Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Verdugo Views: Distinguished Alum Has Armenian Heritage

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Verdugo Views: Distinguished Alum Has Armenian Heritage

    VERDUGO VIEWS: DISTINGUISHED ALUM HAS ARMENIAN HERITAGE

    Glendale News Press, CA
    Jan 30 2014

    January 29, 2014|By Katherine Yamada

    Paul Ignatius as Student Body President at Hoover High... (Courtesy
    of the...)

    Glendale native Paul Ignatius, retired Secretary of the Navy, will
    be honored at this year's Glendale Educational Foundation event as
    a distinguished Hoover High alumnus.

    Born in 1920, Ignatius grew up on Columbus Avenue in a Spanish-style
    house with a red tile roof and five apricot trees in the backyard;
    a reminder of a time when the entire area was covered in orchards,
    he wrote in his memoirs, published in 2000.

    He started school at Field Elementary -- a long walk, he recalled. Then
    Keppel opened in 1928 and he walked there with neighborhood friends.

    Not only did Ignatius attend Eleanor J. Toll Junior High, the woman for
    whom the school was named lived across the street on Columbus Avenue.

    Growing up, he gave little thought to his Armenian heritage.

    "There were no Armenian kids in our school except us," he said of
    himself and his siblings. Nor could he speak the language. It wasn't
    until much later that he focused on his family's history and learned
    that both parents, Elisa Jamgochian and Hovsep Ignatius, were born
    in Armenia.

    His maternal grandfather, Avedis Jamgochian, brought his family,
    including Elisa, to England in 1893 and they prospered there, but
    had to leave for health reasons.

    They came to California in 1911. Jamgochian built a large house in
    Tropico and eventually invested in a soap factory, along with other
    business ventures. Elisa befriended a young photographer, Edward
    Weston, and gave him one of his first exhibits, "a small affair for
    family and neighbors."

    Ignatius' father was 19 when he came to the United States in 1904,
    directly from "the old country," with his three brothers. They
    settled in Pittsburgh, where they dropped the patronymic "ian" from
    their names.

    When H.B. Ignatius, as he was later known, attended a Shriners'
    Convention in Los Angeles in 1912, he looked up Jamgochian, well
    known for writing letters and poems in Armenian newspapers published
    in the United States. He was introduced to Elisa, decided to move to
    Glendale and they married a few years later.

    During the aftermath of the massacres of 1915, H.B. Ignatius was asked
    to join the Near East Relief Committee, "the only Armenian in this
    distinguished group," his son wrote. "Of all his many fundraising
    activities, this one gave him the most satisfaction."

    http://articles.glendalenewspress.com/2014-01-29/opinion/tn-gnp-verdugo-views-distinguished-alum-has-armenian-heritage-20140129_1_paul-ignatius-u-s-navy-verdugo

Working...
X