcription was made.

This transcription uses the following format:
S = Sophia Mooshie-Daniels.
C = Cory (Michael Decorte, the interviewer).
[] = Comments and explanations by the transcriber are enclosed in brackets [].
(??) = Unclear words or phrases are indicated by (??).
{} = The time location on the recording are enclosed in curly brackets {}.

Transcription of : “Sophia Daniels interview - Master 2-19-2021.mp3”

{0:05}
C: Where were you born? And do you know what year you were born in?

S: Well, my parents were married in 1900 in Jan..1900 in January. So I think I was born in 1901. [12/10/1901]

C: You were the first child, the only child?

S: That’s all, yes. He [Father] died very young.

C: And what...do you remember your parents’ names?

S: Yes. My father’s name was Moses. MO’ses is in English, Armenian was MoSES’. he was so good lookng.

{0.40}

C: Huh?!

And Cory,

S: There were 5 brothers. My Grandmother was widow, she said “He’s not going work hard.” She sent him to Tabriz to be..., to become school teacher. And from there she...you know we had there American missionary in Old Country. They had a college there, school and

everything. So he went there. Our town was two nationalities, Armenians and Assyrians. So after he graduated from (??{1:12}) school.

{1:15}
C: Ya. I can hear.

S: And then he, uh, went to, uh, learn Assyrian. After he learn Assyrian he went to Russia to become a painter. Not painting house.

C: A painter, an artist.

S: Artist. He..there was...I remember there Presbyterian Church in my home town and the pulpit there..what you call in English there? The dome wall..there is a platform where they stand and preach.

C: The alter? {1:50}

S: The alter. He painted there, ah, aqua green and Chinese red like animals. It was just beautiful.

C: So he was a good painter?

S: Well, ya, he could do that, but, uh, then he was teaching school, you know, in my home town, and then after that he went to other towns.

C: And his name was Moses. So he didn’t have a last name?
S: Yes, Moses Babian.
C: Oh.
S: So anyway, uh, and he went to Russia and came back sick. I was.... C: He went to Russia to teach?

S: No. I don’t know why he went. For something else. His brothers were there or for what business he went or to earn money. And...

C: You were a baby.

{2:40}

S: I wasn’t baby. I think I was about seven years old. So he came home..he came back from Russia. He went to doctor. Doctor said he to go back to country, climate is better there. You got tuberculosis. So he came home. And then, I think I was seven years old when he died. And I don’t remember anything. So, that’s it. He had a short life.

C: Ya. How old was he when he died? Do you know? S: No. He was a young man.
C: And how about your mom?

S: My mother, uh, so anyway, my mother and uncles we, in Old Country they live in same house, you know a lot of people. So, uh, when I was about fifteen years old, she want me to get married so she could get married (chuckles). And I was with my girl friends, fixing trunk, (??{3:53}) we were fixing a doll house and we had all the dolls. Of course I was not little girl to play, play dolls, but we were having party. Our dolls were going to get married. They called me. They want you home. I went home. (??{4:08}) and they said they want you, you know. They were matchmaking. Because your grandpa [Abraham Mooshie-Daniels] was my aunt Sarah, Gundup’s sister, uh, her brother-in-law. He came for me from America.

C: Grandpa did?
{4:24}
S: Ya. Grandpa was here in 19..1906. so, ah.. C: He came back to find a wife.

S: Ya, he came back to, uh, ...no, poor man, I don’t think he....he just went back to see the...his relatives, people, you know. And they got...there was so many nice girls for him, you know. They want him, but my aunt told my mother “You know, maybe he brought lot of money. Let’s fix this”. Ha, ha, ha. Well it happened, whatever he brought. In those days there was not much money. And he spent on fixing their vineyard, things like that. So anyway, they arranged this marriage and we got married.

{5:10}
C: Who arranged it?
S: My aunt, my ..all three aunts. C: Aunt Gundup?

S: Gundup, Nabad, Sarah, and my mother and my uncle. You have enough? [Cory , the interviewer, was eating] So they fixed this marriage and, uh, it was, uh, 1914 July third. No.

C: No. It must have been earlier... S: 1913, July third.
{5:36}

S: Like the Fourth of July here, and their’s is the third of July. People go to, ahh, there’s a lake there [Lake Urmia], but we call yama [“yama” is the Assyrian word for ocean], we call ocean. It’s a big ss, ocean. It’s salt, you know.

C: It’s a big lake, right?
S: Ya. And we all go to that place for that day.
C: And what’s that? What are they celebrating?
S: I don’t remember, Cory. It’s Summer then, but we all go there.
C: But you celebrate anyway.
S: But I couldn’t go ‘cause that’s...I was getting married that day.
{6:08}
C: Oh!
S: Ha, ha, ha. So anyway, uh, grandpa wants to come back to America. So I had a house. I, uh.. C: You had a house there?
S: Oh, I had my own house...
C: Family house?
S: ...because my father died, and it was left for me.
{6:26}
C: Not your mom, but for you.

S: For both of us. C: Right.

S: Ya, ya. So anyway, he came to live with us in my house. In my place I had vineyard. I had a one water buffalo, one..one or two cows, and barn, everything. It was nice.

C: You had a horse?
S: No. No horse.
C: Did you have a cart?
{6:52}
S: Cars?
C: Cart. To, to move around. I mean, how did you go to town and everything? S: Oh, well, it was small town.
C: You walk.

S: Ya. We had, eh, horse and wagon, you know, something like that, but we have our neighbors, the Moslems. They used to work for us. They did everything. They paint, you know, all major things. They work. So grandpa didn’t have money to come back and he wrote here to his friends and they sent him his fare. And he want me to come, too, but I said “No. I don’t want to leave my mother”. I don’t think he was able to bring my mother, too.

{7:33}
C: Hmm, hmm.

S: So anyway, I don’t think she want to come. Too bad I didn’t come here. And he came summertime, I think was in July somewhere [Abe may have left with Khosrow Babian from Libau, Russia on 6/26/1914 on the SS Russia and arrived Port of New York 7/9/1914 per Khosrow’s Naturalization form and Abe’s Naturalization card]. Came to America. So and it was in December before Christmas, Russia was the, they were in our country, in Iran, and we were protected by, uh...

C: By who?
S: We were protected by Russia from Iranians, from Mohammedans.

C: Hmm, because you were Christian?

S: Yes, because we were, uh, ..the whole country’s Mohammedan. There is some Christian, some Jewish, just little bit different faith, you know. Then, uh, Russia backed out and we had to flee away.

C: Cause they, they wanted....

{8:35}

S: Oh ya! Especially young girls, they want to marry them right away. I asked my mother, I said “Let’s go! Everbody’s going!”. My aunt Gundup was with us that night. She was married. She used to live in different town.

C: When you just had to leave your land and your house and your cows....

S: Everything, everything. I didn’t even have..I had shoes on til we got in snow. And then, anyway, uh, my aunt Sarah, uh, she came and knocking on our door. It was midnight. She said “Come on! Everybody is leaving town. Everybody’s fleeing away. We have to!”. And my mother said “She joking. You know, they just came out for... {9:22} (To interviewer – “Shall we put that there?”) They don’t have, uh, you know, (??{9:28})...sometimes they go off.

C: Wow. {9:32}

S: She said she came out for something. And, but she keep on knocking, so my mother open door. She said “Come on! Everybody’s gone!”. And my mother told me, she said “I’m not going to go. You stay, too”. I said “I’m not staying!”. I said “If you want to come, all right. If not, I’m, I’m going”.

S: So anyway, I, uh, my aunt Sarah and myself and all our small town people, most of them we left uh December (??{10:02}) 10 o’clock, we left everything we had. We went, uh...

C: You didn’t even take any...
S: Anything..we didn’t take anything.
C: You didn’t take your water buffalo? Nothing.
S: Nothing. We left everything. So, uh, in one week... C: Was it Winter time then?

S: Winter. In December. Little before Christmas.

C: Was there snow there?

S: Ya. One week before we had lots of snow. So anyway, here comes people from all...Assyrian people from other towns. They said “What you doing here?”. She [Sophia’s mother] said “My daughter and my sister are gone, but I don’t want to go”. They said “You’d better come. Don’t stay. They’ll kill you”. So my mother came to camp. While we were camping, and she came, she found us. She found me.

{10:46}
S: Early in the morning we had to.. C: Get up and go.

S: Go. Without horses and buggies or nothing, just walk. And I never did walk so much in my life, and I couldn’t stand. They were stiff. My aunt and my mother hold me to stand up, I fell down. They were so stiff and they were hurting, my legs.

C: You had no blankets or nothing, then, huh?

S: Nothing. So anyway, they drag me for a while. And we came for a place that was (??{11:15}) there were no houses. Nothing. And Summertime maybe it was desert, but Wintertime was full of snow. So I had to throw my shoes off. I walk in that snow all day long from six o’clock in the morning til it was dark.

{11:30}

S: My mother left me. She said “If I stay with you, you just not gonna come”. She said “I’m gonna leave you”. She went ahead. She was really fast. She went ahead....

C: You threw your shoes away?

S: Ya, I threw..I couldn’t wear them no more. They full of snow and everything. But I had, uh, my cousin. He was maybe 1 year younger than me, he was. I was crying and he says “(??[11:57}) don’t cry, Sophia, don’t cry”. He says “Don’t cry, we’ll be alright”. So finally we got, ‘cause she was waiting, finally we finished that walking that snow, from morning to night.

C: Uh, huh.

S: Ya. So anyway she was waiting there. For one she found something, she made little fire so she could warm up my legs. And a lot of people they lost their legs from...

C: Hmm, snow.

S: From, uh, frostbitting, but I was too. They were black and blue, but no gangrene. God was with me all the way, Cory.

C: Where were you walking to?

{12.36}

S: We were walking just fleeing away. We were still in...

C: Just down the road, eh?

S: Ya. Just, we are in Iran, you know. But we’re walking towards Russia. So anyway...

C: That the mountain, Russia’s on the other side of the mountains, huh?

S: Uh, Russia, we came to mountains, but, uh, no, most of it was..there is a river between Iran and Russia they call it Arax [also known as Aras River].

So we walked and we camped in other city of Iranians. They didn’t bother us. Until we come to Arax and to that river. And then, uh, when you cross that bridge you’re in Russia. Of course, it’s Cacausia. There’s Armenians, there’s all different nationalities there, it isn’t in the heart of Russia. So we walked, uh, we went, we crossed the bridge. Before we crossed the bridge they, they fired at us. I went under something, under the table.

