The Georgetown Boys
This proud Armenian immigrant felt a duty to give back to the country that welcomed him as part of ‘Canada’s Noble Experiment’
From a humble orphan’s beginnings to an outspoken public figure, my father, Albert Papazian, served his country well.
Born in Aintab, Turkey, in 1911, Dad would have been around five during the Armenian genocide that occurred from 1915 to 1917.
Along with his mother, brother and sister, he escaped to Aleppo, Syria, after his father died during the First World War—presumably as a result of the genocide, although Dad never confirmed that. Fatherless, the family roamed the Middle East for about three years. My dad said, “As a boy, I remember being hungry and cold a lot of the time, wandering from one place to another, scrounging crumbs here and there, and sleeping wherever we could find shelter.”
In 1921, his mother, who died a year later, surrendered her children to an orphanage in Lebanon. Dad was ten at the time.
Five years later, Dad and his brother were sent to Canada. Fortunately for them, they were selected to be part of an experiment in refugee support. Canada’s Noble Experiment, as it was called, was the first humanitarian act on an international scale by our country.
An article in The Toronto Globe on February 28, 1923, titled “Shall We Let Them Die?” enlightened Canadians to the plight of the Armenians in Aleppo, Syria. It described how the Armenian Relief Association planned to bring about 100 boys, mostly teenagers, to a farm in Georgetown, Ont. The first group of 50 arrived in Georgetown on July 1, 1923.
The Toronto Globe continued its effort to encourage and publicize Canadian efforts in support of the Armenian refugee cause. In an item dated April 18, 1923, under the title “Little Armenians Will Be Welcome to Home in Canada,” it gave the little town of St. Marys, Ont., due credit for its campaign to raise funds.
In another article on April 23, Woodstock and Oxford County came in for praise for having pledged the sum of $4,000 in aid.
Dad arrived in Georgetown in 1926 at the age of 15—by 1927, a total of 100
Armenian orphans had arrived there.
Dad spent only about a month at the Georgetown orphanage before being indentured to a Dunnville, Ont., farmer. He put himself through high school by taking night classes while working full time.
At 27, he entered the Ontario Agricultural College in Guelph, Ont., one of the few Georgetown boys to receive any post-secondary education, and graduated in 1942 with a Bachelor of Science degree in agriculture.
After marrying Molly Gilmore, an Irish immi- grant, he bought a farm in Winona and they continued to work it till 1990.
In the 1970s, Dad organized reunions for the Georgetown Boys at the farm in Georgetown. The farmhouse is still there, in Cedarvale Park, now designated as an Ontario Heritage Site.
“I have always felt the need to make a contribution to the country that accepted me when I was in need,” Dad said after accepting the Stoney Creek Chamber of Commerce’s Citizen of the Year Award in 1980. That sense of service to Canada drove Dad to hold office as a Stoney Creek councillor between 1973 and 1980 and to help found the Georgetown Armenian Boys Association. He also helped found the Saltfleet Growers Co-operative and the Winona Peach Festival, a centennial project started in 1967 that is still held today.
Dad passed away at the age of 79 in November, 1990. ■