The Gold Ring
My name is Peter Hajinian. This ring was given to my great-grandmother Tamom Salbashian when she married Sarkis Hajinian in 1909 and moved into his family’s house in the village of Tomarza. A village of 10,000 or so Armenians, with a few Greeks and Turks, Tomarza sat by the base of Mount Erciyes near Kayseri in the Ottoman Empire. A few years later, Sarkis left to find his fortune in the New World. Passing through Jerusalem in 1913, he got a tattoo to mark the event and became Haji-Sarkis Hajinian. From there he traveled to Buenos Aires, Argentina, and then on to South Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Meanwhile, Tamom lived with her mother-in-law Catherine, sister-in-law, nephew Hratch and niece Melonie. Having no children of her own, Hratch and Melonie would have kept her busy.
August 25, 1915, everything changed. This was the date for the general deportation of Tomarza. As the men had already been called up to labor battalions, now the rest of the Armenian villagers were required to pack up what they could and march south toward the Syrian deserts. Tamom hid this gold ring in her clothing, and helped carry food for her elderly mother-in-law and young niece and nephew. The deportation took them down dirt roads over small mountain ranges. Villagers from Jujune, Dashan, and others joined them along the way. Armenians had lived in this province for centuries, since Levon the Great created the kingdom during the time of the Crusades.
Food soon ran low, and hundreds died each day. Of the 10,000 or so Armenians from Tomarza, an estimated 1500 survived. Tamom’s mother-in-law Catherine was the first to die among the Hajinian caravan. She had been knitting as they walked, and when Tamom asked what it was Catherine replied, “My burial clothes.” Melonie, Tamom’s young niece, was next to succumb to the harsh conditions. Tamom’s sister-in-law also died.
By the end of 1915, Tamom and Hratch ended up in a refuge camp near Aleppo, Syria. From here the details of her story are few and far between. We know that her uncle, Arch-Priest Smpad Salbashian, went around finding Armenian orphans among Kurdish and Bedouin tribes, paying for their release and sending them to orphanages and camps in Lebanon, Damascus, and Jerusalem—perhaps he found her and helped her get out. There is a rumor a relative worked for the Ottoman telegraph company in Beirut, perhaps he found her and alerted her husband in America. What we do know is that by 1920, Haji-Sarkis found Tamom and Hratch in Lebanon.
In 1921 Tamom and Haji-Sarkis travel to Izmir, then on to America, and in 1922 their first daughter was born. Through it all, Tamom still carried the ring. She gave it to her third child, my grandfather Nazar, and when he passed away my father inherited it.
It’s a reminder of how far our family has traveled, what it has lost, but how it has been fruitful and grown. Hasnutiun. Peter Hajinian