Arax River

{13.30}

C: Under a table?

S: Ya.

C: What table?

S: Some kind of bench. I don’t know what they were. They didn’t have tables there.

C: Uh, huh.

S: But I went under something. So anyway.

C: On the bridge.

S: Uh, before we crossed the bridge. We were, uh, we were in some shack or something to keep warm.

{13.53}

S: Do you know, Cory, my uncle, uh, do you know Sonia? {Sonia could be Sonia Daniels, wife of Khoshaba Daniels. Khoshaba Daniels would be Sophia’s uncle-in-law.]

C: Uh, huh.

S: Their dog walked to, to that river between Russia and Iran. When that dog saw me he jumped. “Oo, oo” [here Sophia imitates the dog’s crying for joy]. He was crying, oh that poor dog. I don’t know what happened to him. He was running away, too. He was, he was trying to find his master, these people, but he found me. He knew me because he belonged to my uncle. So anyway we crossed that bridge, that river Arax, and the train is waiting for us to take us deep into Russia. And there is a woman from wagon to wagon.

{14.43}

S: She is looking for us. For my mother, myself, my aunts. That woman is Russian. My uncle was married, in Russia he was married to Russian girl and then my uncle when he came to Iran, just in one week he died with flu or something and the one son died, too. They had two sons.

C: People used to die a lot from.. .

S: Ya, so anyway, but this woman was so faithful. She stayed there, she work, she took care of my grandpa, grandma, and then her son. And while..OK, her son was gone. He was in my age.

S: I still think that he, he went to, to deep in Russia to school. And he was in military. What happened to him I don’t know, but this woman was from wagon to wagon looking for us. She found us.

C: How many wagons were there? Hundreds of wagons?
S: No. Could be big train, long train. Because people could be... C: Wagons with buff, water buffalo pulling them, or?
S: No.
{16:01}
C: Oh, it was a train.
S: Train!
C: Oh, there was a train.
S: Train, ya.
C: Waiting to take you to Russia, that’s right.

S: Ya. So, she went to conductor and she said “How long you gonna be here?”. He said, “A few hours”. He said, she said “Please, would you let these people, these are my in-laws, I want to take them home and give them lunch”. He said” Alright, but certain are you bring them back”. So we went to her place. She was remarried. She was was married to a ....

C: So, you were controlled by the Russians at this point.
S: Ya. Now they’re taking care of us.
C: And did cars...it wasn’t just big cars it had, the cars, the train had chairs in it and everything? S: Yes. So you could sit.
C: Just like a regular train?
S: Ya, some of them are, uh....
C: It wasn’t like where they put the cows or something like that?
S: Some of them were just like that. Ya, I think that was just like that just....

C: Straw..

S: I don’t know how many of us we were in one wagon.

C: But some wagons had cars.

S: Some of them, ya.

C: I mean chairs.

{16:58}

S: So anyway, uh..

C: Do you remember her name?

S: Ya, Olga.

C: Olga.

S: Olga Benjamin. My, uh, uncle’s name was Benjamin. Grandpa, you know. She could have been, Yedgar [check spelling], too. But then, she gave us good dinner.

C: Hmmm.

S: I, uh, never wanted lard. And she had lard there. You know what’s lard? Like butter. C: Uh, huh.

S: And she knew that I never liked that. Ya, but I, lard I was putting on bread and eating, she said “Aahhh!”. She said “You told me you never liked that”. I said “This is butter”. She said “No. That’s not butter.” So anyway she...

C: Did she give you some more shoes?

S: She fed us..oh somebody gave me something , yes, clothes and shoes. Uh, then she fed us and she cried, she said “I have to take you back”. But she was married to, uh, remarried you know, to, uh, a Russian officer. He was in service, too. And then she took us back. That’s the last time I saw her.

{18:07}

C: Have you heard about her?

S: No. I just don’t know where she is. I don’t where....

C: It wasn’t dangerous where she lived, was it?

S: No. She was in, uh, she was across, across the...

C: Who was it that was firing on you when you crossed the bridge?

S: I think some Iranians, uh ...

C: Did they, were there a lot of them? {18:27}

S: No, no.
C: So nobody got sh [shot], hurt then?

S: Uh, ya, a few people got hurt. So anyway, we went, uh, by that train all the way to Araxes, all the way to Yerevan. Thats.. [Sophia did not mean Araxes, but rather Yerevan, capital of Armenia].

C: Yerevan?
S: Yerevan. That’s the capital city of Armenia. C: How do you say it?

S: Yerevan. So anyway, that’s in Armenian. I don’t know what they call..I think they all call it that. So those Armenians took care of us. And they gave us food and they gave us shelter and everything. And then the next day I went up, I looked at the mountains. You know, I saw Mount of Ararat.

C: Mount of Arat?
{19:22}
S: Mount of Ararat. What you call in English, it’s ... C: Ararat?

S: Ya!

C: What mountain is, is that?

S: That’s the mountain that Ark of Noah was on.

C: Oh ya?

S: Ya. I would never care to look at that Mount of Ararat if I didn’t. 1914 young evangelist came from America to Iran. So I went to his revival meetings. The meetings were on...

C: You stayed in this town for quite a while then, uh? {19:56}

S: Ya. I want to tell you how I know that was Mount of Ararat. So I went to, uh, his meetings. This is in Iran, before we flee away.

C: Oh.

S: And I like what I saw, Cory. And then he was holding meetings on a riverbank under the trees. It was Summertime. And they, from all neighboring towns people were coming, kneeling down on that ground, raising their hands praising God. I saw something in their face, it was just glowing. (I) said “Dear God, what they got , I want”. So then I started reading my Bible and read about Noah’s Ark and Mount of Ararat. So that’s why I stood there and look at Mount of Ararat.

C: Ya.

Mt. Ararat

S: Ya. So from there then we were on train again and we went to (??{20:45}) city.... C: How long did you stay there?
S: Uh, where? In Yerevan?
C: Uh, huh.

{20.05}

S: Until they have...I don’t remember how long, but until they had train waiting for us, place waiting for us....

C: What, is was just a few days? S: Yes, for...
C: It wasn’t a month?
S: Oh, ya, ya...

C: It was at least a month?
S: At least, yes. So we...
C: Two months, maybe, or?
S: No. I don’t think it was ....
C: But it was still Winter when you left. S: Oh, yes. Same Winter.

C: Lot of snow?
S: We had Christmas on , uh, we don’t even know it was Christmas because we were on, uh, ... C: Did you stay with a family there, or?
S: With the families, Armenian families.
C: So you stayed in somebody’s house?
S: Yes. Somebody...

C: You and your mom and aunt Gundup and...

S: Well, let’s see. Yes, all of us. Then we went, they took us to Tabriz. That’s a big city. Then they’re...lot of mountains around there. It’s beautiful.

C: Do you know what mountains those are? What mountain range that is? {21:41}
S: In Tabriz? No. So anyway, uh, from there I don’t want to go any further. C: You liked it there?

S: Well, ya.
C: Or you were just tired?

S: So I, uh, my aunt Sarah she went ahead. She went to another city, I don’t know how many hundreds of miles away, because she was looking for her husband’s family were around there. Gundup went. My mother and I, we stayed. We stayed in Tabriz.

C: With who?
S: Well, they had place for us.
C: Who? The family or did you have a place?
S: No, no. They... it was, uh, some kind of like, uh, soldiers’ barrack.
C: So, so a lot of people lived in (??{22:25}).
S: Ya, lot of us in one place. We, we lived there.
C: And how did they feed you?
S: Well, they gave us food like ration, you know. Everyday they used to come and give us... C: Some bread...
S: Anything we need. They fed us.
C: So you didn’t cook food at all, uh?

S: Oh, ya. My mother used to cook. We had place that we could cook. They give us things that we could cook. So we stayed there for, uh, I don’t remenber, Cory, how long, but then...

C: Another month? S: Uh?

C: Several months or another month? {23:00}

S: Oh, ya, more than that. More than six months. C: So you stayed in this place for...

S: Ya, in that place. Ya, for, uh, we stayed there, then Russia went back again because that was 1914 war...

C: Was it a happy time when you were there or was everybody sad?
S: Everything was... No we were happy because we were all together.... C: You were saved and you were together.

S: People start to getting married, things like that. So, uh, Russia came back to Iran again and they were gonna, I think they were, it was World War I, they were gonna go through the Iran. They were not fighting with Iran. Iran never was in the war in those days. Uh..

C: It was just in the way?

S: Ya. Through the Iran to go to, uh, Turkey. It was in the war. You know how many million Armenians they killed?

C: How many?
S: Two millions.
C: Oh!
S: Uh, huh. They throw them in the river. (Gotolni ?) river they called. And the river was... C: God only?

S: Gotol. [Unsure of spelling and pronunciation].

C: Gotol. And was flowing blood because there was so many womens there. They killed them. There is, I don’t think there is any nationality that they don’t believe on Jesus Christ hate Christians like Turkish do.

S: They just hate Christians.

C: Do the Turks believe in Jesus Christ?

{24:26}

S: No.

C: Mohammed. They believe He lived, but they don’t believe that He’s...

S: The believed that He was, uh,

C: A prophet?

S: They call Him, uh, ya, He was prophet or something...

C: But he wasn’t as big a prophet as Mohammed, uh?

S: Ya. But meantime they call him, uh, “Musiee”, Moses. “Musiee kemelallah” , that God talk to Moses, “Musiee kemelallah”.

C: Oh, they acknowlegded that God talked...

S: Ya, ya. As Mohammed “razulala”, Mohammed prophet. “Esau esiee ruda allah”. The said that. They said, Mohammedans, “esau ruda allah”, Jesus is the Spirit of the God.

C: Did the Turks say that?
S: Ya. All the Mohammedans. This their saying when I was little girl I learned this words. C: Why do they hate the Armenians so much?
S: They hate..because they were Christian. They hate Christians.
C: They believe the same things, but they hated them because they were...?
S: Well, you mean, they were born in same country.
C: And they believed the same things, basically, didn’t they?

S: No. They believe on, uh..they got Koran, they got Mohammed. They believe on God. But, uh, meantime...

C: And they believed in Jesus.

{25:52}

S: They believed in Jesus. They said He’s prophet, but in their Koran they said “esiee ruda allah”, Jesus Spirit of the God.

C: Not Son of God?

S: No. They still, uh, kill the Christians.

C: So that wasn’t really even a part of World War I. It was just the Turks hated the Armenians.

S: Well, Russia was in war, World War I.

