My name is Mary L. LETTS Foess, nee Judith Movsisian.  This is my story, a nonfiction novel, to share with you.  My style is an autobiographical memoir, a one-of-a-kind book.  Born in Washington, D.C., on September --, 1945, I left Providence Hospital when I was four days old.  In foster care for eight months, I was taken by Lt. Commander David D. Letts, U.S. Navy, Department of War, and Eathel G. MCCALLUM Letts, to my new home in Tacoma Park, Maryland, on May 11, 1946.

My adoption was filed by Montgomery County Circuit Court in Rockville, Maryland, on October 23, 1947.  My legal name was then amended to read, 
" Mary Louise Letts."

My Armenian identity, by birth, was forever sealed by the court of jurisdiction in Maryland.  My original birth certificate would be locked up in the Department of Public Health under Vital Records in Washington, D.C. - - permanently unavailable to me.  

Thirty-nine years later, Fall of 1984, I learned that the Armenian Genocide had destroyed every single one of my Movsisian family members except for my grandparents, uncle, and one male first cousin on my grandmother's side. the lucky ones who got out alive!  ALL others were killed by the Turkish armies.  Fate would claim that their only granddaughter, Judith Movsisian, would be the last survivor to bear their name.  MOVSISIAN means "son of Moses."

My search was an unrelenting quest to know the truth of my origins and to find every last living family member to claim as my own, my birthright.

 

Synopsis

The backdrop of my odyssey, MY ARMENIAN GENESIS: THE LAST SURVIVOR, by Mary L. MOVSISIAN Foess, is the Armenian Genocide. This book of biographies and memories, based on true events, has two themes: my immigrant grandparents’ journey to the West Pullman area of Chicago, Illinois; then the silent, invisible event in the Movsisian family’s life, one never celebrated by any of them - - a baby girl’s birth, in Washington, D.C., 1945.  This occurred one month after the end of World War II. This six pound, two-ounce newborn was destined to be the very last girl to inherit the nearly extinct, mitochondrial DNA from their female lineage. Judith Movsisian’s Armenian history dates back to the origins of mankind: the Cradle of Civilization. Their village was located in the Euphrates River Valley. Fleeing from Nor Kegh, Charsandjak, Kharpert, the region hardest hit by the Turkish armies, my grandparents, Manoog and Yeghsapert Movsisian, and uncle, emigrated separately to the United States of America. Grandfather arrived in 1913, whereas Grandmother and Uncle emigrated in 1921 to join him there. Few villagers got out alive from their homeland, a region especially targeted because it held a high number of educated Armenians: shop owners, school masters, physicians, bankers, lawyers, and priests. Most of their churches were destroyed during the massacres! Armenians were the very first group to accept Christianity (301 A.D.).

Grandmother’s horrific journey, known as ‘the death walk,’ on the escape routes, led her young son, first cousin Sarkis Boyadjian, as well as herself, to settle in Cherbourg, France. They were the lone survivors of her side, whereas Grandfather’s entire tribe was killed. Because he came thirteen years earlier than she did, he was able to set up shop as a fruit vendor, the first reality in his dream to thrive in the city of Chicago. This would lead to his opening up a dry cleaning, suit making, and tailoring business. An educated man, he had been a schoolmaster in Armenia; he could speak four or more languages and read or write in both the Armenian and Roman alphabets. His hopes for his then only son were for him to become an attorney in this land of opportunity. Grandfather also was among the four men who founded the very first Armenian Apostolic Church in the Midwest, named Holy Savior Armenian Apostolic Church, consecrated on October 26, 1924. Having the voice of an angel, as well as absolute pitch, Manoog Movsisian later became the choir director there. These God-given, musical gifts were passed on to five female descendants, four of whom were not raised by the Movsisians or aware of their Armenian heritage!

