Obituary: Robert Aram Kaloosdian, Armenian Assembly Founder, Community Leader

A native of Watertown, Kaloosdian was involved with many of the old and new organizations that made the city a center of Armenian life in America. For 10 years, he served as chairman of the American Committee for the Independence of Armenia, which had been created as far back as 1918 by American public figures advocating for Armenia. He served on the Central Committee of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) in the United States. He resigned from the ARF when the party distanced itself from the Armenian Assembly. In 1965 he was among the organizers of the United Committee of Greater Boston, the first time all segments of the community worked together, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.  In another example of his strivings for greater community development, Kaloosdian headed the steering committee, which under his chairman, oversaw the construction of the Armenian Cultural and Educational Center in Watertown.

Kaloosdian prized his heritage, and after a lifetime of gathering evidence about his father’s family and birthplace, he published a marvelous account of the life of his forebears titled Tadem My Father’s Village. To his surprise, and his family’s pride in this accomplishment, the book won two awards.  In an appreciation of the volume, Dr. Richard Hovannisian wrote: “Kaloosdian has made a lasting contribution through his meticulous combination of historical sources, memoirs, and oral histories…” Dr. Taner Akçam observed: “Kaloosdian has documented the collective memory of anyone and everyone that he could reach who had lived in a specific region. Taking each of these personal accounts and combining it with research that he conducted, he has developed a new form of local history. The book you hold in your hands contains the collective memory of an Armenian village called Tadem and it is a significant achievement for this reason.”

In course of his research, Kaloosdian developed a considerable archive on the village of Tadem and its surroundings, including the transcriptions of audiotaped interviews with many of the living survivors he knew personally. At the same time, he also assembled an exquisite collection of historical works covering a wide range of subjects with Armenia and the Near East as its focus. Kaloosdian twice traveled to historic Armenia and visited his father’s birthplace to document what little remained of Tadem. A work full of pathos about life in that ancient village, Kaloosdian traced his father’s countless ordeals from the time of his boyhood growing up after the Hamidian massacres through his years of captivity during the time of the Genocide, his father’s forcible conversion to Islam, his employment as unpaid help living alone without friends or parents upon the deportation of the population, his escape through the mountains to the Russian frontier and flight across Siberia during the Russian Revolution, refuge in Japan, and arrival in America and a cross country journey at last to join relatives on the East Coast. He patiently reconstructed from scattered scarps of evidence the travails of each of his relatives, especially the tales and treatment of the handful of women who survived their banishment through the desert, and his father’s traumatic witnessing of the murder of his brother in a moment of thoughtless innocence.

When in 2002 Carolyn Mugar founded a chair in Modern Armenian History and Armenian Genocide Studies at his alma mater, Clark University, she asked that, in addition to honoring the memory of her parents Stephen and Marian Mugar, it also be named in honor of Aram and Marianne Kaloosdian. The recipient of numerous honors for his years of service to the Armenian people, Kaloosdian was bestowed the Prince of Cilicia award by Karekin I Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia and recognized by President Levon Ter-Petrossian of Armenia with the Mekhitar Gosh medal.

Kaloosdian graduated in 1952 from Clark University, where he was vice-president of his class, President of the Inter-fraternity Council and president of his fraternity. After serving a tour of duty at the U.S. Army Medical Field Service School during the Korean War, Kaloosdian entered Boston University School of Law where he received a JD degree in 1957 and a Master of Law in Taxation in 1962. He was a member of the Delta Theta Phi Law fraternity of which he was the Tribune. He also served as a Special Assistant to the President of the Massachusetts Bar Association. His law firm concentrated in the areas of business, real estate, taxation, probate and estate law.  He remained in practice for over 50 years and was a of the Member American Trial Lawyers Association, Middlesex Bar Association, and Massachusetts Bar Association.

Assembly President Carolyn Mugar, who was among his close personal friends, stated: “Our hearts go out to Aram’s family. Over the course of these many years they generously shared him with the Assembly family and with many of us. That is a debt so great that it can only be paid forward as he taught us.”

Speaking on behalf of the Armenian Assembly Board of Trustees, co-chairs Van Krikorian and Anthony Barsamian shared their sentiments: “Aram Kaloosdian was more than a pillar of our community and especially of our organization. He was its very foundation, and the generations that have succeeded him in office on the board of the Armenian Assembly have relied and built upon his legacy. Hundreds have served on the many boards and committees of the Armenian Assembly, and thousands have supported it through the decades. Rare are those who can be said to have devoted a lifetime of effort and energy, provided wisdom and guidance, inspired leadership and innovation, and remained convinced of the centrality of holding a respectable presence for the Armenian people in our nation’s capital. His legacy is secure and his memory cherished by all of us in the Armenian Assembly.”

Krikorian and Barsamian added that thanks to a generous donation, the new Washington offices of the Armenian Assembly of America and the Armenian National Institute (ANI) will have a dedicated library named in Kaloosdian’s honor as a fitting legacy to his commitment to building the premier resource center on the Armenian Genocide in our nation’s capital.

Funeral service will be at Saint Stephen’s Armenian Church, 38 Elton Avenue, Watertown on May 16.

In lieu of flowers, memorial gifts may be made to Saint Stephen’s Armenian Church, Armenian Assembly of America, Washington, D.C. or Armenia Tree Project, 400 W. Cummings Park, Suite 3725, Woburn, MA. 01801. Veteran U.S. Army, Korean Conflict.