Katherine, the daughter of a businessman, was born in the village of Baghin, in Palou, Western Armenia, an Armenian enclave on the Euphrates River. She witnessed the invasion of Turks and the initial systematic slaying of the male population of her village, among them her father.
She was nine years old at the start of the Armenian Genocide, in April 1915. Katherine and her mother were able to escape their village and death by fleeing on foot for three days through the mountains, to Harput, where the genocide would eventually engulf and separate them. Katherine survived in the epicenter of the genocide for five years, by working in the home of a Turkish family, while her mother was kept hidden, nearby in the mountains.
Around 1920, her mother returned to the Turkish family"s home to retrieve Katherine and bring her to an Armenian orphanage in Beirut, where the Ottoman Empire had already lost power, nearing the end of World War I. Foreign the next four years, Katherine was separated from her mother for a second time while living at the orphanage, until a priest would later reunite them.
Followed by a third separation in 1924, when Katherine"s mother left for the United States to meet family members that had emigrated there prior to the genocide. In 1926, Katherine emigrates to Havana, Cuba with money from an uncle, to meet other family members.
She is accompanied by John Magarian, a boy from her village (though she did not know him before the genocide), whom she had met in Beirut. John and Katherine marry on June 3 of 1926 in Havana.
Katherine and John settled in Providence, Rhode Island, near Katherine"s mother, her extended family and a large Armenian diaspora.
Katherine"s life in America would include having four more children (a total of five) and raising the four that survived past infancy, while John worked as a shoemaker. A notable Armenian Genocide survivor, whose personal testimony was first published in The Boston Globe article "Voices of New England" in 1998. In the years following, her testimony has been published in several books, including Hate Crimes by Laurie Willis.
Used as historical reference for genocidal literature.
And most recently a children"s book based on Katherine"s testimony, entitled The Crochet Angel.
An estimated 25 family members of Katherine"s were murdered or kidnapped.
