Martin Donabedian

On December 27, 1928, Martin (Mardios) Donabedian was born to Aharon and Sultan Donabedian and grew up in the Bronx borough of New York City, New York. Martin’s parents had immigrated to the United States from the village of Sebastia in traditional Armenia (western Armenia, now Turkey) post genocide. Martin was the older brother of Violet Tressel, four years his junior, who passed away in 2011. He also had an older brother that he never met who died in Armenia at the age of four before his parents emigrated.

Growing up in depression era New York, young Martin learned to navigate life’s travails by trial and error, as most young people living during that era did. With four seasons painting the canvas of a playground built when the city’s name was still New Amsterdam, Martin played on the cobble stone streets of the Bronx with mates drawn from immigrant families of Ireland, Poland, Italy, Greece, Puerto Rico, Jews from everywhere, and of course, Armenians fleeing the genocide.

Early in his life, a young Martin gained an uncanny sense of responsibility, whether it be to serve as a translator for his mother, help out his father with his small teetering business, becoming both book keeper and business manager, or to be his younger sister’s protector.

Martin was a precocious young man with an innate intelligence and curiosity. At fourteen he tested for, and gained entrance to New York’s most prestigious secondary school, the all male, Stuyvesant High School.

After Martin finished with Stuyvesant, he decided that he needed a life change. He joined the United States Marine Corps during the height of the Korean War, but instead of seeing conflict, Martin was sent to the Sierras in Northern California for high altitude extreme cold weather combat training.

Having completed his military stint, in 1951 at the age of 21, Martin was left a young man without direction, and more importantly, without a collage degree, which his wife to be, Maro Manoogian pointed out to him upon their meeting at an Armenian singles dance that his sister Violet steered him to for the soul purpose of a chance meeting. It would be at that dance the smitten Martin was most directly told by Maro, “I would never marry a man without a collage degree.”

Paid for by the G. I. Bill, he enrolled the following fall at Columbia University where Martin would graduate in three years time with a B. S. in Philosophy, after which, and by no mean coincidence, he gave Maro Manoogian his name. They were each twenty-four years of age as they began their new life as husband and wife.

One year later, their daughter, Laura was born. Two years after that, their first son, Randy was born. Three years after that Martin earned a Masters Degree from Yale University in a single year while driving a cab at night. And Maro got pregnant with their last, and perhaps most significant child, Noel. He was born nine months hence with the congenital condition of Club Feet.

During the next decade, Martin and Maro shepherded Noel through many orthopedic surgeries and extended physical therapies. They never blinked, and never complained, especially Martin. He doted on Noel’s special needs and made it his mission for his youngest sone to have a normal life.

In 1963, the expanded Donabedian household, including Maro’s retired parents moved to Los Angeles where Martin and Maro both secured the jobs that would span the rest of their working careers. Being a an Ivy Leaguer and progressive in thought, Martin believed and embraced women’s equality, always taking pride in Maro’s accomplishments at home and in the workplace. They shared in all things, pursuit of career, as well as cooking and cleaning, with the one exception of the yard, which was Martin’s exclusive domain.

First Laura, then Randy married and had two children apiece, Danelle and Rachel Dale, and Jacqueline and Patrick Donabedian, giving Martin and Maro four loving grandchildren, and a place to channel their parental love.

On September 18, 2012, Martin’s beloved wife, Maro passed away, leaving him with a gaping hole in his heart, while struggling against the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s Disease. It would be Noel, that last child that received so much from his father and mother, who would now become Martin’s loving caregiver, seeing to his ever increasing needs, and never complaining about it along the way.

Martin Donabedian, patriarch to his family, passed away on Thursday, June 30, 2016. May God rest his soul. We love you, and will miss you everyday until we see you again with Mom.

A "Celebration of Life" service will be held on Thursday, July 7th at 10:00 am at Bastian & Perrott, Oswald Mortuary. Interment to follow at Oakwood Memorial Park, 22601 Lassen Street, Chatsworth, California.

Arrangements under the direction of Bastian & Perrott, Oswald Mortuary, Northridge, CA.