C: But the Turks had no reason to kill the Armenians as far as political, not politically.

S: No, no. They kill them just for, uh, uh, religion.

C: Uh, huh.

S: Ya. Not because they were Armenians were not in the war with them. They just killed them for that reason. So anyway...

C: So when Russia came back into the...

S: When Russia came back to Iran, and we went back and our neighbors, the Moslems, they took everything we had and the give it all back to us.

C: Wow! And your house wasn’t burned down or anything?

S: No. Houses were not burned down. Streets that nobody walk on then there was just full of wheat. Ha, ha. So anyway, whatever they took from us they gave it back to us. We were good neighbors. I mean, men didn’t kill each other, but this happened, so. And then we stayed there til 1917, Russia turn Communist. When Russia turned Communist, they start at us again, Iranians.

C: So you had to run away again.

{27:25}

S: And then British send a airplane to where I live, you know, near city of Urmia. The plane landed there...

C: Urmia. How far was that from your village?
S: U, not very far. Maybe, uh...
C: 20 miles?
S: No. Not that much, not even that much. So I, uh... C: What was your village name?

S: Shirabad.
C: Shirabad.
S: Ya.
C: Shirabad.
S: Ya. Shirabad.
C: That means what?
S: Shir means milk. Abad means ... C: Plentiful?

S: No. Abad means living place.
C: Oh.
S: Uh, ya, so that’s it, ha, ha. That’s the name of my home town.

C: So at some point I want you to tell me something about Shirabad. Do you want to talk about that now or do you want to talk about, ..do you want to gone about your story? Cause sometime I’d like you to describe the village.

S: Ya, we could, uh, come back to our village and, uh, but then, uh, 1917 Russia turn Communist and they said “None of you are going to live”. And then...

{28:32}

C: Why?

S: They want to kill us.

C: The Russians?

S: No. Russia went back. They turned back to their own country. We lived again with the Moslems. And then what happened? British plane landed, uh, by city of Urmia, and then...

C: Do you remember the airplane much?
S: Well we were amazed! What was..we never saw airplane before. When we that people... C: Did you even know there was such a thing?

S: Ya! People were describing,..we went to pick something. It was Summertime and while we were coming there was mount, Assyrians from mountains, and they keep on saying “Para la sheetala, para la sheetala” [phoentic of Assyrian words spoken], uh, you know, “The flyer is, the flyer is came, the one flyer is came, you know. Now we don’t even know what they taking about it. So we came close to city and we saw some, uh, Assyrians from our home town, Iranian, and not from mountains. And we asked them, I said “Those people from mountains been saying “para la sheetala” what they talking about?”.

C: What does that mean, para la sheetala?
S: That something, that, uh, like bird flies. Something was flying. C: It means bird or..?

S: No. “The flyer is here!. The flyer is here!”. And I don’t know what they, what they mean. And we asked them, I said “That’s what this mountaineers were telling, telling us. What is that? What they mean?”. “Oh!”, they said uh, “British sent a plane and a few people in it to tell us that they’re not able to come to us, but we should go to them.” Again we have to..

{30:11}
C: To walk.
S: To walk.
C: Was it Winter again?
S: No, was Summer. Uh, 1914 was Winter. But now, now it’s Summer. C: It’s 1917. [Actually it was July 1918 went the airplane arrived]
S: So anyway, uh, then we went to the city and, uh,
C: Uh, huh.
{30:33}
[Break in interview – “Is it full up? (??{30:36}) ]

S: So, everybody was there around that plane. They were describing, uh, “It has wings”, they said. “It’s..they’re this long, it’s just like a bird!”. Well, we want to see it for ourself. We’re running and we went there and all around that plane.

C: You were about 15 years old then? S: Uh..
C: 16?
S: That was, uh, ...

C: 17?
S: Ya. I was, uh, 16, something like that. C: 16.

S: So anyway, uh, then they stayed for a awhile. They took off. They went back. And then we got ready and we had to walk again. I don’t know how long it took us til we met with British. And..

Armenian and Syrian refugees in the avenue leading out of the Kurdish gate, Urmia 1918

{31:21}
C: Where did you..you walked the same direction? As you did before?
S: No, no this is altogether different. That one was towards Russia. This one is towards, uh.. C: India?

S: Uh, no, towards, uh, Bagdad. In Mesopotamia they used to call it that way, but we’re still in Iran. We walking, we came to this city of Hamadan. I don’t know how long to took us. When we came there... Do you know, Cory, one Iranian man, with a few people with him, was sitting there on the road...you know what’s, uh, “lavash”?

C: Ya, it’s bread.

S: Bread. He had big piles like this, anybody was passing by he was giving them some bread. Wasn’t that nice of him? See.

C: Ya. Did you bring food this time?
S: We didn’t have no food, nothing. For four days I didn’t have anything to eat.

{32:15}
C: Was it real hot?

S: It was hot, yes. And we were..but nights were cool. And, uh, if I still have the scars I’ll show you. We camped somewhere in, in, around, around the mountains. This way there were so many mountains. And then there was young lady with me, I lost my mother. I don’t where....

C: Hundreds of people.

S: Oh, ya!. And then they were hungry and this woman, she had a bull and we, we went to get warmed up there little bit. She said “If you take care of this, you make this bread for me, I’ll give you some”. So what, gladly I did. And she had some fire there and something like, uh, tin on it, so we fixed that bread and we cooked it and she gave us one piece. Not one bread like American bread, just piece like that [gestures]. So we ate that and then, I was so close that fire I was just taking those stones. I..in the morning and I woke up, I don’t know how many stones were in my skin. So anyway, they were burned me. I didn’t even wake up, I was so tired.

C: But they, you mean you were so close to the fire that they... S: Ya. Because I just hug, want to hug that fire I was so cold. C: And the stones were, where were the stones?
S: Small stones from the, around the fire, you know.

C: Oh, and they got on the bottom of your feet, uh? S: No. When I was laying like this [gestures].
C: Oh.

S: Right here [gestures]. For long time I could see the scars, but they’re gone now. So anyway, uh, then nothing to eat. Cory, I don’t wanted food. I want water. There was no water. I was...

C: In the mountains there was no water?
S: There was no water. You could see the, all the bodies that they were dead. Our people. C: There were dead people on the road, uh?
S: Ya. And had dropped. And then we came someplace...

{34:14}

C: A lot of dead people?

S: Ya. They were dying from hunger, from... We came someplace to cross the river, and this side is town, and on the mountains they’re ready to fire on us, and this is the river [gestures]. And the town is like this, you know, same. We passed the town and then we know they’re gonna...they’re firing. The bullets, they’re just coming. You know, Cory, not one bullet touch me. I been in firing five times. So anyway, there was young man. I said “Please kill us. So they won’t, ..you know”. He said “You know what? Get hold of my horse’s tail. We gonna cross”.

C: There was no bridge?

S: No. We have to...

C: And they were, they were on the same side as the river...

S: No. On the other side. They were on this side from town, from mountain, and then town was like (??{35:17}).

C: So where were the people who were firing at you? They were on the other side? S: Ya, they, no they were just....
C: Oh, they were on your side.
S: They were, uh, behind us.

C: And they were coming?
S: Ya. They were coming to us.
C: And everybody was running away?

S: Ya. Then there were a lot of bombs. (??{35:31}) How come? I, I can’t explain, this is miracle. God was so good to me. It went down. It didn’t explode, Cory. Uh, so much dirt thrown air. We just run away. So when we got hold of this young man, he helded (??{35:49}) on. He said, uh, “Get hold of my horses tail. We’ll cross the, cross the, the river”. So we got across. He said “Aren’t you glad I didn’t kill you”?

{36:00}

S: So what? We went little way, they fire again. Just keep on going like that til we come to, uh, English, where was it? In Hamadan.

C: So the English were in Hamadan? S: So they took care of us.
C: Where’s Hamadan? In Iran?
S: Iran, ya. Still Iran. And then...

C: And you got water at the river, I guess.
S: Ya, we got water and, so that Iranian man gave us piece of bread. Uh...

C: How long did all this take? From the time you left your village to the time you got to Hamadan?

S: Oh, quite while. Ya, we just...

C: Months?

S: Uh, maybe took months, I don’t know.

C: But it definately took more that two weeks, uh?

S: Oh, yes! More than two weeks. I been camping here and there, maybe two months. So, uh, I lost my mother.

C: The whole time?
S: Uh, til, til, ya, til we got to Hamadan.
C: You lost her at the river or before that?

S: You know what? Uh, when I haven’t eat, eaten for four days then we found that, uh, place that we, there was, uh, ...you have to go I don’t know how many steps to get to water. It was like, what you call it in English?

C: A well? A big hole where there’s water? S: That’s comes...

{37:22}

C: A spring?

S: Ya. We went down and I drank so much water. I said “I don’t want water anymore. I won’t drink anymore. I won’t get thirsty”. But I walk away from it, I was thirsty again. We don’t dare to go back again.

C: Why?

S: Because we’re running away. We’re fleeing away. So anyway, we had water there.

C: They’re chasing you always. The whole time they’re chasing you, uh?

S: Well, patches, on and off, ya. See, sometimes you meet one refugee...

C: Were they soldiers or just people?

S: No! Just, uh, like riot when, they making like they’re doing now. That kind, no, no soldiers.

C: Just the Moslems would find you and chase you.

S: Ya.

C: And you’d go by their towns so they’d come out at you.

S: Ya. They know what was going on. So they’re chasing us. So anyway, uh, we came to Hamadan and...

C: Was that a big town?

S: City, ya. So there is, uh, one lady. She felt so sorry. I was with one woman, she had a son I think he was eight years old. We had the same name, ha, and this, this woman, she said “I”..we’re, we’re walking, we came to the gate to walk in the city, she standing there. When she saw us, she cried. She said “Come on. I’ll take you to my house”. We don’t where to go, what to do. She took us to her house.

{38:50}
C: Weren’t the British in Hamadan?

S: Ya, they were, but behind. We had reached our, uh, camping place to stay with them. So anyway, she took us to her house to get us bath and everything. She combed my hair, took everything, everything was in my hair, you know.

C: Bugs, lice?

S: Straw. Everything. Even, everything. So anyway, she said “You know what?” in the morning she said “I’m going to take you someplace. Hokis, Hokis Effendi”. [“Effendi” is a title of respect or courtesy, equivalent to the English Sir.] He was, he’s Armenian.

C: Effendi?

