ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS, N.J. — George Maksian, 94, passed away peacefully surrounded by family on May 23, 2024.
He was the uncle to Robert (Donna) Maksian, Carol Maksian, David Gadarian (Natalie Hutton), Daniel Gadarian, Kap (Christine) Maksian, and Linda (Allan) Tossoonian. And many grand and great-grand nephews and nieces.
He was the son of the late Krikor and Esgoohe Maksian. He was predeceased by his siblings Anna Maksian, Robert Maksian and Aza Gadarian, and nephew Richard Maksian.
George Maksian’s father and mother, Krikor and Esgoohe, were married in Armenia and his father immigrated to the United States in 1909 as a teenager leaving his wife and family behind temporarily. Krikor enlisted in the US Army, thereby gaining citizenship. In 1915, during the Armenian Genocide and World War I interruption, his parents were separated as his mother fled Armenia to escape the genocide. Through the assistance from the American Red Cross, his father was able to track his mother and brought her to New York in 1921.
Krikor and Esgoohe settled in New York City. The family consisted of four children, all born and raised in New York in the neighborhood then known as Hell’s Kitchen. George was born in 1929. He grew up and helped in his parents’ grocery store business and sang in the choir at St Illuminator’s Armenian Cathedral.
After graduating from Manhattan’s High School of Commerce, George obtained a job at the New York Daily News, the largest circulated newspaper in the country, as a copy boy when he was 17 years old.
