GARABED A. Z. GARABEDIAN, M. D.
Dr. Garabed A. Z. Garabedian, who in the practice of medicine in Tulsa
specializes in the treatment of children's diseases, came to the
United States from the most interesting and historic old city of
Constantinople, Turkey, where his birth occurred September 10, 1888. He
is of Armenian nationality, his parents being Zacar and Virginia
(Balian) Garabedian, both of whom were born in Constantinople. The
father engaged in the banking business, being an official of the
Imperial Ottoman Bank. He was, moreover, one of the oldest Protestant
Armenians of Turkey and was very prominent in establishing a number
of Protestant churches in the Ottoman empire. He did most effective work
as the founder of the Armenian Evangelical church and his forceful
character and qualities of leadership made him very successful in all
that he undertook. He died in 1919 when sixty-three years of age,
when warfare had reached his native country.
Garabed A. Z. Garabedian, whose name introduces this review,
pursued his education in the American high school at Bardezag, a suburb
of
Constantinople, where he completed his course in 1905. In 1896 when a
lad of but eight years he had been obliged to flee with others of his
family to Bulgaria, owing to the Armenian massacre in Turkey, but
after four years spent in that land he returned to Constantinople in
1900 and
pursued his education as indicated. When that course was completed he
entered Robert College at Constantinople but was soon obliged to leave
the city on account of the political situation. Such was the condition
of the country at that time that during one summer he was arrested
three times for getting mail from America, the arrest being made when
he was leaving the British post office. He traveled in Egypt for six
months and later went to the Syrian Protestant College at Beirut,
where he remained until 1907, when he came to America. He then entered
the
College of Science of the University of Illinois and studied night
and day, finishing his course in 1910, having completed four years' work
in
three years and receiving the A. B. degree. During the last year he
acted as instructor in physiology in the University. He next entered
Rush Medical College, the medical department of the University of
Chicago, making his way through college with scholarships that he had
earned. He completed his course in March, 1913, winning the M. D.
degree, after which he spent a year as interne in the Ravenswood
Hospital. From 1914 to 1918 he was connected with the department of
children's diseases in his alma mater, being assistant to Dr. John
Milton Dodson, who was head of the department and dean of the medical
college. Upon a competitive examination he was appointed health officer
in 1915 for the public schools in Chicago but resigned the position in
1918 to come to Tulsa. Here he arrived in the month of September and
through the intervening period has devoted his attention exclusively to
children's diseases. Already his practice has assumed extensive
proportions and is constantly growing as his ability is becoming more
and more recognized.
In Chicago, in 1915 Dr. Garabedian was married to Miss Estelle
Barakian, who was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, a daughter of the
Rev. Haig Barakian, a Congregational minister. Dr. Garabedian belongs
to Petroleum Lodge, No. 474, A. F. & A. M., and to Oklahoma Consistory,
No. 1, A. A. S. R., at Guthrie. He is likewise a member of the Rotary
Club and the University Club, and his religious faith is indicated in
his connection with the First Methodist Episcopal church. Along
professional lines he is identified with the Tulsa, Oklahoma State and
American Medical Associations. He is a man of pronounced professional
ability and one who deserves the greatest credit for what he has
accomplished. There is much that is stimulating and inspiring in his
life record. Reared in a land where people of his nationality and faith
were in constant danger he improved every opportunity for the
acquirement of a liberal education and at length sought "the land of
the free" that he might enjoy the advantages, opportunities and
liberties accorded in the new world. While restricted somewhat
financially his ambition and energy secured for him the way to make
possible the fulfillment of his hopes and his ambitions, and today he
is recognized as a man of wide general learning as well as of
professional skill—a man with whom association means expansion and
elevation.
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