How did the last living female survivor, baby Judith, carry on the family ties by continuing the female line (the X chromosome) of her Armenian ancestors, despite never having known or seen any of them? How and where did she find the magical key to her given name, systematically hidden from her until September 23, 1983? The catalyst was a World War II veteran, who later became a great orator there. This tough, smart, successful lawyer had once pleaded two cases in the U.S. Supreme Court. It was he who Grandmother had to bury in the sand before they reached their European home. A tiny breathing tube allowed him to breathe. Her swift action protected him from the murderous, Turkish armies.  He arrived in Chicago with his mother at the age of nine; sixty-four years later he would hear a proverbial knock on his kitchen door. Who was this tenacious, light olive-skinned, elementary school teacher who stared at him through his kitchen door? Two pair of identical, dark brown eyes locked within mere inches of separation. This event was the beginning of a perceived, impenetrable wall breaking down. “Oh, please come in!” he would say to her, with love radiating from his eyes.

That very moment would be the defining event of Judith’s odyssey, as only Uncle could give her the seven magical keys that unlocked virtually every door which had remained systematically closed, until the day following Easter Sunday, 1986. How did this day jump start her continuing odyssey, the one which would lead to Judith’s full family reunification with some of the Movsisians and her father’s family, the Leggs, from Virginia, whose forebear, Colonel John Thomas Legg,  was among an early group of wealthy and/or titled settlers from England - - early to mid-1600’s? Judith’s white, male ancestors set foot in either the colony of Maryland or that of Virginia. They soon owned plantations which raised tobacco.

The biggest surprises at Judith Movsisian’s journey’s conclusion included the discoveries of her heritage, about 5%, from two Native American tribes, Piscataway and Powhatan (now considered in the Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia areas). In addition, two Revolutionary War veterans, Fortunatus H. Legg and son William Legg, and three Mayflower ancestors (Cooper, Tilley, and Winslow surnames) were revealed to Judith as her journey continued. The knowledge of these DNA-based, family jewels, formerly buried from her access, like nerve gas in steel containers in the Atlantic Ocean, were a pleasant shock in her forties. The court-mandated, total secrecy, intended for a lifetime, was thus expunged from Judith’s consciousness. Now living in the thumb region of Michigan with her husband and nearby children and grandchildren, she could have found this deluge of genomic groups, known to be a part of her inherited DNA forming her completed family history, a case for her choosing a path of total assimilation into the “melting pot.” Instead, Judith Movsisian, now renamed Mary Louise LETTS Foess, found it impossible to return to her former, “blank slate” existence. This had included having had no family medical history for herself or any of her children. With these gifts from her natural families intact, she now sees her features in the mirror as a blending from the three diverse groups: her given inheritance from Armenian, northern European, and Native American gene pools.

Judith’s identity, and thus, her original birth certificate bearing her rare, Armenian surname, was permanently sealed and hidden by the Department of Public Health in Washington, D.C., in the metropolitan vital records division - - under lock and key. How could she have possibly realized her identity? And which courthouse played a hand in this breakthrough, issuance of a copy of her Final Order of Adoption complete with the raised-golden seal? A copy of her beautiful mother’s black-and-white Fenger High School graduation photo, as well? The key to Judith’s success was fated to be in her Armenian uncle’s hands. A precious jewel in her life, the only relative in his generation she would ever see, had allowed the impossible to bear fruit. The love in his eyes on that fateful day in mid-October, 1986, would prove to be more powerful than the explosion of the atom bomb. Judith’s grandmother, Yeghsapert DEORIAN Movsisian, unknowingly, had been the catalyst. The thousands of steps taken on her journey to freedom were not without pain and violence!  With each step she took, Grandmother assured one more heartbeat for each of her many descendants . . . now numbering twenty-one. Though assimilated into the American culture, they could never forget the gift of their Armenian heritage, one from one of the oldest known civilizations on earth.

 

       Mary (age 7) and Dale De Mott (age 5),                            The De Motts & Tommy and Bobby Letts
       Lansing Township, MI, 1952                                                Lansing Twsp., MI 1951

Dale, a Vietnam War veteran, had been a figher pilot during his military service there. His life was saved by Mary, his next-door playmate, in the summer of 1949 when he ran out on W. St. Joseph St. near their driveway. Neither Richard nor Harold, Dale's older brothers, were paying attention at that moment due to a distraction. Four-year-old Mary rushed out in front of the moving pre-World War II car, grabbed him, and dragged him to safety. This vehicle barely missed hitting both of them!