ARMENIAN MUSEUM IN CALIFORNIA. LUTHER ESKIJIAN AND HIS UNIQUE COLLECTION

During my visit to the United States in May 2004, I had the opportunity to lecture on Armenian history at the Ararat-Eskijian Museum in Mission Hills, California. This opportunity was provided to me by my friend, Mrs. Maggie Mangassarian-Goschin, Vice Chairman and Administrator of the Museum. On May 21, 2004, Mrs. Goschin introduced me to the Museum Founder, Mr. Luther Eskijian, a 91 year old gentleman who lives in a large home of unusual design in Altadena, California, with his wife Anne.

Luther Eskijian was born on November 1, 1913, in the Syrian mountain village of Ekiz-Oluk, in the Province of Kessab, Syria, to Reverend Hovhannes (John) and Gulenia Eskijian, where Rev. Eskijian was called to his first church.

Mr. Eskijian relates: In that small village, my father started building a church out of hand hewn rock from the hills surrounding the village, called the Emmanuel Church of Ekiz Oluk. During the First World War the family moved to Aleppo, Syria, where my father was called to minister to the large Armenian Evangelical Church there. They assisted many Armenian refugees, as well as hosted Armenian intellectuals, who were exiled to Aleppo. Later in the United States, Mr. Eskijian met numerous orphans, who survived the Genocide because of Reverend Eskijian.

However, when the family left Ekiz-Oluk in 1915, the church was unfinished--until some 40 years later at which time I was called upon to provide the funds to complete the church. When my wife and I visited the village in 1978, we saw the finished church. We actually met some of the men who had cut and carried the stones to build the walls of the church. While we were there I also met an elderly lady, the midwife, who had delivered me in 1913. It was the experience of a lifetime.

Luther Eskijian was a typical “self-made-man.” He arrived at Ellis Island in New York Harbor in October 1920, without a penny. He later became an architect and general contractor, specializing in commercial and institutional buildings. He designed several churches for the Armenian, American and African-American communities. He was the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Armenian Evangelical College of America, as well as served several Armenian colleges and Christian day schools. He has worked on civic committees including the Rotary Club of Altadena, California where he has had perfect attendance for some 54 years. He also served as President of his club. During his tenure the club won the Best Club Award out of 50 in his district.

Luther Eskijian passed away in 2004.

Below are presented several parts of my conversation with Mr. Eskijian, done in 2004. The English original audio recording of the interview was put into written form by my friend, American writer Crystal Cook.

Artsvi Bakhchinyan


BY MR. ESKIJIAN: –My name, “Martin Luther,” shows you that my father was spiritually inclined. His father was beheaded in Urfa, Turkey, during the 1895 massacres and he was taken to an American missionary in Urfa. She taught him the grounds of the Christian faith. Father became well educated in the scriptures at the missionary school, deciding to become a minister. He married my mother, beginning his first pastoral position in Ekiz-Oloukh, a village of the district of Kessab, Syria, starting a church there.
My father was a compassionate and loving person. In 1915 he was called to a church in Aleppo, Syria. In Aleppo he helped save thousands of refugee Armenians. He would go to the transit camps and pick up children, as well as take all available opportunities to rescue Armenians. He helped start an orphanage with the view to protecting future generations. He knew that if you do not protect the children, there would never be a nation again. Additionally he obtained information from the interior of Turkey from the incoming refugees about the Genocide and conditions they endured. This information was reported by my father to the American Attaché Jackson in Aleppo, who sent the reports to Ambassador Henry Morgenthau in Constantinople. He worked among the people in the camps where there were the dead and dying. As a result he got typhus and died in 1916. The Turks had found out about my father’s underground activities and came to hang him. But he died of typhus, which he contracted by helping the refugees, the day before he was to be executed by the Turkish authorities.

My mother took my bother and I and returned to our ancestral home in Aintab, Turkey. The Turkish and Germans troops in that area were shooting at any Armenians they saw on the streets. Our stairway to the second floor in the family home was outside on a kind of balcony. They could see us from a half a mile away and shoot at us. They were very well-trained, their guns were supplied by the Germans, but our guns were registered before the massacres. Then right before the massacres the Turks came and took all of our guns, so we had nothing with which to defend ourselves. When people talk about gun control in the United States, being a military man I can see the potential for abuse. Guns are for self-protection. You never know what can happen. Anyway, that gives you an idea.

At the age of six and a half I took food to the Armenians soldiers who were fighting the Turks in Aintab, receiving a commendation by the Aintab Patriotic Union. Therefore, I was in World War I and World War II. I consider my military service as a privilege to help save this country and my people.

Later, moving to the United States, my mother earned a living by repairing oriental rugs. I started to work for the wealthy people in Pasadena. I could see how these people lived. They would buy houses in the poor sections of town for their maids, cooks and chauffeurs. I saw their life style. I had a liking for fine works of art, but when I saw then who had them and why they were there, what their expectations were, and what their values were, I learned a lot.

At an early age I worked for a couple in Pasadena who were nice to me. They paid me 15 to 25 cents an hour during the Depression, I was able to acquire two or three items of art from them. That was the start of the Museum. In my early teens, I was already starting to collect art and artifacts, because I had the background. I could appreciate what was good. I studied architecture, combining classical architecture with fine handwork of the artists and sculptures of the past. See, that’s the only way you can do it; you can combine it all together. Anyway, I collected a good portion of art, and I was fortunate to have friends that were from Armenia or from Lebanon who had coin and stamp collections. I bought many stamp collections from American dealers because they had no special buyers for them. I bought many Armenian coins, as many as I could get, Roman and Greek mostly, and just put them away.