S: Effendi. He’s very rich man. And he is with British, he’s working with them. So she took us in the morning there and they had big place in the country. And then this, uh, road that you walk in their farm that, both sides are roses. Just beautiful, vineyards and everything. And his wife was standing on balcony. When she saw us, she was so happy, she came down. She said “Thank you” to her husband. Her husband wasn’t there. He was in office. But she took us to her husband’s office. He said “Take them to my house”. And she was thanking him a lot, her husband “Thank you for saving them for me”. She liked me so much, ha.

C: Were you with your mom again yet?

S: No. momma’s lost. So, she had one son, two daughters. This Hokis Effendi and his wife. So we stayed with them and then at the evening he closed the office, he came home. And then dinner was ready. He had servants and everything, cook. Uh, table is set, dinner is ready by the water, water pool, you know.

C: He was a young man or...?
S: Ya. He was not too young. But in... C: 40? 30 or 40?

S: ..in the village, ya, businessman, ya. And he want us to eat with them. So we sat at the table. They start, they start eating, I run away. I left the table. I start crying. And they came after me. They said “What’s the matter? Why don’t you eat?”. I said “How can I eat? Uh, I lost my mother and she’s hungry and I sit at the table and eat?”. He said “I promise you, I’m going to find your mother”.

{41:27}

S: So anyway, the next day he sent, I don’t know, two, three people, I don’t know how many. Anyplace that the refugees were camped and they said, uh, my mother’s name they called.

C: What was your mother’s name?

S: Shirin [Sheran or Sharon], Shirin Babian. Her maiden was Shirin Benjamin. So anyway, uh, so my mother was sick. She didn’t hear them. They said “We’re looking for certain woman, her daughter, her daughter is with us and we want, we got to find her”. And then one lady , she hear my name, calling my mother’s name, she run to my mother. “Shirin” she said, “your daughter’s married. Your, her, husband was here looking for you!”. You know, she just made this up in her mind. She, my mother said “I don’t care, as long as she’s alive”. So they took my mother. They brought her by, uh, Armenian, to the Armenian Church, to the Priest there. So from there, and the Priest put her on a horse, and to one man he said “Take this lady to Hokis Effendi’s house, farm. And then uh, I was laying down. I wasn’t feeling good. And as, his wife came to me, she said “Come on, Sophia, come on!”. She said “There is a lady coming”. In that, uh, what do you call it? Big way? That you walk on it?

C: Big hallway?

S: No. Isn’t hallway. Outside, outside.

C: A big, a big sidewalk or a big walk?

S: Alongside the way that you walk. It’s between their, uh....

C: The road and the house?

S: Ya, between their, uh, between their land and the house, ya. So, she said “I think it’s your mother!”. Ya, I went down. Sure thing it’s my mother.

C: Great.

S: We were so happy. We stay together for a while and Hokis Effendi didn’t want us to go anyplace....

C: You lived at his house, uh?
S: We lived at his house and I was with his kids, taking them here and there. C: How old were is kids?
S: Uh, young, uh..

{43:43}
C: Little kids.
S: Ya, little kids, ya. C: Five.

S; No, maybe one was five, one was eight, one was 10, something. And going to their aunt’s house, she was little far away from where they lived, and their mother said “ Would you go to my sister and take the kids for a walk?”. I did. And then some people, Iranian, they met us instead. “Kujamili” [Farsi phoentic], that means “Where are you going?”. I understood that, this is Farsi. I said “Mirava meza” [Farsi phoentic], ha, ha, we’re going to, uh, mas, some, some kind of master, his house.

S: So anyway uh, my mother kept on saying “You know, grandpa [Abraham] is in America”. She kept on saying “He’s not going to find us here”.

C: He had no idea where you were.
S: Ya, no idea. And then uh....
C: It had been years, too. Was it year since he went back to America? S: Ya.
C: Three years or something?

S: It was 1914 to 1918. So anyway, uh, Hokis Effendi said “Don’t, don’t leave” he said, “If something happens we’re all going to leave together.” “We’ll go to London. We’ll go to here and there” she said “I’ll take very good care of you like my own mother.” You know she said we have...

{45:09}
[The recording goes silent here like. Sounds like a short break was taken. This has been cut.] S: Where were we, Cory?
C: You were..Hokis Effendi said “Don’t leave”.
S: Oh, ya. We left them. He gave us horse and buggy and they gave us lot of clothes...
C: He was a very rich man.

{45:22}

S: And, ya, very rich man, and lot of food. (??{45:25}) He sent one of his servants with us. OK. He had a car. (??{45:33}) We’re going. All set. And lot of nice clean clothes. You know what happened? We came cross to some Assyrians, but, uh, they’re from mountains. They were, uh, they run away from Turkey, came to our home town, our town, to our country, rather, to Iran. They took our horse.

C: Huh! There were just too many?

S: They took everything we had. But, uh, then, bag, uh, my clothes, things like that we have, we can’t carry them. And my mother and I was standing there and one man comes with the...

C: It was just you and your mother now?

S: Ya, but the people, by hundreds, thousands are going, uh, “What’s the matter?”. See, that’s what they did to us. They took, uh, our horse and everything and we don’t know what to do with this stuff. He said “I’ll put your stuff in my wagon”, he said “You walk to where, to where we’re gonna camp”. Then he come find us. So we walk there at night, we found them. And keep on doing that, til we came, uh, to someplace this little, then British had camps for us.

S: Now, we left Iran, now we are in Iraq. So, we have to walk again. So finally we got to someplace that they have train. And they brought us to camps. We were just very close to Bagdad and this place was on the river [Diyala River], our camps. [Baquba refugee camp] Our living quarters was tents. Our hospitals were tents. But we were comfortable.

C: How were you carrying the tents?

S: Carry? No. We don’t carry..they had them already for us. Everything was ready for us.

C: In Iraq.

S: In, in..this is they call it Baquba, it was on a riverbank, and this is river. I’m going to show, remind me to show you the picture what we’re doing there.

C: OK.

S: Uh, we’re washing our clothes, how we, ha, ha, swimming, taking bath. So anyway uh, we stayed there for three years.

C: Three years? You lived in tents and...? S: Three years in tents.

{48:13}

C: Did you have animals and..? Or did they feed you?

S: They fed us, ya. They used to give us ration.

C: Did you farm?

S: No. Farm. Nothing. Desert.

C: You didn’t make any...? Did you, did you have schools or...?

S: Ya. There were American Mission there already with, Mr. McDowell was with us.

C: And you were there for three years?

S: They have to, they had to flee away, too.

C: Mr. who was with you?

S: Mr. McDowell.

C: Who’s he?

S: Uh, American missionary from America to Iran. And then...

C: And you couldn’t go anywhere from there.

S: Then American Mission was, uh, open there. The missionary opened school for... You remember Murassa?

C: Uh, huh.
S: Murassa and Paul they went school there. C: They were young children then uh?

S: No, they’re school kids, ya, they went to school. So , but I went to Mr. McDowell. I said, uh “You now we can’t sit in a tent all day long”. And the heat was 100 temperature. It was so hot. I said “I want to work”. He said “What you want to do?”. I said “Sewing, something”. He said “My daughter, if you listen to me I’m going to send you to hospital to work there. You’re food, your clothes, your know, living quarters you’re going to enjoy”. “Oh, no!” I said “I can’t. I don’t want to do that.” He said “Why?”. I said “I had bad experience, because hospital was Indian

General, 42 IGH, Indian General Hospital. Of course they were British doctors and nurses, but it was mixed, Indians and British.

{50:00}

S: I had a very bad experience with Indians because, uh, we were camped somewhere then a soldier, the soldiers were camped on the other side little further from us I have no idea what was going on.

C: Uh, huh.

S: So, there was two more, two girls, one young man, he had a gun. He was Assyrian. And we had a fire, we’re keeping warm. So that time we’re going go again on the road. There was one Indian, he was guard that night. Keep on coming, he wouldn’t bother those two girls, he would bother me. He keep on bothering me. We would walk little bit, oh, I told this man, I said “What I’m going to do?”. I said “He won’t let me rest”. Uh, I said “Why don’t you do something? You got gun. Scare him”.

C: He didn’t, the Indian didn’t have a gun? S: Oh sure. He had a gun. He was guard. C: He had a gun, too?

S: He had a gun. He was guard, ya. So anyway, he said one thing, but he come and got hold of my arm, he dragged me. I said “Aren’t you going to do something now!?”. He said “I could use one thing to do. If he doesn’t let you go I’m going to shoot him”. I said “What?”. I don’t understand English then. He said “You holler all you like ‘Officer, help!’”. Ha, ha, I did, I was too scared. Believe me, Cory, he left me and he run away. Ha, ha. I didn’t see him. So that, that experience and one more experience, I had another Indian, you know, Hindu with me in the wagon. And with my aunt and everybody with me and he wouldn’t want them, and uh, he want me. So I throw myself off the wagon. “I don’t want” I said, I told Mr. McDowell, I said “I don’t want to work with Indian hospital”. He said “I send somebody with you and I’ll send a note to Mrs. George”. She’s the head of that hospital. She was, she was Irish. “Don’t worry” he said. I said “OK”. If you promise, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll do what you tell me”. So anyway, next day I went and he put somebody with me and he sent the note and Mrs. George came out, “Oh!”. Minute she saw me, she liked me!

C: Hmmm.

S: She liked me so much! She said “Honey”. Uh, interpreter. “I’m not going to put you in a ward with, uh, lot of sick people. I’ll put you with the kids, with the children”. Cory, those children loved me so much!

{52:45}
C: Hmmm.

S: At night they used to wake up crying “Everybody’s here, where’s Sophie!?”. Ha, ha, ha. So I work there...

C: You spoke Hindu, uh?

S: I learned that language, Hindustani, I was speaking when she, she was standing there when she caught me. She went by the, interpreter was Assyrian, she got him. She said “Tell her if she’s going to learn a language that fast, she’s going to learn English”.

C: Hmmm.

S: And he told me. I said “Oh no! That’s a hard language. I can’t learn that!”. She said “ You don’t learn that, [then] you don’t have job!”.

C: So you learned Hindustani in the hospital, uh?

S: Ya. So anyway, I said “OK”. I went to one Indian. He helped me. He tell me some words, the ‘day’ or ‘night’ or a name, things like that, I’m writing them down. I learn English.

