Lisa Natcharian's Gold Coin Jewelry Collection
Before the genocide, Lisa Natcharian's grandmother Elmas Malikian's whole life lay ahead of her: she was a prospective bride, daughter of a prominent town leader, and had a family of purportedly 130+ people in her surrounding town. Her life was prosperous.
The journey through the Armenian genocide for young Elmas, as for many other young women, was harrowing, volatile, and at times hopeless. With fiance Onnik becoming an Armenian Guerilla freedom fighter (whose fate became effectively unknown during the genocide), Elmas was sent to live with a Christian Turkish family where she and her sister worked as domestic servants for ten years and through the duration of the genocide. While there, she purportedly gave birth to two children with the family's son, both of whom she was forced to leave in Turkey when she departed.
After surviving the genocide and heartbreakingly leaving her children, Elmas was relocated to Indian Orchard after being found by the father of long-lost fiance Onnik, and had four children, the youngest of which was Lisa Natcharian's father. In the United States, illiterate and unable to work, Elmas became a full-time housewife. Effectively, her entire life had been uprooted and drastically changed.
As Lisa recalls: "My grandmother, when she came to this country she didn’t work, she was illiterate. She didn’t read or write in English or Armenian as a result of having her education interrupted by the genocide. My father used to joke that she also couldn’t cook because of the same thing. She you know, lost her family and, you know, and was pulled out of normal life."
However, vestiges of Elmas' life before losing everything can still be seen and celebrated through Lisa's inherited collection of her jewelry. Her collection, containing two gold coin necklaces and a gold coin ring, reflect the happy times she came from: times of culture, of love, of companionship, and of prosperity. Times when Elmas thrived in historic Armenia: times when she was surrounded by love, a big family, and good fortune. It reminds us everything genocide can strip from us: attempting to literally erase not only a people, but their culture as well.
During the Armenian genocide, Lisa Natcharian's grandmother Elmas was taken in for safety by an Arabic-speaking Christian family, where she worked until 1919 when she was able to finally leave the country. Lisa recalls the simple gold Ottoman coin necklace being from around the late 1800's. Through the harrowing journey of genocide, Elmas was able to successfully keep track of her jewelry, all while supporting the maintenance of history and preserving her culture as it was attempted to be erased. This resulted in her being able to pass the collection down to her granddaughter Lisa.
Lisa values the necklace, as well as her connection to her grandmother Elmas, who died long before she was born.
