Curt Brown
“He succeeded
from the start in this venture and in a short time began selling
Oriental rugs. The growth of his business has been phenomenal, and he
has attained an important position … His rugs are known over the entire
Northwest.”
— St. Paul Rotarian, 1915
His boots ground down as
soldiers with pointed sticks jabbed at him for resting. He was forced to
march 40 miles a day. So Bedros Keljik, a 15-year-old Armenian
thirsting to emigrate to America, shredded his shirt and wrapped the
strips around his inflamed feet.
“A
terrible journey, and I shall never forget it,” Keljik told the New York
Times five years later, in 1894. “The sun beat down upon us, the ground
was scorching, but we had to march on. In two days our boots had been
worn off, and the hot ground being unbearable we had to tear off our
clothes and bandage our feet.”
A few days
later, Keljik and two older brothers were tossed in a prison on the
banks of the Euphrates River — “one great dark hole, no distinction
being made between murderers, thieves, or so-called political
prisoners.”
