Carla Friedman
Thus they shall hear and see the Beauties of nature, and imprint
the spirit of the times, not only for the advancement of the present,
but for the benefit of generations to come.”
–Zabelle Abdalian, 1934
Wandering through an antique shop in the seaside village of Cayucos,
Calif., I stumbled upon an impeccably preserved little book, entitled Scientific Air Possibilities with the Human,
by Zabelle Abdalian, 1934. Inspired by the life of a “Madame Mary A.
Harper,” whose biography is detailed in the author’s introduction, this
theosophical compilation of essays includes thoughts on the “beneficial
effects of natural radium in the air,” esoteric views on body, mind,
spirit, science, technology, theology, and economics. Intrigued, I
descended the sea-washed wooden stairway, bought the book, and walked,
face to page, to a bench overlooking the Pacific.
The books Zabelle penned during her lifetime are held within university libraries throughout the country. In addition to Scientific Air Possibilities with the Human (re-issued in 1954 under the title The Amazing Power within You), her published works include “Bow in the Cloud” (1953), a play about world peace set in both New York and Burma; Thy Flame Is Blown (1952), a poetical biography of her father, killed during the massacre of Armenians in 1895; and SA PWH Prince of the Air (1955),
Zabelle’s autobiography. I then discovered a small handful of documents
referencing her mother Haiganoosh’s claims against the Turkish
government, for the death of her husband, Nahabed.
My next find would come to be the door to open all. Via a letter
written to the Armenian Observer in 2008, I found Zabelle’s great niece,
Pamela Barsam Brown. Pamela’s home is just a stone’s throw from where I
received my degree in poetics and Buddhist studies in 1985. In my
mind’s eye, I could literally walk to her house. (This small coincidence
spoke to a feeling of interconnectedness that would return to me again
and again throughout this journey). After the initial timidity of our
first phone call, we have developed a lovely friendship centered around
Aunty Zabelle, the Abdalian family history, and contemplations on what
it feels like to be descendants of wounded lineage. Touched by my
interest, Pamela sent everything her Great Aunt had ever published. With
Zabelle’s door now open, her story unfolded, revealing a tale of
survival, courage, faith, and a little bit of magic. I soon felt as if
Zabelle herself had taken me by the hand, and was leading me through a
confluence of history, lineage, and mystic memory.
Zabelle Abdalian was born on Oct. 6, 1886, at the foot of the Taurus
Mountains in Gurin, present-day Turkey. It was during this time that her
father, Doctor Nahabed Y. Abdalian (a naturalized U.S. citizen who had
received his doctorate in medicine from New York Medical College in 1879
and became the first ordained Armenian-American medical missionary to
the Ottoman Empire), had returned to the village of his birth to care
for the people of his homeland. Zabelle’s life in Gurin, with her father
Nahabed, mother Haiganoosh, and four brothers and sisters was a happy
one. Yet, in 1895, Zabelle’s world darkened when her beloved father was
killed during the Armenian Massacres. The Turks burned the Abdalian
home, looted their belongings, and imprisoned the family. Zabelle’s
infant brother died from exposure and starvation. With the assistance of
the United States government, the Abdalian family was granted safe
passage to America in 1896. Zabelle, with bright mind and sensitive
spirit, had a sense of the mystical from a young age. These
sensibilities of spirit and imagination helped to carry her across the
sea to a new life.
Of her father’s death she wrote, in 1953: “I was overwhelmed, felt as
one falling into a bottomless pit of black despair. The passing of his
soul was like the transition from raging storm into rare, brilliant
sunlight.”
Her first years in America were spent in New York and Rhode Island
where she attended public school, sang in St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal
Choir, and worked in jewelry factories to help provide for her family.
For a time the children were separated due to a lack of resources, but
when reparations were finally awarded to Zabelle’s mother for claims
against the Ottoman-Turkish government in 1903, the Abdalian family was
reunited. Haiganoosh moved with her children to Del Ray, Calif., and
purchased an olive ranch in partnership with others.