C: Hmmm.
S: Ya. I stayed there for almost three years, 1918-1920. Came to America. God bless America! C: Hmmm.
S: The best country. You American don’t know how lucky you are.
C: Oh, ya, some of us do.
S: How lucky you are. There’s no country like this country. It’s very nice country.
S: Shall we go on?
C: Well, uh, let’s stop. [Here they take a break from the interview]
{54:09}
[interview resumes]

{54:10}

S: So we came, uh, we went to American Consul. We got our passport and we’re coming to America, we have to, uh...

C: Where was the American Consul?

S: American Consul was in Bagdad. So...

C: Which wasn’t far from your camp there?

S: No, no. So, uh, but we went by train, Murassa, my mother and myself.

C: Where did you get the money? Oh, you worked.

S: Oh, ya, I didn’t tell you that. Uh, then, somebody comes to our tent. Our tent was, uh, “C”, third line.

C: Uh huh.

S: “C” number 11, “C”-11. “Say,” he said “I just came from American Mission. You got, uh, you got letter there and then, uh, Mr. McDowell don’t know how to get you”. (??{55:08}) They’re in tents, too. Grandpa wrote to this missionary he said “Would you please find my family. I just don’t know. I lost track. I don’t know what happened to them. I don’t know if they’re alive”.

C: Oh. How did he know to write this guy?

S: Well, they, uh, because, uh, this American missionary there write, you know. The he [Abe] went to hear somewhere that, that they send missionaries that, uh, they know all the, where the missionaries are at, some church or some mission. So I went to Mr. McDowell and, uh, he wrote everything, he sent a telegram that we’re alive, my mother, his sister, and myself. So he sent money. And we got our passport. And then that camp and stayed there. Cory, people were dying so much they can’t put one dead in one grave. They had a ditch. They were just throwing on top of each other.

Sophia’s tent was number C-11

{56:20}
S: So anyway, we want to come to America. We got our passport, uh, by, uh, Persian Gulf was

in Indian Ocean, we went to Bombay [now known as Mumbai]. We stay in... C: Where’d you get the boat?
S: From, uh, Bagdad.
C: What, uh, it was a big...?

S: From, uh, no! You know how much it took us? C: On the boat?
S: Ya! That, uh, short, small ocean to cross.

Twenty-seven days!

{56:52}

C: Oh, was it a little, a small boat?

S: It wasn’t small boat, but it was big, you know stopping here, real slow boat.

C: A real slow boat. Oh, I see.

S: It was stopping here and there and taking things and dropping things.

C: Do you know what the name of the boat was?

S: No. I wish I....

C: You don’t remember, uh? What kind of boat was it? I mean, from what country? It was Iraq?

S: No, that was British.

C: Oh, a British boat.

S: So anyway uh, we went to, uh, ....

C: Do you remember what places, what ports you stopped at? Did you ever get off the boat or...

S: It was, no, at the Persian Gulf, things like that, places and then... C: What sea was that? The Red Sea?

S: Should be, uh, no, we are not at Red Sea yet. Should be Indian Ocean. It was from Persian Gulf we’re going to India. Indian Ocean. We got to Karachi and boat stopped there, lot of places it stopped, but the only thing I remember Karachi.

C: Which is?
S: India. Then from there we went to Bombay.
C: And now you speak Hindustani so you’re in good shape, uh?

{57:52}

S: Oh, I’m speaking Hindustani and how! So, uh, then there was Armenian priest and there he was. He want to look. “You are Armenian?”. I said “Yes”. And he gave us room. The church is here and they got lot of rooms. And his brother said, you know, uh, the priest’s brother “The weather here is not so good”. You know, I didn’t stay too long in Bombay. My Aunt Nabor [or Nabut?], she was in Bombay somewhere, just a few weeks ahead of me she was there. And I want to go see her. I, there was streetcar, I went on streetcar, I told conductor I want to go to Byculla in his own language. I said “Would you please when we get to Byculla call out?”. When he called, he said “This is Byculla”.

C: That’s a street?

S: Ya. Byculla Street, so I went to see my Aunt Nabor [or Nabut], visit with her, then came back again. And he said, uh “I don’t want you to stay here long because the climate is not good. You people going to get sick , this and that”.

C: Was it very damp there, or? S: He wants to meet me.
C: Oh.

S: So anyway, I said “I have no money. I have to wire my husband to send me money”. And there was some other Assyrian, he had money. He said “Why don’t you borrow from him?”. He took four hundred ru.., rubies. No rubie Russian only. Rupee. This is, uh, Arab, they call it rupee. Four hundred dollars for me, four hundred dollars for my mother, four hundred dollars for Murassa. OK, uh, he took that money and then put us on a train. We went to Paris.

C: Uh, and do you know how long you were in Bombay? Two weeks? One week?

S: No. Maybe one week in Bombay. He just left us. Maybe two weeks, I don’t know. I don’t remember. So, while we were, uh, in Bombay, no, from there we went to, uh, Marseilles. Before we came to Marseilles ...

C: France?
S: Ya, before we came to Marseilles ... C: Oh, that was a long train ride.
S: Train doesn’t go to France.
C: How did you do that?

{1:00:10}

S: You got to cross, uh, cross the ocean. Now we’re going, we went on a boat.

C: So you left Bombay and you got on a train?

S: No.

C: Oh, you didn’t get on a train in Bombay?

S: No. No. We went on a boat. Bombay is on water.

C: OK.

S: So we came to, uh, we were, we are on this boat. You know what kind of boat was that? Kaiser’s own boat that British capture. Four chimneys. It was city.

C: Wow!

S: Beautiful boat! OK. We are on this boat. We are on Indian Ocean and before we come to get into Red Sea the boat stopped. They were six soldiers. You know what was this boat carrying? How many thousands can one big steamer carry?

C: How many?

S: By thousands of British soldiers. Nobody else, but one room Armenian refugees, that was us.

C: And everybody else was British soldiers?

S: The rest are British soldiers were in back room. Six, uh, German, born German descent, born in England, they were in service. They were going home. They made a hole. They work on engine. The boat stopped. And we saw....

C: Germans were the enemies, uh?
S: Ya. When we hear that noise that blows that something happened...
C: There was an explosion?
S: No. Then they call S.O.S. Cory, small boats, boats from all over they came. So one took us... C: How did the Germans do that? Weren’t the Germans locked up?

{1:02:03}

S: No, they were, uh, in British, they’re born in Britain.

C: Oh, they weren’t enemies.

S: No, they’re born in Britain, but still behind their head they want to get rid of so many British soldiers. But they were German descent born in Britain.

C: Even if they had to get rid of themselves they wanted to get rid of...

S: Ya, they’re out to get there’s, uh, heroes, you know. So anyway, the one boat stopped.

C: Did they get the Germans who did that?

S: Well I, after this I don’t know what happened. Everybody wants to save their own life.

C: Ya.

S: So the boat stopped, took us, uh, the other boats took, you know, lot of them. They were just coming, coming, you know, like whales because....

C: Fishing boats, uh?

S: All kind because they want to save their troops, their soldiers. OK, they took us, uh, to the, from Red Sea from that, uh, steamer to the Suez Canal. OK, we went through Suez Canal and then they just took us to concentration camp.

S: Said “What’s the matter with you? Why you people...?” barbed wires and everything “Why you people are doing this? We are, uh, uh, on our way to America”. Said “Well, you stay here til we know what’s what”. They put us in that camp. And the, hah, ha, ha, my mother wants to make Dolma. The soldier comes, British soldier, so anyway I speak English now. Said, uh “My mother wants to make something that’s stuffed, uh, grape leaves, uh stuffed grape leaves, some kind of food”. Said “I’ll take her”. Because we can’t go out without a soldier with us, see? He took her, they found grape leaves. My mother made Dolma and she gave him some, too, ha.

S: We stayed there then they took our passports, that they know that we are not enemies. We are, you know, passengers, we are going to America. And they said “You have to wait here”. It’s hot in the tents. Egypt is hot, too.

{1:04:13}
C: You were in Egypt now, ya?
S: It’s Egypt, Suez Canal, ya.
C: Do you know where you were in Egypt?

S: Close to Cairo. So uh, was Suez Canal. This is the bridge, this is the canal, and the other one was city, and then a little further in was Cairo. So anyway, twenty-seven days, forty days, I don’t know how long we stayed there. And there was, there was boat. And they put us in small one and transfer us for, to in the large steamer, and we went all way to Marseilles. We past Italy. Italy was on the right.

C: Into the Mediterranean then, uh?

S: Ya. From Red Sea we went to Mediterranean Sea. And we went to, uh, Marseilles. We stayed in Marseilles 19....

C: Is it “MarSELL” or “MarSAY”? [asking pronounciation for Mareilles]

S: Whatever you call it. Mar..., uh some people call “MarSAYleeya”, some call “MarSELL”. What you call it?

C: I think it, I thought it was “MarSAY”. S: “MarSAY”, OK.
C: But, uh, it might be different...

S: I don’t know their language. I went bought myself pair of high-top shoes, high-heels. And I was sight-seeing there all day. We stayed there for a whole month. And then there, til there is a way for us to go to England, see?

C: Where did you stay?
S: Oh, we had place. Everthing... C: They gave you a place?
S: Everything was free for us.
C: That’s incredible! Ha.

{1:05:44}

S: British was (??{1:05:45}). I, I never gonna forget what they did to us. They saved our lives, they fed us.

S: So anyway, I have such a blisters... C: From the high-heels, uh?

S: Ya, and then we went aboard the train, we went to Paris [telephone rings in background]. On the train to Paris, we got to Paris in the train’s depot there, I couldn’t wear shoes. I couldn’t walk. So we went...

C: You couldn’t even walk, uh?

S: So we went to some hotel. We stayed there. And my mother was going shopping. I didn’t see anything in Paris. I couldn’t see, sight-seeing or anything.

C: Oh, too bad.

S: But we stayed there only six days.

C: And you never saw any of Paris?

S: I didn’t see much. All, when we were in taxicab or, uh....

C: Was it war-torn then? Was....

S: No.

C: The war wasn’t in, had not come to France?

S: No. That was, uh, when I saw it, it was in good shape. This was 1914 war-torn was ....

C: Was it a modern city?

S: Beautiful city. All buildings were, uh, you know, ...what I saw all buildings were same size. Ten stories, or six stories.

C: Uh, huh.
S: Most of the buildings were white, not, uh, red bricks (??{1:07:03}). Whatever I saw... C: Some very, some very old buildings, ya.

{1:07:06}

S: Oh, well, ya, old buildings.

C: Uh, do you know who was in power in France then? Who was the....?

S: I don’t know nothing about it because we didn’t stay long enough.

C: Uh, huh.

