Ararat Armenian Cemetery

Thank you to all of our Veterans and to their families. We appreciate your service and the sacrifices you have made for all of us. At Ararat and Masis Ararat Armenian Cemeteries, all of our Veterans are honored with a flag on their grave. The grounds of both cemeteries are open until dusk. If you need help finding a grave, please stop by the office. We will be open until 4:00 p.m. today.

This week will mark 20 years since the passing of Varaz Samuelian. Stefani Booroojian from KSEE 24 visited the cemetery recently to do a story on Varaz. You can see the full story tonight at 11:00.

Our Board of Directors and staff would like to offer our sincere thanks to Michael and Andrea Der Manouel for their generous donation of a golf cart to the Cemetery. We are always looking for ways to serve our families better and we thank the Der Manouels for noticing that we needed a larger golf cart for taking families around our grounds.

William Saroyan was born in Fresno on this day (August 31) in 1908. His parents were Armenak and Takoohi Saroyan. Saroyan is Fresno's best known native son. It was his wish to have half of his ashes interred in Fresno and half in Armenia. One of his grave sites is at Ararat Armenian Cemetery in Fresno and the other is at the Komitas Pantheon in Yerevan.

We will have a Memorial Day Prayer Service on Monday, May 25, 2015, at both Ararat and Masis Ararat Armenian Cemeteries. The services will be led by the Armenian clergy of the Central San Joaquin Valley. Services will be held at 10:00 a.m. at the Monument to the Unknown Martyr in Ararat. Services at Masis will follow at 10:30 a.m. at the Tehlirian Monument.

A small, but dedicated, group of young people came out to the Cemetery yesterday to place flags for Veteran's Day. Many thanks to Lauren Chardukian and Marina Chardukian for organizing the event. They are pictured here with our other volunteers at the graves of some of their family members.

Thanks to Stefani Booroojian for this wonderful story about Varaz Samuelian's bequest to the Armenia Fund, which funded the construction of a community center in the Armenian town of Artik. Stefani notes at the end of her report that the citizens of Artik are so grateful for Samuelian's gift that they are trying to raise money to place a marker on his grave at Masis.

Last week (May 3) marked the anniversary of Varaz Samuelian's birth in 1917. Many visitors to the Cemetery ask about his grave and we are sad to tell them that he does not have a headstone. He is buried in Masis, near the Tehlirian Monument. If you would like to visit his grave, please come by the office and we will direct you.

We would like to thank the Soghomon Tehlirian Chapter of the ARF for their donation, which enabled us to have the Tehlirian Monument professionally cleaned for Martyr's Day.

Our website is now up! Please take a look at our History and Notable Burials sections. We are pleased to serve as a historical resource for the Fresno Armenian community.

We invite you to commemorate the Centennial of the Armenian Genocide at Ararat Armenian Cemetery. Services will be held at the Monument to the Unknown Martyr on Thursday, April 23 at 5:00 p.m. To the best of our knowledge, the Monument to the Unknown Martyr is the only location in the United States where remains of a Genocide victim are interred. Please join us in paying our respects to all lost in the Genocide.