| Date | Comment | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1920's-1944 |
Île de France Destiny by
Leslie Jean Erganian
My father grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. It was there that his grandfather, Mesrop Garoian, opened a luxury tailoring shop. Mesrop’s win for women’s tailoring at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair gave him a reputation from the outset which he used to cater to Midwestern women in search of true luxury. Women’s riding gear was one of his specialties in which he was aided in his endeavors by a life sized stuffed horse that sat right in the middle of the shop. Women of the horsy set could jump up and have their sidesaddle-styled riding clothes tailored to perfection. Apparently, the tailoring horse fascinated my father from an early age as did the general hustle and bustle of a busy shop. He used to tell of finding a way to stick around and help out from time to time by sewing on a tag or a button or two, smitten as he was with the general atmosphere of the place and with the stuffed horse in particular. Having seen what a beautiful repair of a broken flat felt seam on a pair of jeans he could still do by hand was testament to the truth of his tale. Custom tailoring was big enough business in the twenties so that my father’s grandfather had a thriving business, at least for a while. Another request of and service provided by his shop was to sew embroidered ribbons from whatever luxury liner his clients might soon be traveling into their luggage and garments in advance of a trip. Something about one of the ribbons offered caught young Alex’s eye, the ribbon for the SS Île de France. Built by the Compagnie Generale Transatlantique, she set upon her maiden voyage on June 22, 1927 from Le Havre to New York, just shortly after my father turned eight. The SS Île de France was not considered to be the largest ship, or even the fastest ship on the sea, but she had as her unique distinction, the claim of being the first ship built in the Art Deco style. Her use of fine materials and design helped her define a new level of luxury, and before long, she was widely regarded as one of the most beautiful ships ever built. My father snipped off a piece of ribbon from the embroidered roll at his grandfather’s tailor shop and took it home with him to store in whatever place little children store such things, things that spark little minds to wonder and to dream. He would keep this ribbon with him throughout his whole life. Was it destiny then, that two weeks after flying and surviving his final mission on the 28th of February, 1944, the twelfth birthday of the woman that ten years later would become his wife, he should be assigned to travel home on the SS. Île de France. No longer a ship in her glory, having been berthed for many years at a pier in New York, after Nazi bombings put an end to transatlantic travel on September 1, 1939, she’d been pulled into military service by the British in 1941, and reconfigured for troop transportation. Of all the ships in the world, she is the one that came to claim my father and in a nine-day Atlantic crossing in the early spring of 1944 departing Saturday, March 25th, and arriving Monday, April 3rd, she brought him safely across the ocean and deposited him back on the shores of America. | lje 2009-06-16 |
| England, August 13, 1943 | Alex with Lt. Kelly and crew of the 92nd Bomb Group beside a Boeing B-17 "Flying Fortress". | sra 2010-04-26 |