When I went to WW II I started out as a buck private, a sergeant, warrant officer, with the Air Force. After that I went into the Intelligence Corps and from there to the Army Engineer Corps. In the engineer corps, I went to Europe with my one little outfit of about 35 men. We worked around the clock. I was not happy a war was going on. Our captain was a drunkard and a womanizer. One day the military inspector came and asked me what right did I have to be in bed during the day? So I told him that I had worked around the clock 7 days a week. Afterward I wrote my own pass to go to Paris. There, I went to the Office of the Chief Engineer, and he showed me a drawing and asked, “How long would it take you to do that?” I said, “A couple of hours.” He said it was impossible. I said, “No.” I was a good draftsman, and I had already studied architecture and was doing buildings before the war. So, he said, “Okay, I’ll have you transferred immediately.” They needed me with the Office of the Chief Engineer, European Theatre of Operation. I followed Patton’s Army all the way to Berlin. When we captured a city, usually there would be a large building they wanted to convert to a hospital. They had to have a drawing of that building immediately. So, I would measure the building and draw it up. I had my own assistant driver and I had the freedom to lodge with any military group along the way. The engineers would follow with technical drawings where the operating room was, where the morgue was, where all the facilities should be from my drawings, because they couldn’t make a building drawing if they tried. I was able to do these drawings in a couple of days and give it to them. From there, we’d go to the next city. In between, however, I would always stop at an antique store or bookstore or junk shop, I would collect wonderful items, which I sent home. One big box of the finest crystal you ever saw in your life was lost in transit, but nevertheless I got a lot of nice things and brought them home.

I continued adding to my Armenian collection. In time, I realized this is too important for me to keep to myself. It must be shared with the Armenian people. So, I started thinking about starting an Armenian museum. In the meanwhile, three or four others and I, started the Armenian Numismatic Society. We have had a wonderful society now in existence over thirty years. That gave me a location to start expanding my thoughts. In my mind we had to have a museum.

During that time, I started helping the Ararat Home of Los Angeles, at their old location. I realized there was a possible connection for my vision with them. They started talking about new buildings, so I made sketches for them, including a museum and a church. We didn’t have the property, but began to raise money with a colored rendition of what we’d like to have. They knew I wanted a museum. When the Ararat Home purchased the new property in Mission Hills, California, I drove Bob Shamlian to the location. The church would have to go here, the museum would have to go there. From that we made a drawing. We had a banquet, raised money, and that was fine. The Ararat Home tried two or three different architectural forms for the master plan layout. I was not impressed by any of them. Finally a firm in Beverly Hills came up with a rendition of our plan that was excellent. We worked at it for a year. I went to their Beverly Hills office every Saturday morning, working and improving it and making suggestions. Incidentally, although they are not Armenians, they are the only firm of architects among Armenians. When they visited my Museum and the Church they wrote me an excellent letter of recommendation. Outstanding.

The Ararat Home told me that if I could raise the money for the church and the museum they would let me have my way. A friend of mine, Mr. John Sheen, lived down the street from my home. His real name was John Geuvkaladjian. I had been helping him for about 25 years with his correspondence, estate work. He was a wealthy man. So he told me to make a drawing of my proposed church and museum. I made a drawing of the church, and a balsawood model. He loved it. He said, “I’ll do it!” He arranged to pay for the church, but I had to raise the money for the Museum in the level under the church. I raised the money for Museum and he paid for the upper part - the church. I think the church is an excellent example of Armenian church architecture, and the Museum is very well-located under the sanctuary.

I designed the Church of Armenian architecture and Museum building. I did all the engineering, detail of the building, and I made a balsawood model of the structure, because some of it was very complex and the engineers couldn’t even figure out. With the model, they were able to complete the structural and earthquake engineering. The Museum is doing well. I had some volunteers. My dear Maggie and her family have been a great help.

Now, let’s get into the Museum. I have a lot of beautiful Armenian maps and a good selection of Armenian stamps. I have good collection of numismatic items, coins going back to ancient times, most of which are Cilician coins of the 10th or 11th century. Most are not very valuable, but some are good and worth thousands of dollars. I have a Constantine II: That is the only one known to be in existence in the world. It is worth perhaps $5000. Then I have a gold Lucius Varius with an Armenian king kneeling before him, worth about $25,000, 2nd or 3rd century. I have a collection of photographs covering the progress of World War II from the German perspective which I obtained from Hitler’s own office when I was in Berlin drawing a U.S. Army hospital during the war. I have a Biblical collection with most of the Biblical coins, including all the emperors that are mentioned in the Bible. I have an unusual item in the Biblical collection which is the calcified head of a person pulled out of the Dead Sea. That is the location where Sodom and Gomorrah once existed – going back to their destruction described in the Bible. I don’t have very many printed items, but I do have a wonderful collection of Napoleonic tapestries better than the Napoleon museum in France. They have one like it, but only half of it. I have one much better than what is in Paris. Then there is the antiquity collection. There are also dinosaur bones, tapestries, and my sketches. I donated 151 books from my collection, and since then I have probably given 25 more. The Museum came into prominence when Maggie started to serve and expand its cultural activities. My goal for the Museum is to make it available for all the Armenians and the community at large, because you’ll never have these items again in one place. In the military cabinet there is a handmade gun by the Armenians. While the Turks had modern German guns with sights on them so they could kill anything from far off, our guns would do practically nothing. There is a cabinet of Armenian historical items and fine jewelry. It should be preserved for the Armenian people and not owned by one person.
God bless the Armenian people.