Seraganian and Bazoian
Seraganian and Bazoian
Harry Seraganian
Harutiun (Harry) Seraganian was born in 1908 in the mountainous village of Astghaberd, now called Adakli. Harutiun’s maternal grandfather, Kapriel Nubarian, moved from Astghaberd to Istanbul, and then from Istanbul to Brantford to work at Cockshut Plow Works. When Harutiun was 7, his family and all the Armenians in the village were told to leave their homes, under the escort of the police, for a ‘safer place.’ After leaving the village, he was separated from his family, and his mother and father were murdered. He eventually moved to Kharput, where he lived with an older couple and learned shoemaking. Later, he got in touch with relatives in Brantford and made his way to Halep, where he stayed with an Armenian man from Brantford until he got permission to enter Canada using a Syrian passport. In Brantford, he opened Harry’s Shoe Repair on Queen St.
Mike Bazoian
In 1926, Misak (Mike) Bazoian was given permission to move to Canada from Constantinople. He immigrated to Canada that year through the Canadian Pacific Steamships Limited and started working at Cockshutt Plow Works, a major employer of Brantford’s Armenian community. His uncle Garabed and cousin Tatos Bazoian, who had settled in Brantford in 1902, sponsored him. Both of them worked at Cockshutt’s. Later, he opened the Brantford Brass Foundry on Bridge Street. In 1954, he opened a restaurant, Erie Grill, at 60 Erie Ave.
