The Armenian Studies Program web page is sponsored by a grant from
The Bertha and John Garabedian Charitable
Foundation, Fresno.
Sam Sarkis Kalfayan, former
chairman of the Armenian Studies Program Advisory Board, died Saturday,
September 6, at the age of 97.
He
was born Sarkis Papazian
in Samson, Turkey, but escaped when he was 3 during Ottoman Turkish massacres
that took the lives of his father,
two brothers and two sisters. Young Mr.
Kalfayan and his mother, Aghavni, fled to Cairo, Egypt, where they lived
several years.
In Cairo
and still a
teenager, his mother met another survivor of the Genocide. His wife and son had
been killed, too. The two married, and young
Mr. Kalfayan learned to speak
French, Arabic, and Turkish.
He entered the United
States at Ellis Island, N.Y., changed his first name
to Sam and took the last
name of his new stepfather, Barsam Kalfayan, in Wisconsin. The family moved to
the Dinuba area in time for
Mr. Kalfayan to enter grammar school. He graduated
from Dinuba High School, caring for his polio-stricken father. He married his
first
wife, Serphouhi, but was called to serve in World War II in his early
30s, where he served under General Patton. He returned home and
found that the
torment of war had left his wife mentally ill. She soon took her own life.
Mr. Kalfayan graduated from
Fresno State College
then earned master’s degrees from the University of
California at Berkeley and the University of Southern California. He was
married
to his second wife, Meliné, whom he called the love of his life, for 48
years. After her death, he married a third time, to Khatoun
Lena Kalfayan, who
survives him.