S: So, uh, from Paris we took a boat, uh, English Channel, they cross the Channel. Uh, I’m pronouncing it right?

C: The English Channel?
S: Ya.
C: Uh, huh.
S: We cross English Channel to Liverpool, England. C: I’ve been there.

S: Ya?
C: Uh, huh.
S: OK. And from there, oh from Liverpool you, you take train, isn’t it?
C: To London or...?
S: Uh, no. If you come to America, how you come from Liverpool? By boat again? C: I’ve came by airplane.
S: Oh, I, this I don’t remember.
C: You probably would have come by...
S: It was by boat, but we came only to Detroit somehow.
C: You came by, from Liverpool?
S: Ya.

{1:08:10}

C: You got on a train in Liverpool. And, where did you go?

S: Detroit.

C: Well, you had to go by boat.

S: Maybe we went by boat.

C: Well there’s no, I mean because Europe is here and America so have to go by boat.

S: Ya, because, ya, ya, because there is, there is water. Because it is so long, Cory, this was 1920.

C: Ya. S: Ya.

C: It’s been a long time. So you don’t remember the boat ride, uh? It must have been a very long boat ride.

S: I think it, it was boat. Ya.
C: Oh, I know it was a boat. If it wasn’t a boat it had to be an airplane.
S: And then uh ...
C: But you don’t remember the boat ride?
S: Ya. Now it comes. Now we have to come....
C: Did you have to pay for the ticket? Oh, you had money from grandpa?

S: Ya, we have money, we wire, and we have money. Our passport was paid and you, when you cross the border you don’t, you got to show so much money. There’s some people was with us didn’t have that much money to show.

C: Uh huh.
S: So they were cheating little bit. We give him and he give it back (??{1:09:08}), ha, ha, ha. C: Right, and then he’d give it to you and...

{1:09:11}

S: So anyway, uh there was one young, young lady, young girl, she was Armenian, (??{1:9:22}) [could be Armenian word for young girl] And then they ask me to ask her things, you know. Intepreter. So I did, a few things. Well they said “Ask her, uh, uh, what happened to her. Why is she crippled like that?”. Then I ask her, she said she fell from the roof. And I didn’t know in English what was, what was, what to say. That, I didn’t know what was the roof.

C: Uh huh.
S: You know? I know what was roof in Armenian, but in English I don’t know. C: Right, but you didn’t know how to say it.

S: I said “I’m sorry, nevermind”. He didn’t know our train was leaving. We have to take train to get to boat or something like that. So I, I don’t know what happened to her, I didn’t finish that. Then we’re, uh, we came to Detroit. From Detroit we took a train.

C: The boat landed in Detroit?
S: Cory, this, that, I don’t remember.
C: It didn’t land in New York?
S: No, no, we’re not coming through New York. We’re coming this other way.
C: Through the lake, uh?
S: Ya.
C: Up the St. Lawrence expressway and into the Lake?
S: We, uh, we came through Canada, not, uh,... Didn’t I tell you we were in Canada? C: The St. Lawrence River. No.
S: OK, from...
C: Montreal?

S: From Liverpool, from Liverpool we came to Canada. It was, uh, Quebec. Ya. Then from Quebec.. Can you get train from Quebec to Detroit? That’s what we did. No wonder I don’t remember any ocean.

{1:10:53}

C: So they spoke French in Quebec, ya?

S: Ya, most of them.

C: And you didn’t speak French, though?

S: No. We didn’t stay long enough to learn because what, like this [snaps fingers] I was picking languages up.

C: Ya.
S: I was speaking six languages.
C: What languages were you speaking? Do you remember?
S: What languages? Assyrian, Armenian, Turkish, uh Indian, and uh... C: Russian?
S: Russian.
C: English?
S: And English. See? Oh, I, uh, uh, as time went by I learn more English. C: Uh huh.

S: So, but then this other languages, I can’t understand, but I can speak them. Just Assyrian, Armenian, Turkish, and English. Course, uh, Russian I haven’t been using. Indian language I haven’t been using it.

C: But you could pick it up.

S: I could pick it up. I could understand. And then, I was real little. When you are little it stays with you.

C: Uh huh.

{1:11:57}

S: So anyway, uh, we came, uh, from Detroit. Cory, when we were on that train, and I saw people taking their newspaper reading, honest, my heart was crying. I said “Why can’t I pick that newspaper and read it?”. All the time I want to go to school. I always (??{1:12:22}). People wanna run away from school, but I didn’t have a chance. So anyway, we came to depot, to Chicago. My mother she took that bundle we had, she throw it on her shoulder. Policeman right away while we were waiting at depot, train depot, he knew we were foreigners. He said “Where you going?”. I said “To Chicago”. He said “This is Chicago”. I said “I know” ha, ha.

“OK. What address?”. I called, I made him call grandpa, we’re gonna surprise him. Said “It’s Sunday. We’re in mission. How many...?”. I don’t know it was going to take that long. So anyway, he said “How you want to go?”. I said “By motorcar”. I don’t know how to say “taxi”.

C: Uh huh.

S: The English, they say motorcar. He said “You wait here. I get you motorcar”. So we wait there and he brought the taxi and he told, you know, he said “These people are foreigners”.
He said “Be sure (??{1:13:29}) Be sure that, that their people they sees them. Don’t leave them on the street” or something like that. So anyway, uh, taxicab took us and he went to ring the doorbell, uh, then I went stood by her, him. The man couldn’t open the door he said “Who are you?”. I said, uh “Abraham Mooshie here? Live here?”. His name was Mooshie then. He said “Yes. Who are you? What you want?”. I said “We are his family”.

S: Grandpa was sleeping. It was one o’clock in the morning. And he went, ha, ha, we woke him up! He didn’t know what to do, ha, he was so surprised! “Why didn’t you wire me? Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”. And one Armenian man was with us. He was with us from Bagdad. And he said “Nevermind all this! Please tell him we’re hungry!”. He wouldn’t understand Assyrian, see. I said “We’re hungry”. So one man, pick us up, was, uh, boarding house like, lot of people in there. He hear the noise, he lock his door, he wouldn’t (??{1:14:41}), he thought “What’s going on?”. So he brought food and meat and in the morning he took him to, he was going to go to Toledo, Ohio, somewhere. So, that’s, and that there we’re in America now.

C: But you didn’t have anywhere to live, uh? But grandpa had the boarding house.

S: Ya he had, ya, but then, no it wasn’t his. They were upstairs from their mission.

C: OK, so let’s, before we go on to everything that happened in America, I want to know..do you know anything about like where your village was? Anything more than what you’ve told me? It was near that town, but you don’t know the name of the mountains around you were?

S: Uh, there’s one mountain by my aunt where used to live, she used to live. She...

{1:15:32}

C: Well, what was it like there? Was it, was it really beautiful? Was it really green? Were they really high mountains or...?

S: No, we didn’t have mountains around us. C: Oh.
S: Where we were.
C: What was it like where you, your village? S: It was like beautiful.

C: It was beautiful though. What kind of trees did you have?

S: Uh, all kind of fruit trees. We have vineyards. We have....

C: Did you have a lot of land? Did you have a lot of land?

S: You don’t have to have a lot of land because none of them...some people had a lot of land, but, uh, just a few acres is enough for you because we raise are own....

C: You lived off your own land, uh?

S: Ya, we raised our own wheat and there’s a place not too far from us and our own wheat we take it there and they stone ground it.

C: But you raised the wheat? You grew it and you cut it down and everything?

S: Uh, we had, uh, vineyard, we had alpaca, uh, land for our cattles, everything else, but uh, my uncle, the rest of them grow wheat, you know. But they were (??{1:16:32})...

C: So you give...
S: And we get from them...
C: And you give them grapes and... S: They all have it.
C: So...

{1:16:37}

S: So we bought the wheat, if we don’t have it ourselves.

C: And your...

S: Ya. Because some of them they were just raising wheat, nothing else. And then we had a stone ground and my mother used to make “lavash”...

C: Uh huh.

S:...and “chada” and everything.

C: And, uh, were there any kind of wild animals around there?

S: We just had those water buffalos, those, uh, mares, uh, all right.

C: Mills?

S: No, no, no. But female buffalos they give us milk. That milk was, Cory, just like white as snow. It was so rich. We never ever used cow milk.

C: What’d you call it? Oh, you never used cow milk. S: No.
C: Did you have goats there?
S: Uh, no, usually the mountaineers, uh, had goats. C: And you made cheese?

S: Ya.
C: And you had a river near your village?
S: Uh no, we had that lake, Persian Lake, it’s, the water is salt. C: So where did you get your water?

S: We had two streams running, this is our, my vineyard. There is stream running. That stream runs day and night, I mean Winter and Summer. And then there was built up by bricks and then on top of it was running other one.

{1:17:52} C: Oh.

S: But that one on top of it used to dry up Summertime. I guess water would get low, but we always had water beside that by big...

C: Were there fish there?

S: There were fishes and everything. Snakes, fish, frogs, uh, uh, what you call those, they’re hard...?

C: Turtles.

S: Turtles, everything, and those what...?

C: Crabs.

S: Crabs, ya.

C: Wow, it was real beautiful there.

S: Ya.

C: Very green, lot of plants.

S: And my father built, uh, one house for us to watch the vineyard. And there were two big trees to make, uh, shade on it.

C: Did your father and mother play music at all? Did anybody play instruments? S: Huh, uh [no].
C: And what did they...did they drink a lot? Did...
S: My father, uh, no. My father was Christian.

C: Did a lot of people drink, though, or..?
S: Well, ya, we make our own wine. (??{1:18:48})
C: Made wine and the smoked Hashish?
S: No, uh, I don’t remember any Christian smoking hashish, but the...

{1:18:56}

C: The Moslems?

S: Moslems, ya.

C: And didn’t they give their horses hashish and then they gave the babies hashish to make them sleep and stuff?

S: Babies, ya. Even I had it. My mother got sick when I was born. She didn’t have enough milk and they used to take me to another woman, she had a baby same time, and she used to, uh, nurse me maybe once or twice. That’s not enough for a baby. And they used to put some of that hashish in the water or in the milk and give it to me and sleep all night.

C: So you would get hungry (??{1:19:27}).... S: That’s why, that’s why I am so dumb.
C: You think so, ha?
S: Ha, ha!

C: Let me see. What else do I have here? So you, you were in Iran. Do you know, what about, do you know the, what kind of government it was there? What government?

S: They always had Shahs.

C: Do you know who...who was the head of Russia then?

