A Matriarch’s Mystique

Written for AGBU Impact Magazine 2025 by Laura L. Constantine. Illustration by Willa Gebbie.

Against the backdrop of the early 20th century, a time marked by upheaval, war, and migration, an Armenian woman stands out as an unshakable branch in her family tree. Prapionne Doumanian, born in 1900 in the coastal region of Cilicia (located in then Ottoman Turkey), built a legacy firmly rooted in acts of courage, wisdom, and resilience. These qualities continue to shape the trajectory of her family across three generations.

Known to her descendants as Medzmama (grandmother), she possessed far more than a place in the family hierarchy. In both word and deed, she grew to become the matriarch of the family as well as her community.

Two of her eleven grandchildren have come forth to honor her memory, representing all those whose lives were touched by her spirited determination to overcome the horrors she experienced in the past by focusing squarely on the future.

Claudia Nazarian of Philadelphia, PA, was too young to remember meeting her grandmother just once in person. In contrast, her cousin Hriar Cabayan of Oakland, California grew up with the Doumanian family in Aleppo, Syria. Interestingly, both insist that, without this singular woman as the head of the family, their lives would have turned out much differently. They attribute their good fortune in life to their grandmother’s personal credo: Never look back.

Cabayan explains that Prapionne and her husband Vahan Doumanian had survived the Armenian Genocide of 1915 as well as the 1920 Massacre of the Hadjin people by the Kemalist Army. Yet, like many Armenian men of his era, Vahan carried deep emotional scars. “His trauma led him to retreat from life, whereas my grandmother took the opposite approach. She was compelled to take the wheel and steer her family toward a brighter future.”

He also marveled at how she never spoke of the details of the Genocide. “She did not recount what she or her other family members suffered,” said Cabayan. “Instead of burdening her children and grandchildren with the traumas of the past, she kept those dark years in her own private vault.”

What Cabayan described is a coping strategy common among Armenian and other genocide survivors. For him, Prapionne embodies the insights of psychologist Viktor Frankl. Author of 39 books, including the bestseller In Search of Meaning, Frankl, a Holocaust survivor, argued that suffering must be met with meaning, not fixation. Like Frankl, Prapionne seemed to understand that healing was not found in dwelling on past indignities but in refusing to let it define her and her family’s destiny.

The daughter of Parsegh and Aigul Kirkyasharian, Prapionne attended Catholic school in nearby Adana. By the turn of the 20th century, the Catholic missionaries from France had planted a deep stake in the area. This offered her a westernized influence, which perhaps accounted for her more expansive world view.

One of the rare times that her backstory surfaced in the family, it revealed how, during the 1920 Massacre of the Armenians, she and Vahan happened to be in the Kars Bazaar at the time of the attack. Nonetheless, they soon fled to Iskenderun, which was part of Syria at the time.

Prapionne bore six children, and in 1939, the family relocated to Aleppo. Her four surviving children included Marie Cabayan; Krikor Doumanian; Ara Doumanian, and Anahid Pridjian. During this period, Prapionne became active in the Armenian community and was in the forefront of establishing the Djemaran Armenian School in Aleppo. She became the de-facto matriarch, not only of her own children but also her extended family, friends and community.

Claudia Nazarian’s mother Anahid is one of the Doumanians’ daughters. Claudia was only a year old when she first met her grandmother in Lebanon. Apparently, Prapionne was studying English, even in her sixties, just to be able to speak with her American grandchildren. However, she passed away unexpectedly at age 64, and, while never setting foot on American soil, her presence and guidance had already crossed oceans.

Nazarian inherited a trove of memories from her parents and cousins. “There’s this wellspring of emotion around her. Even my father, who met her just once during a visit to Beirut, adored her. She radiated kindness and caring, which was somehow transferred to our household in Chicago.” Nazarian remarked on how her grandmother decided to send her daughter abroad to America for her university education. “It was a very bold move in those days to send a young female such a long distance from home. There was no internet, WhatsApp or easy ways to stay in touch. Yet, she remained deeply involved in my mother’s life, and by extension, mine.”

Cabayan provided a vivid example of the weight of his grandmother’s influence. “Medzmama was a rare strategic thinker, with a gift for long-term vision. She saw in the future what others couldn’t.” He added that she was also very pragmatic and calculating. “She did her research before making important decisions. When her brother, who had made a good life in Argentina, encouraged the family to join him, everyone started packing. But Medzmama instructed us to calm down. Then she flew from Syria to Argentina all on her own to check things out. She returned with a verdict. ‘No one is moving,’ she declared with great finality.”

Honestly, her influence on me was even stronger than my own parents, and that’s no disrespect to them. It’s just who she was.

According to Cabayan, this critical decision forever altered the entire family’s trajectory. “I wouldn’t be who I am today,” said Cabayan, a scientist who holds a B.S. in Science and a B.S. in Engineering from the American University of Beirut, followed by a Ph.D. in Mathematical Physics from the University of Illinois. He was a mathematics professor at New York University and McGill University before joining the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and subsequently working in an advisory capacity within various private and public institutions. Cabayan also shared that his uncles, Prapionne’s sons, were great achievers. “Ara trained at the Mayo Clinic and became a prominent heart surgeon and a cornerstone of his extended family in the Midwest. His brother Krikor became a dentist. Medzmama knew the Middle East had no long-term opportunity for us. Her clarity was astonishing.”

Cabayan added: “Honestly, her influence on me was even stronger than my own parents, and that’s no disrespect to them. It’s just who she was. Even my own father, related to her only by marriage, adored her more than his own sisters.” He also mentioned how, when his father passed in his youth, Prapionne wasted no time integrating him and his bereft mother Marie into the family. Through her good graces, they were treated with the same loving care and attention she paid to her own children.

Her guidance continues to shape the family’s identity. She lies buried in the Armenian Cemetery in Beirut, where Prapionne moved in her final years. “She was the neck that turned the head,” says Claudia Nazarian, in a nod to a line from the hit movie, My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

Prapionne Doumanian may have lived in one corner of the world, but her spirit lives on through all who were touched by her. In 2025, Hriar Cabayan and Claudia Nazarian decided to honor her memory with a donation in her name to the AGBU Children’s Center in the Malatya district of Yerevan. It is one of three afterschool centers in Yerevan currently under renovation, on schedule to provide character and talent building activities through the arts, sports, and community life. A plaque on the wall of a brand-new gymnasium bears the name Prapionne Doumanian. “We felt it a fitting tribute to Medzmama’s avid support of education and the values and ethics she instilled in the youth,” explained Nazarian. “It was the youth she cared about, because they represented the future—the antidote to a past that remains a mystery to this day.”