Georgetown's Cedarvale Farm was never meant to be a permanent home for the 109 Armenian boys who lived there a century ago – nor for the 39 girls who joined them. It was merely a school for them to become good citizens.
But after their time there, it's hard to know where a lot of them ended up as the trail went cold… mostly.
Thanks to the work of Armenian-Canadian author Hrad Poladian, it's possible to follow some of their journeys. His book The Georgetown Boys Stories by their Sons and Daughters gives voice to 11 alumni of Cedarvale Farm - now known as Cedarvale Park.
“It (the Georgetown Boys' experience) is a historic fact. It should be recognized and known to all other Canadians,” Poladian emphasized.
The tales of three of them are at times tragic, colourful and hopeful. Here are their stories.
Krikor “Greg” Kasparian
At 452 Richmond St. in Toronto, one will find the Turco Persian Rug Company. This store has been selling and cleaning rugs for 117 years. One of the owners was a Georgetown Boy named Krikor Kasparian, who was married to Kohar Bedrossian, a Georgetown Girl.
After the owner of the rug company, Socrates Utudjian, died, there was a question of who would get the business.
“There was him and another [potential heir]. There was a coin flip for who would get the company and he won,” said Jessica Kasparian, Krikor’s granddaughter and current owner of the rug shop.
Jessica Kasparian recalls growing up around the Georgetown Boys. She saw some six individuals from the farm working in the shop.
“They called him teacher, because he was a little bit older,” she said.
But it's not the only reason why they gave him that name.
The United Church of Canada brought Kasparian in the early 1920s to be a Georgetown Boy. It's not known how old he was – his date of birth is an estimate – but he was likely 17 when he arrived in Toronto. His application was initially rejected because he was too old. But after the church listed him as a teacher, he was accepted.
Details are scarce about his life before coming to Canada - what's known are simple snippets. He was conscripted by the Ottoman army and was injured. Somehow, he was reunited with his mother while still wounded. He lost a brother and both parents. His sisters survived and one of them moved to the United States.
Kasparian suspects that trauma may be why her grandfather didn’t talk about his experiences much.
“He saw some pretty awful things,” she told HaltonHillsToday.
“There were some occasions where he talked to my dad, and I know at some point my dad recorded it,” she recalled.
Much of what was on those tapes, however, have been lost as they were inadvertently recorded over.
Greg Kasparian died in 1989.
Sarkis Sarkissian
Sarkis Sarkissian was 10 years old when he arrived in Georgetown. His memories before that were only fragments. The Armenian Genocide started in 1915 when he was a mere two years old.
His parents were Krikor and Miram. In an interview in the 1980s with his son, he said he doesn't remember anything about his parents. He also admitted that Sarkissian may not be his real last name. He had memories of living in the Turkish city of Adana, where many anti-Armenian pogroms happened.
He was sent to live with his paternal grandmother. While he wasn't sure why, at some point she had him sent away to a nearby orphanage.
“She was getting old and I guess she couldn’t look after me anymore,” he told his son in the '80s.
He often ran away from the orphanage to go be with his grandmother, but an uncle would inevitably take him back.
He was then shipped off to Cyprus and then Corfu in Greece, his final home before arriving in Canada.
After leaving Cedarvale, he worked on a farm near Guelph. Despite all the boys receiving training as farmers, Sarkissian is probably the only one who chose farming as a career.
He briefly journeyed to Portage La Prairie, Manitoba, to find work with a buddy named Fred Aitchison. It was here that he met his wife, Anne Popiel, the daughter of Ukrainian immigrants.
He spent the rest of his life on an Orangeville farm. He died in 1997.
Harry Hatch
Born Haroutioun Khatchadourian, he was not supposed to be a Georgetown Boy. His older brother, who was caring for their mother at the time, put him in an orphanage.
A different boy had originally been chosen to come to Canada. But when he was discovered to have head lice, Hatch was picked instead.
He arrived in Georgetown at the age of 12, making him one of the older boys. After his time there was over, he worked many farms.
He often struggled to find work. A friend suggested that he should change his name. Thus, Harry Hatch was born.
He served in the Canadian Army and fought in the Second World War. He was almost part of the ill-fated raid on Dieppe, but a sergeant stopped him from being part of the attack.
“Where do you think you are going, Hatch? You are one of the only drivers we have and we need you here to drive,” the sergeant apparently told him. He worked as a driver during the war years.
He and his wife, Roxanne, moved to the Mountain in Hamilton. There, he first worked as a cleaner at a jail, while his wife operated a bread and milk shop they opened together. He started working at the shop when the behaviour of the local youth made her uncomfortable. Eventually this shop was turned into a restaurant.
Harry Hatch died in 1974 from a brain tumor.
July 1 will mark the 100th anniversary of the arrival of the Georgetown Boys. The Sara Corning Centre for Genocide Education will commemorate the occasion with a ceremony at Cedarvale Park on Saturday (June 24). The gathering will begin at 2 p.m. and various government and local dignitaries, including descendants of the Georgetown Boys, will be present.