S: Head of Russia was, uh, czz, uh, what’s the, what was the Czar was their king?

C: Kaiser or Czar, they had a Czar.

S: No, Czar. Kaiser is the, uh, German. Czar, ya. And he had five daughters, things like that, one son. Oh, he was good man.

C: He was a good man.
S: Ya.
C: You don’t remember his name though? Just that he was the Czar. S: Alexander, wasn’t it?

{1:20:17}

C: I’m not sure.

S: I think it was Alexander.

C: And mostly it was just a farming village...

S: Nikoli! Nikoli Alexander or something? [She is referring to the last Russian monarch, Czar Nicholas Romanov II of Russia and his wife, Czarina Alexandra Romanov]

C: Uh, huh. And mostly it was just a farming village, right?

S: Our village?

C: Uh, huh.

S: Ya. Yes it was. They had some businesses, too, you know, like grocery store, uh, like, uh, they sell tobacco and things like that.

C: But not much of that. So you did use money a lot, uh?

S: Ya. But if you want something, uh, we didn’t use much money. We go to big city, then you buy things.

C: Uh, huh. Let me see. Did you have to have a dowry when you married grandpa? S: What’s that?
C: Did you have to have some goats or some money or...?
S: Oh, no, I didn’t give him nothing.

C: He didn’t give you nothing, you just got married.
S: Ya, uh.
C: Did you want to get married?
S: You want to know? I, uh, as I told you, I was playing with my girl friends when they call me. C: Ya.

{1:21:21}

S: And they wanted, well, I want to go to school. I don’t want to get married. I wasn’t (??{1:21:32}) yet. (??{1:2:34}) And there was,uh, one church in our home town. This church all had bricks, this many, you know, around it and the rest was all...We cut your vineyard, prune, take that, uh, what you call, from those vines, put it on the top there. Everybody from our home town used to do that. Even Mohammedans used to come make sacrifice there. So it had old door like this, so I was so scared, but I went in and lite a candle and I prayed, “Dear God” I said “Don’t let them do that to me”.

S: Grandpa was good man. Good-looking man. But, I wasn’t ready for that, see? C: Uh, huh.
S: God, God didn’t hear me. But God’s ways are....
C: But God knew better.

S: He knows better, that who knows what would have happened to me if this arrangement wasn’t made.

C: Ya.

S: I would never come to America. I would have been killed around there. {1:22:38}

C: Maybe, but, maybe you would have ended-up around London or with Effendi what, whatever that guy’s name was in...

S: Hokis Effendi. Oh, who knows what would have happened. C: Ya.
S: But then I wouldn’t have ...God’s ways are different.
C: Uh, huh.

S: We don’t see them. It’s, it’s hidden from us. C: Uh, huh.

S: We don’t know what future holds. So, but, uh, we’re living a good life and (??{1:23:05}). C: Ya. So that’s enough for now, I think. [break in interview]

S: Same camp that, uh, we were, uh, British was taking care of us, that in tents...

C: In, uh, by the river there in Iraq?

S: Ya. For a while I, I wasn’t feeling good. I was in hospital and there was little, little boy, little baby, little kid there on the other bed. So, uh, no, I, I don’t think I was sick. I was just working. So they came, they said there is, there is jackal. And the jackal came, jump from my bed and I right away went cover that, uh, little, little kid’s face. And the...those jackals were, uh, like what happens to dogs if they don’t get, uh, rabies, you know.

S: OK. They, uh, called interpreter. Said, uh, how it happened, well I said “All I, I know I was there when he came jump on the bed and I went, uh, hide that, uh, little boy”. “So where that jackal go?”. I said “Its tent. It went under the tent and ran off”. So, you know how many...I think it was one jackal, three hundred fifty people they sent to, to India, to Bombay. They didn’t have that shot right away for them. They sent them there for treatment. I don’t know how many of them died, how many came back.

S: But I saw one man, young man, oh, Cory, in only three days he died. He died such a horrible death. He wants water. I want to take him water. He shakes, he didn’t want it.

C: Oh. And, uh, didn’t you tell me another story about some money once. You, you made, you gave all the money away. Your mom didn’t want it or you threw the money away or...?

{1:25:15}

S: No, I was working in hospital, giving her my pay, you know. And someone, uh, we know Martin from Old Country, he came to my mother, he said, uh, uh “I need so much money. Uh, I’m just going to bring it back right away”. Then he took that money. I don’t know how much she gave him. All we had, I think. He took it and he went, uh...

C: Away.
S: Never saw him no more.
C: Was it..it wasn’t a lot, a lot of money, but it was....
S: Well for that time it was, ha, ha.
C: It was all the money you had anyway.
S: Ya, because grandpa was sending us and I was working in hospital.
C: So grandpa was sending you money for a while there after he found out you were there, uh?

S: Ya. Sure. Then, uh, we wrote to each other and that’s how he came otherwise how would it come to me?

C: Ya. What was grandpa doing in, uh, in Chicago?

S: Uh, he was, uh, working in a factory when we came.

C: Do you know what kind of factory? A war factory or...?

S: No, I don’t think it was defense plant. Those, uh, that World War One didn’t, you know, America didn’t involve too much. He said he was, uh, machinist or something.

C: Well, how did grandpa come to America the, in the first place? He had family in America? S: Ya, I think, uh, his mother re-married, you know.
C: I didn’t know anything about grandpa’s history
S: Murassa’s, uh, Murassa is half his sister from mother side.

C: But she’s much younger than grandpa.

S: Oh, ya. Her two, uh, brothers were in America. Grandpa went to Russia.

{1:27:00}

C: From where?

S: He was very young. From, uh, Shirabad, from out home town.

C: Oh, he was born in your village?

S: No. He was, was born in other village.

C: Near.

S: Near to us and they moved to, to our village. So he went Amer...to Russia in 1906. He came to America 19, 1907, I think.

C: But you met him in 190...? S: 1914.

C: 1914?

S: Came back to, to Old Country.

C: So he spoke good English then, uh? Good. He was in America all the time.

S: He used to ask me to write the kids letter.

C: But he still can’t... I remember when I was a kid he couldn’t read or write in America, in English, could he?

S: Ya. He could read, but he couldn’t, uh,. ... C: Write.

S: Write, uh, spelling. And when I came, you saw my dictionary, I need dictionary because I want to write the kids letter. He said uh, “Would you write Bobby?”. I said “You been in this country so long, why don’t you write?”. Said “Could I?”. See, I went, uh, two weeks, I put the girls to sleep, Bobby wasn’t born. Cory, as I told you, I was always wanted read and learn English, learn how to read and write.

S: It’s a shame I’m to be in this country for so long. Put the girls to sleep and go to night school.

C: Oh. {1:28.26}

S: Hmmm. Two weeks I went, he argue with me everyday. “Why? You want to become school teacher?”. I said “I want to learn. I want to learn English, how to read and write”. And one young man, he was foreigner, he was in school, but he was taking our papers to give them to teacher, how they gather them. He comes to me, he said “Is this English?”. I said “Ya”. Ha, ha, ha. But he could have been from France or somewhere because their writing’s the same. Our writing is different.

C: Uh, huh.
S: We write from right.
C: Oh, so you were writing in your...
S: No. I was writing in English I thought. Ha, Ha.
C: Backwards?
S: Well, it, it was mish-mosh. Didn’t look like it was ....

C: Ya, must have been hard to learn. OK, well we’ll have to talk more about.... [interview stops then begins] You got in trouble once, uh?

S: Ya. This, uh, Indian people don’t eat pork.

C: Uh, huh.

S: And, uh, I working in hospital and they throw away, uh, (take this tray) was pork.

C: Pork?

S: Pork. In camp they have (??{1:29:37}). While I’m going eat, and this General Sahah’s coming out.

C: Gemahar Sadat?

S: General Sahah. Had had, uh, you know, stars, he had, uh...

C: He was a general?

S: Something like that. He was Indian. When he saw me, he said to me “Chira, chira...

{1:30:06}

C: Now..tell me about that time that you got in trouble. We should start all over.

S: OK. Where is my cup? Is it on?

C: Ya, it’s on. There’s your cup. So the ....

S: That was the day they got the water.

C: Hmm, hmm.

C: So the Indian guy comes out of the tent, he falls down, he gets mad and complains, and you have to go to the court-martial.

S: Ya. We’re way to there, huh?
C: Ya.
S: OK. Let’s...you don’t want to sit?

C: Oh, ya.

S: And then..where were we?

C: He tripped and you had to go..

S: He tripped..yeah. And so anyway he went complain and he called court-martial and they called me. They said “Come on..”.

C: The British?

S: Ya, ahh..they were, well I don’t know, about two Generals (??{1:31:07}) and they call interpreter. Huh, I think I was just started work...

C: So you didn’t speak English then?
S: No. Huh, so, um, they ask, eh, interpreter to ask me why I did that to him. {1:31:24}
C: Ha, did..he said that you tripped him?
S: Ya. I, uh, run after him with that pork meat.
C: Oh, that you chased him?
S: Ya, I chased him.
C: Then what? Did he run away because there was pork there?
S: Yes. They don’t eat it.
C: That he was afraid of it?

S: Ya, why should he?! I was taking it to patients in the, the ward. So I told this to the man, I said “I had a tray with me. I went to.. I was gonna go, uh, take it to patients and, you know, put some of this, some of that in it. It was feeding time for them. And then he was come along and he called me “Chilu, chilu! Sulikavichi!””. You know what sulikivichi he said, he said “Get away get away, son of a pork”...son of a pig....

C: Bitch? Or pig?

S: No, pig..son of a pig. Why, I, I just don’t know what to say. I said, “Why?” And he run away from me and he trip and he fell. They didn’t do nothing to me.

C: Was he there? Was he at court?

S: Of course he was there.

C: Did he say anything?

S: Uh, no, and then they send me back. I don’t know what they blamed it on. ‘Cause they, uh, couldn’t...so that this girl didn’t understand they...

C: Yes.
S: She doesn’t know you don’t eat pork. I don’t like pork, or I don’t know.
C: So was there any other, uh, memorable experiences that you had? That you...? {1:32:57}

S: Is this on? Well as I told you, I, uh, told that, uh, told Mr. McDowell I don’t want to work in Indian Hospital because bad experience. But, uh, I was working with the kids. And one of those kids, uh, he wants some kind of food. And I told Mrs. George, I said he wants some kind of food, he got taste for it. She said would you go...and the bazaar wasn’t too far, uh, far from us...she said you go get it for him.

