CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — “Today was the fulfillment of a beautiful story and an immigrant’s dream. It’s a witness to her faith. It’s a witness to what those early immigrant Armenians went through to make it here in this new land, and it reminds us from where we all came. So from her eternal life, Haiganoosh is still connected to our parish. May she feel blessed today,” stated Fr. Vasken A. Kouzouian, pastor of Holy Trinity Armenian Church.
In a heart-warming dedication ceremony on Sunday, November 23, the parishioners of Holy Trinity Armenian Church turned out to honor one of their own — Zevart Hollisian — who, in fulfilling the wishes of her mother, Haiganoush Hagopian Hollisian, donated $400,000 to Holy Trinity Church. In gratitude to the family, in a way that will stand as a lasting testimony to their generosity, the front plaza of Holy Trinity Church was dedicated and named the “Garabed Baghdasar and Haiganoosh Hagopian Hollisian Plaza.”
Hollisian cut the ceremonial ribbon surrounded by parishioners, family and friends, and the granite marker, inscribed with the name of the plaza, was unveiled.
True to so many of her generation, Haiganoosh Hagopian came to America with very little. She arrived in the United States from the Village of Kutbeleh. She arrived very young and was single. She found work at a shoe factory in the Roxbury area, earning $7 per week. She was introduced to a young man named Garabed Baghdasar Hollisian originally from Kharpert. They married and eventually bought a house together. They raised their family of four children in that home. The years passed and life went on.
Zevart Hollisian is the last member of the family she was born into. When she came to Holy Trinity Church to deliver her check to Kouzouian, she was fulfilling her mother’s wish to thank God and her church for helping her arrive in America and establish a new beginning. She wanted to thank God for the success of her children; that they each had their own home and that each was better off than when she first arrived to America. Haiganoosh’s way of expressing her gratitude was to donate the original house on Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge — the house that she and Garabed raised their children in — to her parish, Holy Trinity Armenian Church.
