Finding My Voice

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To this day, I have no reliable account of how my parents came to be with andlove each other. Their mutual affection was always apparent, and yet they nevertalked about their beginnings. The circumstances that brought Eugenie Zouekieand Wadie Aed together have always been clouded in a haze of mystery, with thetruth, whatever it might have been, quite probably more straightforward andunderstandable than my imaginings or the stories I've heard. What I do know isthat my father's family was apparently fairly well off, supported by mygrandfather, Solomon Aed, who was a tailor by profession. He and his wife,Nazha, lived in the city of Mersin, Turkey, located on the shore of theMediterranean Sea. They were Christians, part of the Eastern Orthodox community.There were three brothers ? George, Toufic, and Wadie ? and four sisters ?Victoria, Julia, and twins Fahima and Wadia.

Theirs was a secure life, in a comfortable home. But according to an oralhistory given by Wadia to her grandson, Richard Hajjar, their mother constantlytalked of coming to America. "Even with the secure life that we had in Mersin,"said Wadia, "my mother always had it in her heart to come to the free country ofAmerica. She was quite willing to sacrifice her life in Mersin to come to thefreedom she had always dreamed about." Those of us who take life in this countryfor granted cannot fully appreciate the yearnings of those like my father'sfamily, believing as they did that an opportunity to live here was worth so mucheffort and hardship.

My father's oldest brother, George, who was seventeen at the time, came to thiscountry in 1907. The second-oldest brother, Toufic, came in 1909. My father,Wadie, and one of his sisters, Victoria, came two years later. The plan was forthe oldest children to go first so they could become acquainted with America,learn the language, and begin to build a life. Their parents had given them asufficient amount of money on which to get a good start.

The rest of the family now waited their turn to go to America, but they had tobe sure that the brothers could provide for the entire group. My father and hisbrothers wrote frequently, relating stories of their success in obtaining workin the shoe factories of Auburn, New York, supporting themselves and puttingmoney aside. Finally, in 1913, my father sent word to his family in Mersin thathe had made the arrangements for them to come. His parents and the threeremaining sisters got ready for the trip, with no certainty of just how long thevoyage would be. After weeks of preparation, they left Mersin and made thethree-day voyage to Beirut, Lebanon. There they were to undergo medicalexaminations by an American doctor to gain admission to the U.S., but they wereforced to turn back because my grandfather had an eye infection. Later thatyear, they tried again, this time traveling from Mersin to Naples, Italy. Sadly,the infection had persisted and they were turned away a second time. Theyremained in Italy for a month, hoping the infection would clear, butunfortunately it didn't and they were forced to return to Mersin once again,expecting to attempt the trip again sometime the following year. But World War Iintervened in August 1914. All visas to the U.S. were cut off. Meanwhile, myfather and his brother Toufic, having become American citizens, were draftedinto the U.S. Army.

It was not until 1921 that the family finally succeeded in making the voyage tothis country. They sailed from Petros, Greece, to the U.S. For one month, theysaw nothing but water and sky, impatiently anticipating sight of Ellis Island."All of a sudden," said Wadia, "there was a great cheer from the many immigrantson board. I caught my first glimpse of America. My mother stood in silence withtears of joy streaming from her eyes. Then, as my mother slowly stepped off theship, she kneeled and very solemnly kissed the ground." At Ellis Island, theywere all taken to a dormitory where they stayed overnight, awaiting yet anothermedical examination. They were met there by my father, whom they hadn't seen forten years, and he assured them that everything would be fine. After passing themedical exam, they went before a judge to swear that their tickets had been paidfor and that they had dollars with them. My father had to show that he had fivethousand dollars in the bank to take care of the family. After this was done,the judge granted the family the necessary papers and informed them that theywere the last five people to be allowed to come to America from Turkey. They hadfilled the quota.

It has been more difficult to learn exactly how my father and his brothers spentthe years in this country before the rest of the family arrived. What I do knowis that the eldest, George, went directly to Auburn, followed by his brothersand sister. They went to work in one of Auburn's shoe factories, supportingthemselves and putting money aside, with a dream of someday starting their ownbusiness. I can only assume that they went to Auburn because they had friendsthere who could help them find jobs and begin to get on their feet.

After several years, George, along with his new bride, Annette, decided to moveto Washington, D.C., leaving behind his life as a factory worker. How much moneyhe had saved by this time I can't know, but it was sufficient to allow him toopen a shoe repair shop of his own on Wisconsin Avenue in Georgetown. Later, hewould purchase his first grocery store at Ninth and S Streets NW. Shortlythereafter, my father, Wadie, and my uncle Toufic came to Washington togetherwith their sister Victoria and her new husband, Alexander. My father and Touficpurchased and operated a small grocery store on New Hampshire Avenue NW, and itwas at this point, I believe, that my father decided to return to the oldcountry in search of my mother.

There are several versions of their meeting. One account is that the two wereborn in the same town in Mersin, and that Eugenie was promised to Wadie atbirth. He was thirteen years her senior, and their parents were good friends.The second account (according to my sister, Georgette) is that my father had metEugenie's parents before he left Turkey to come to the United States, and thatan agreement had been reached among them that he would return for her once he'dmade his fortune. So Wadie set off on a journey back to Mersin to marry Eugenie.But when he got there, he learned that Eugenie had moved with her family toAlexandria, Egypt, and that she had become engaged to someone else. By allaccounts, she was deeply in love with her fiance, but under pressure from herfamily, she broke her engagement, married Wadie, and returned with him to theUnited States in 1929.

Their formal wedding portrait shows a slender couple with clear eyes lookingdirectly into the camera, slight smiles on each of their faces. She wears asimple, long, sheer, sleeveless wedding dress, scooped at the bodice. A sheercaplike veil covers her head, with her dark bangs protruding. She carries alarge and beautiful bouquet of orchids and lilies of the valley, long streamersof ribbon descending onto her gown. She was twenty-two. He was thirty-five. Myfather's dark eyes and heavy eyebrows initially draw attention away from thefact that he is nearly bald, having lost most of his hair in his twenties.

It's impossible to know whether it was a happy day for Eugenie. It was a daythat meant she would be uprooted from all that she knew and loved, to follow myfather across the ocean to Washington, D.C. The transition to life in the UnitedStates can't have been easy for her. As the youngest in her family, she hadenjoyed the comfort and security of living with, or near to, her mother, herbrother, and her sister, as well as nieces and nephews and everything that wasdear to her. She married my father, perhaps against her will, and entered analready tight-knit family whose women eyed her suspiciously, even jealously.Winning the affections...