A grande dame passes on

Roselle Bezazian Kemalyan
October 4, 1909-February 20, 2008

Roselle Kemalyan lived a life full of grace and style, adventures and compassion. Her faith, her family and her music were centers of her days. She was born and educated in Illinois, graduated from Oberlin College and Music Conservatory in Ohio, and became a music professor. She was a master teacher with a gift and flair for imparting knowledge. After her marriage to Levon Kemalyan (he died in 1976), she made her home in Fresno. After his death she became more thoroughly involved in her church life, in her music, and in visiting and helping out with children and grandchildren, moving in 1986, to Pasadena to be closer to family. She was a master story teller, able to weave her experiences into such vivid word pictures that her listeners felt they were experiencing life along side her. She was preceded in death by granddaughter, Jennifer K. Starbird, in 2004. Beloved mother of Constance K. Wright and her husband Gerald, and Katharine K. Starbird and her husband Thomas; beloved grandmother of John Wright and Gregory Starbird and his wife Heather; and beloved great-grandmother of Simone Dziadzan Starbird. A Memorial Service was held in Pasadena on Tuesday, February 26, 2008. Internment at Belmont Memorial Park, Fresno, California. Remembrances may be made to the First Presbyterian Church, Fresno, California, or to the music program of La Canada Presbyterian Church, La Canada, California.
Published in the Fresno Bee on 3/4/2008.

Roselle's daughter Kathy and I went to high school and college together and Kathy's sister Connie was just a couple years ahead of us. I was blessed to enjoy the hospitality of the Kemalyan home where ideas and values and history and faith and music were part of the ordianry conversation. Roselle was, as her obituary indicates, a stunning musician and I will never forget her coming into our humanities class to introduce us all to some of the major composers in western music. She would tell us about them and play for us. What a gift to a bunch of teenagers!

She was also one of the great Armenian cooks on whose food I grew up and always had madzoon (Armenian yogurt) going. (All right, that wasn't my fave but the fact that she cultured it impressed me.)

May Roselle rest in peace and rise with Christ in glory.

--the BB

There is a passing reference to Connie Kemalyan in my post "Genocide has a face." If you are new to this blog, you will learn a lot more about me in that post from February 2005.