Georgetown Girls
Georgetown Girls a mystery in history While the Armenian orphans known as the Georgetown Boys have garnered much attention, some may be surprised to learn there was a small but mighty group known as the Georgetown Girls too
Armenian-American George Aghjayan remembers spending hours with his great-grandmother, Nevart Demirjian playing a Turkish card game with her called iskambil.
While working as a genealogist and travelling the world to trace his family’s history, he found an appreciation not just for his great-grandmother, but all the women who survived the Armenian Genocide.
She and her daughter, Pailoon, were both survivors and were given refuge in Canada. By coming through similar channels as the Georgetown Boys, the Demirjian's and 37 other girls and women have been dubbed the Georgetown Girls.
“She was an unbelievable woman,” Aghjayan said as his voice cracked.
“The men were killed on the spot. Their trauma ended quickly. It’s the women that suffered all of the trauma after that.”
Aghjayan never got to know his grandmother because she died well before he was born.
He is, however, part of a highly exclusive class of people trying to give voice to the Georgetown Girls. Few historians have taken up the mantle of telling their stories. The boy orphans appear to get all the attention from them and the media.
But correcting this dishonour is an exceedingly difficult task. This, despite the fact that some of the girls were educated on Georgetown's Cedarvale Farm like the boys, some were sisters to the boys, some married the boys and many attended their reunions. Others even feel they have been robbed of a place in history.
Historian Isabel Kaprielian-Churchill has written Like our Mountains, arguably the definitive text on the Armenian-Canadian experience. She's currently trying to write a new book with the working title Georgetown Boys: Genocide, Orphans, and Canadian Humanitarianism.
She wants to add information about the girls and women, but even she is at a loss.
“For the boys, there's a ton of information,” Kaprielian-Churchill explained. “But there's very little for the girls. Not that there's nothing, but you have to almost thread it together. That's how little there is.”
Here is what's known: The “girls” ranged in age from 11 to 38. Those who know about them tend to say 39 came over, but perhaps it's more like 38 as one of them, Satenig Tosian, was born in Hamilton. It's not known why she is included – though she appears to have some sort of affiliation with the Armenian Relief Association of Canada (ARAC).
They were brought over by ARAC – the same organization that brought over the boys – starting in 1926. The United Church of Canada later took over that responsibility and kept bringing the girls right up to 1930.
“When the boys were brought over, officials weren't trying to recreate or to repair families. But with the girls, that was something that was done. They tried to rebuild the families in Canada,” Daniel Ohanian, director of research at the Sara Corning Centre for Genocide Education, said.
“Roughly half, maybe more, of the girls and women who were brought over were siblings or mothers of either Georgetown Boys or Georgetown Girls who had arrived either before or at the same time,” Ohanian explained further.
They were tracked down from various orphanages across the Eastern Mediterranean – Greece, Turkey and what are now Syria and Lebanon. The plan was to give them vocational training – farming for the boys, domestic work for the girls. Only a few were at Cedarvale Farm – Nevart and Pailoon Dermijian lived in Toronto and then moved to the United States.
They faced enormous prejudices in the Canada of the time. A 1909 book, called Strangers Within our Gates, or, Coming Canadians, is an extended polemic against immigration. It demonizes various peoples of the world. Armenians are lumped in with the “Laventine races” and are described as unsuitable for work.
The lives of the Dermijians may well be the most extensively documented, thanks to the work of Aghjayan. His essay, The Georgetown Girls: Reconstructing a Family History, lays out her life. She was born in eastern Turkey. She married Misak Demirjian, with whom she had two children – Pailoon and Sarkis.
Sarkis Dermijian. United Church of Canada Archives 83.052P12Mother and daughter left for Canada from the port of Haifa in modern-day Israel. Sarkis Dermijian remained behind in Lebanon. Nevart and Pailoon arrived in Canada on April 28, 1930. The great-grandmother worked as a nanny for a Mrs. Chown at 331 St. Clements Ave. in Toronto. Pailoon Dermijian worked in Toronto also – for a Mrs. Brace at 103 Strathallan Blvd.
But they didn't stay in Canada long. Sometime in the early 1930s, the widowed Nevart married an American and left the country. Her daughter soon followed in 1933.
Pauline Getzoyan, sister of George Aghjayan, knew their great-grandmother the best from the siblings. Getzoyan’s real name is Pailoon after her grandmother, who died in 1938 when her father was two years old.
“I think she came to live with us when I had just turned a teenager,” Getzoyan recalled. “What I always remember about her was her kindness and her gentleness. She was very warm, very loving. She had a very nurturing way about her.”
Neither Aghjayan nor Getzoyan knew anything about their ancestors past. Nevart Dermijian never talked about what happened. It was not until Aghjayan began researching that her life began to come into focus, well after she died.
“I think maybe that overshadowed the trauma that she had survived through the genocide,” Getzoyan speculated about why her great-grandmother never talked about her struggles.