C: Oh so, you could go to the town.
S: It wasn’t town. The tent was made bazaar special for that camp.
C: It was like...
S: There was no town there. It was desert.
C: It was like the market then?
S: Ya. So I went and then I got the stuff then I come back and he was dead. C: Oh!
S: Ya.
C: That happened a lot, I guess?

S: Ya. Well, I told you they just, uh, couldn’t bury everyone in one grave. They have to dig a ditch. Now they just put another one there (??{1:34:00}).

C: So your, your mother made it to America, right?
S: uh-huh.
C: How long did she live in America?
S: I’m, uh, we came to America 1920. My mother died 1924. C: What..what?

S: She got married, you know?

C: No, I didn’t know that. In Chicago?

S: Ya.

{1:34:26}

C: Do you know anything about her family now?

S: They’re all gone.

C: Was it..

S: He was nice man.

The family that she married?

C: Was it hard coming into America? Did they give you trouble at all? Or was it very easy? Was

it a lot of paperwork, or..
S: No..it was...
C: You landed in the same day they let you in?

S: What, in America? Oh ya. They came, uh, as I told you from Canada to, to Chicago. I mean, uh, from Detroit to Chicago and, uh, and that was the only trouble and police ask me where I was going because we got our passport everything was ready.. and this you have to on a boat when you cross the border you have..they want to know if you can read and write. I said, uh, “I can read, uh, Assyrian”. So they brought a book. It was old Assyrian language. Aramaic. I read it, but I didn’t know what I was reading.

C: What about grandpa?
S: Oh and when we were in, in...

C: Shirabad?

S: You’re asking about his mother?

C: What about his early life?

S: Well, I, uh, grandpa was 40 days old when his father died. And his (??{1:35:47}) mother was beautiful woman, young. And then..

C: How did, what did his father die from? S: TB.
C: A lot of people die from TB?

{1:35:59}

S: Ya, those days. Then, uh, she was young woman and pretty woman and grandpa’s uncle’s wife she had a baby, too, baby boy and grandpa was 40 days old and this..I don’t know how old was the other baby, and they told her, they said “You leave. You go ahead get married”. And they took baby grandpa away from her. And he had a sister was two years older than him, Sarah. And, this, uh, this uncle’s wife she was nursing her baby and grandpa. She brought him up.

C: Auntie Naslu?
S: No. Naslu was his aunt.
C: Oh.
S:This is his uncle’s wife.
C: Oh, I thought Auntie Naslu raised him. No?
S: She raised him. So anyway, uh, then he used to go to his mother’s too. C: Did she get married again?

S: Ya, she got married and then she had a son by the name Johnathan..oh was he handsome. He died. Chicago. He was 18 years old. He lift something, I think he had a heart attack. He died, then Murassa....

C: Was grandpa’s...she had Murassa, too? Grandpa’s ma?

S: Ya. Grandma.... 2nd husband. And then grandpa grew up and came, as I told you, came to, to into Russia and came to America.

C: What did he do in Russia? You don’t know?

S: Well, he went to make money in Russia. He was young man and then want to come to America.

C: Did he find work in Russia?

S: I guess for a little while and then he make some money and he had, uh, he made arrangement and he came to America. He came to, uh, Yonkers, around there. He was working in sugar factory or something.

C: From Yonkers?

{1:38:06}

S: Yonkers. The..he came to, to New York. He came by train through Canada. And then he said he was working in sugar factory around there.

C: In New York?

S: Uh, in that state. Connecticut or somewhere.

C: Uh-huh.

S: So anyway. Then he came to Chicago and he worked in Chicago. And then he was working in yeast factory.

C: Yeast?
S: Yeast, ya, rise, is muffin yeast.
C: Uh-huh.
S: And they all work in that factory, Gracie, Dorothy, myself...
C: Everybody worked in the same factory that grandpa worked at? S: Ya, ya, all worked there.

C: After you had the store though.
S: Uh..? That was before....
C: When did you get the store?
S: When I came to America grandpa had the store. C: He did? Aready?

S: Uh-huh.

C: How come he lived in the boarding house?

S: Well they can’t live in the store.

{1:39:06}

C: Where did you all live then? When..you first... When you got there what happened then?

S: Then we rent, uh, apartment. Was on, uh, (??1:39:13}) [could have been 55 W. Erie?].

C: He had enough money to do that?

S: The rent wasn’t high. Was $25 a month.

C: So he could afford it no problem?

S: Ya, no problem. So he had a grocery store with his cousin together. They...Auntie Naslo’s son. And then, uh...

C: What was the store like? S: Grocery, like delicatessen. C: Little one.
S: Ya.

C: Had a ice..big ice chest or big freezer or...? S: I don’t know they had freezers there.

C: Could you sp...did everybody speak English there or...? S: Yes. They had to.

C: So they had to write English. Then sometimes they’ll write letters and such, the prices for things.

S: Ya, he know how to do fix the prices. He don’t have writing, but he know the numbers. C: Ya.
S: Ya. He used to stock up so much. I used to (??{1:40:08}).
C: So how long after you came to America before Aunt Grace was born?

{1:40:18}

S: I came to America August 27, 1920. Grace was born June 23, 1921. And Dorothy was born, uh, August 14, 1922. 14 months. And Bobby was born December 13, 1931. 10 years between Bob and Grace.

C: Can you always...did you stay in that same apartment? Most of the time..no? S: No. It’s (??{1:41:11}).
C: Oh, ya.
S: Ya.

C: But you always had the same store?

S: Well, he had the store, uh, then he sold the store. And, uh, he didn’t have the store and he went broke.

C: Yeast factory again?

S: And this time he went to work in yeast factory. And we had a store when Grace and Dorothy were small girls, too. And there was butcher and grandpa. That was big grocery store.

C: And.... he own it, huh?
S: He didn’t own the building.

C: But he owned the...he rented it. S: Uh-huh, ya.
C: He owned the business and, uh.... S: That was his second one.

C: And what did you speak at home? Did you speak Assyrian at home?

S: We spoke Assyrian. When girls went to school they will understand English. Ya, always.

C: So how did they learn English?

S: They learn in school.

{1:42:02}

C: But when they first started school they couldn’t....

S: No.

C: ...understand nothing.

S: They..then, uh, and then Bobby starts school he couldn’t speak Assyrian. But he could understand it. Bobby couldn’t speak it.

C: So then..so then they started speaking English at home.
S: Uh, uh. They started speaking English. Together, sisters and with their friends and... C: Were they pretty happy little girls?

S: Very happy, always together. I always dress them same. I went to buy them dresses, they just had one dress. And I said, “I want, uh, two alike”. She said, “if you want we order.” We order. We order another one.

C: And they’re always together. So they were good friends. S: Yes, good friends always.
C: But Mom, Dorothy, was kind of mean sometimes?

S: Sometimes. Little bit. Because, uh, it wasn’t her fault, it was Gracie’s fault.

C: Ha, why?

S: She want to do everything for her. I was just want show you that picture in Baqubah.

C: In what?

S: I want show you that river that you were on in that mountain. You know I had a picture there. Was taken 1911. Summer he came and he said, “(??{1:43:22}) marry”.

C: Hmm.

S: (??{1:43:26}) marry?

C: No.

{1:43:28}

S: Well, uh, did I said that I found refuge here in America?

C: Uh-uh, no you didn’t say that. You said that you really loved America. It’s a wonderful country.

S: That’s it. I said that I came to America and found refuge here and I stay here. I never did turn back.

C: Sounded real beautiful where you lived, but I guess politically....

S: Ya. We lived in peace, but when this World War I started, they started getting out.

C: What language is that written in?

S: This is in Assyrian. These are only (??{1:44:36}) Uh, (clears throat).

S: Three. Uh, (clears throat). I was better with, uh, yesterday than today. This is about people. I’ll sing it for you.

C: Okay.

S: It’s gonna be OK if in Him we trust. Well I don’t know, when I was a little girl yet, just when, when this young evangelist came, I ask my mom let me go up to the lake all alone. So she send me. I liked what I saw. And do you know it was in newspaper and it was on the radio. And I talked the ladies said “No”. And they, they were calling from Stockton. She said, “Sophie, I

hear on the radio, the Christian radio, (??{1:45:28}) and I read it Sophie Daniels was going to speak at (??{1:45:33}) where the ladies (??{1:45:35}). She said, “The name sound like your name. Was that you?”. I said, “ Yes, Grace [Urshan], it was me”. [Grace Urshan] “Oh, what did you speak about?”. I said, “Let me tell you first of all.”. Uh, I told them that young evengelist came from America to Iran. And he was holding revival meetings and I went to his meetings and then I like. I received what they had. And I said, “Do you know who was that young evangelist?”. She said, “No”. I said, “It was Andrew Urshan {1:46:09} your father”. Oh, that girl, she just went to pieces.

C: Wow!

S: [Grace Urshan] “Honestly, it was my father?!”. And I said, “Yes”. Isn’t it something since 1914 he wasn’t married then. He came back to America. He got married.

{1:46:25 1R}
C: it is amazing.

S: And that’s his daughter [Grace Urshan] and now his grandson is preacher. That’s something. They live in Chicago. Can you put it on yet because my voice it’s not like...yesterday it was better.

C: Oh it’s OK.

S: Sure it’s OK. I’m going to sing “Walking Jesus”. (??{1:46:43}) try it when we’re down. See if you like it we’ll put it in (??{1:46:49}).

{1:46:52} (Here Sophia sings “Walking Jesus”. She thinks it is not recording, just practice ends at {1:47:39}.)

{1:47:39}.
S: (Clears throat) How’s that sound? No good?
C: It’s really good. You have a lot of volume.
S: It’s not the same. Shall we put this in?
C: OK, well, it’s already on.
S: Oh! Why didn’t you tell me, I said I just want to try it.
C: Well, I figured it would...that you probably would do it fine. And you did.

{1:47:56} (Sophie sings the song again and ends at {1:49:31}) {1:49:31}

S: Amen. Praise God. You know, Cory, I don’t know if I told you, I found refuge in America and I always pray for this country and God bless America.

{1:49:50} End of recording.

End Notes
On and off over the past few years I have been researching further to find more pieces of the “jigsaw puzzle” to present a clearer and more detailed picture of Sophia’s saga. This includes other similar personal accounts as well as the impact of the then current world events. My goal is to develop an expanded narrative detailing her journey and the world she lived in. It is my hope that what Sophia and others like her endured to survive and find refuge in America will not be forgotten, and how fortunate are their descendants.

Gary E. Daniels