Dirasser Haroutyoun ADZIGIAN

                   Notes from family records:  Zarouhi was called Nana by all of her family, and Zara by her friends.  When Zarouhi "Zara" came to America it wasn't a matter of seeking a better, more affluent life, it was a question of life of any kind.  Five years after Zara arrived in America the two brothers she left behind were among the three million Armenians massacred by the Turks.  Turkey was a police state, and as their Ottoman Empire crumbled, the Turks singled out the Armenians and tried to exterminate the whole Armenian race.  (Armenia was a cultural division in the eastern part of Turkey).
   America meant freedom from the persecution.  Zara sensed that freedom for the first time when she saw the Statue of Liberty.  She was 16 when she arrived at Ellis Island in New York.  She knew neither English nor the man who met her.  'That man' was Dirasser H. Adzigian, who had brought Zarouhi to America to be his wife.  
Dirasser's father, a minister, decided Dirasser should have a young, Christian Armenian for his wife and sent a not back to Zara's fahter asking him to pick one of his 10 daughters for young Dirasser's bride.  Zara's father narrowed the field to her and her older sister, Azniv.  He sent photos to America and Dirasser picked Zara "because I was pretty and Azniv was short," Zara said.  Upon arrival, Dirasser 'escorted' Zara unil his new house was fixed up and ready to recieve a bride.  They were married Nov 3 1908, just two months after her arrival in America.
    After her marriage, Zara started attending night school.  After working in the home all day she studied English and American history at night.  After learning about Abraham Lincoln, Zara chose his birthday for her own.  (The birth records in Turkey at the beginning of the century were none too exact).  
    World War I was being fought when Zara got a job at a knitting mill.  She worked there nine years while raising her two sons, Edward and John and her daughter Helen.
Immigration: August 10, 1908