Getzoyan added: “They survived the genocide together. I think once she passed, there wasn't much to talk about from before that.”
Armenian-American George Aghjayan remembers spending hours with his great-grandmother, Nevart Demirjian playing a Turkish card game with her called iskambil.
While working as a genealogist and travelling the world to trace his family’s history, he found an appreciation not just for his great-grandmother, but all the women who survived the Armenian Genocide.
She and her daughter, Pailoon, were both survivors and were given refuge in Canada. By coming through similar channels as the Georgetown Boys, the Demirjian's and 37 other girls and women have been dubbed the Georgetown Girls.
“She was an unbelievable woman,” Aghjayan said as his voice cracked.
“The men were killed on the spot. Their trauma ended quickly. It’s the women that suffered all of the trauma after that.”
Aghjayan never got to know his grandmother because she died well before he was born.
He is, however, part of a highly exclusive class of people trying to give voice to the Georgetown Girls. Few historians have taken up the mantle of telling their stories. The boy orphans appear to get all the attention from them and the media.
But correcting this dishonour is an exceedingly difficult task. This, despite the fact that some of the girls were educated on Georgetown's Cedarvale Farm like the boys, some were sisters to the boys, some married the boys and many attended their reunions. Others even feel they have been robbed of a place in history.
Historian Isabel Kaprielian-Churchill has written Like our Mountains, arguably the definitive text on the Armenian-Canadian experience. She's currently trying to write a new book with the working title Georgetown Boys: Genocide, Orphans, and Canadian Humanitarianism.
She wants to add information about the girls and women, but even she is at a loss.
“For the boys, there's a ton of information,” Kaprielian-Churchill explained. “But there's very little for the girls. Not that there's nothing, but you have to almost thread it together. That's how little there is.”
Here is what's known: The “girls” ranged in age from 11 to 38. Those who know about them tend to say 39 came over, but perhaps it's more like 38 as one of them, Satenig Tosian, was born in Hamilton. It's not known why she is included – though she appears to have some sort of affiliation with the Armenian Relief Association of Canada (ARAC).
They were brought over by ARAC – the same organization that brought over the boys – starting in 1926. The United Church of Canada later took over that responsibility and kept bringing the girls right up to 1930.
“When the boys were brought over, officials weren't trying to recreate or to repair families. But with the girls, that was something that was done. They tried to rebuild the families in Canada,” Daniel Ohanian, director of research at the Sara Corning Centre for Genocide Education, said.
“Roughly half, maybe more, of the girls and women who were brought over were siblings or mothers of either Georgetown Boys or Georgetown Girls who had arrived either before or at the same time,” Ohanian explained further.
They were tracked down from various orphanages across the Eastern Mediterranean – Greece, Turkey and what are now Syria and Lebanon. The plan was to give them vocational training – farming for the boys, domestic work for the girls. Only a few were at Cedarvale Farm – Nevart and Pailoon Dermijian lived in Toronto and then moved to the United States.
They faced enormous prejudices in the Canada of the time. A 1909 book, called Strangers Within our Gates, or, Coming Canadians, is an extended polemic against immigration. It demonizes various peoples of the world. Armenians are lumped in with the “Laventine races” and are described as unsuitable for work.
The lives of the Dermijians may well be the most extensively documented, thanks to the work of Aghjayan. His essay, The Georgetown Girls: Reconstructing a Family History, lays out her life. She was born in eastern Turkey. She married Misak Demirjian, with whom she had two children – Pailoon and Sarkis.
Sarkis Dermijian. United Church of Canada Archives 83.052P12Mother and daughter left for Canada from the port of Haifa in modern-day Israel. Sarkis Dermijian remained behind in Lebanon. Nevart and Pailoon arrived in Canada on April 28, 1930. The great-grandmother worked as a nanny for a Mrs. Chown at 331 St. Clements Ave. in Toronto. Pailoon Dermijian worked in Toronto also – for a Mrs. Brace at 103 Strathallan Blvd.
But they didn't stay in Canada long. Sometime in the early 1930s, the widowed Nevart married an American and left the country. Her daughter soon followed in 1933.
Pauline Getzoyan, sister of George Aghjayan, knew their great-grandmother the best from the siblings. Getzoyan’s real name is Pailoon after her grandmother, who died in 1938 when her father was two years old.
“I think she came to live with us when I had just turned a teenager,” Getzoyan recalled. “What I always remember about her was her kindness and her gentleness. She was very warm, very loving. She had a very nurturing way about her.”
Neither Aghjayan nor Getzoyan knew anything about their ancestors past. Nevart Dermijian never talked about what happened. It was not until Aghjayan began researching that her life began to come into focus, well after she died.
“I think maybe that overshadowed the trauma that she had survived through the genocide,” Getzoyan speculated about why her great-grandmother never talked about her struggles.
Getzoyan added: “They survived the genocide together. I think once she passed, there wasn't much to talk about from before that.”