In addition to working the farm, Zabelle became an accomplished
pianist who could play the works of classical masters such as Bach,
Beethoven, Mozart, and Chopin. She sang in the choir, and committed to
memory complete operatic scores. She held a position at Shreve and
Company, one of the finest jewelers in San Francisco. Here, as the only
girl amongst men, she was referred to as “the only flower in the roof
garden.” Zabelle served as an instructor in surgical dressing at the Red
Cross headquarters during World War I and then returned home to care
for her mother. After her mother’s death in 1932, Zabelle moved to Los
Angeles to live closer to her sisters. She continued to sing in the
choir, write, and pursue spiritual and intellectual interests. Zabelle
served her country once again during World War II, working in a garment
factory that manufactured uniforms for the Armed Forces. With many of
her co-workers being of Mexican descent, Zabelle taught herself how to
speak very proficient Spanish.
Whether by virtue of trauma or second sight, Zabelle had an
extraordinary mind. Alongside her dedication to the Episcopal Church,
her thoughts on consciousness and spirituality sprang from what is known
as the New Thought Movement, prevalent in Southern California during
the mid 1930’s. After an exhaustive search, I have concluded that the
luminary, Madame Mary A. Harper, whom Zabelle so meticulously described
in the introduction of Scientific Air Possibilities with the Human, may not have existed in the visible world.
My thoughts drifted to Marie Curie, the Nobel Prize recipient in
physics for the discovery of radium (who interestingly died the very
year that Zabelle published her treatise on the benefits of radium).
Ironically, after having worked in the very same jewelry factories
creating glow-in-the-dark watches that incited the landmark class action
lawsuit known as “The Radium Girls,” Zabelle adopted the early belief
that the poisonous element of radium was an organic compound with
healing properties found naturally within the air.
I could tell the story about how Zabelle’s father traveled via
covered wagon with a group of 30 Armenian immigrants to Fort Bend,
Texas, in order to fulfill a promise. Or about how the Abdalian
family believes that Zabelle’s older brother was the first registered
birth of an Armenian in New York City in 1884. But I’d rather tell you
that as a child, my best friend was Armenian. How I remember her
parent’s dark, protective eyes. I’d rather tell you about how when
driving with my mother through Emerson, N.J., we often passed a memorial
commemorating those who had lost their lives in the Armenian Genocide,
and how I made a game of reading the inscription as many times as I
could before the words were lost to the distance.
In memory of the 2 million Christian Armenians massacred by the Turks 1915-1923
As a child, my awareness of the Holocaust was derived almost solely
via the torch of my own Judaic lineage. I felt burdened by its weight
without even knowing I was carrying it. With lineal heart laden with
boxes, and a few thousand pages of dreaming, I took the path that
Zabelle had taken, to the edge of the western sea. I am the dark in my
mother’s eyes, and her unyielding determination. I am my father’s fear
of hunger, and his love for the music of rivers.
In the ancient Judaic view known as “The Transmigration of Souls,”
“remembering” is felt as a kind of haunting. In Buddhism, “remembering”
is recognized as the sign of an awakened mind. “Oy” versus “Ah.”
“Sometimes it happens that the angel of forgetfulness forgets to remove from our memories the records of the former world; and then our senses are haunted by fragmentary recollections of another life. They drift like torn clouds above the hills and valleys of the mind, and weave themselves into the incidents of our current existence. They assert themselves, clothed with reality, in the form of nightmares which visit our beds.”
–Sholem Asch, ‘The Nazarene’; excerpt from ‘The Transmigration of Souls,’ 1939
It is spring 2015 and the Centennial of the Armenian Holocaust. All
eyes are watching. All hearts listening. Are we here to remember or are
we here to forget? How do we capture the wisdom offered by the past and
release that which simply causes more suffering? How do we become
beautiful, without even the cry for Justice?
Through her writings, Zabelle Abdalian remembered with tenderness,
respect, and hopefulness. Choosing not the shadowed, fisted heart of one
burdened by tragedy, she became beauty, empathy, compassion for others,
and reverence for the mystery of Spirit. As I sit here, not far from
the place where she once stood, it is this grace I find within my own
breath. This is her gift.
"The Armenian Weekly," April 6, 2015
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