Home is where Harry is

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Sentinel and Enterprise, MA

Aug 5 2012

 

 

Home is where Harry is

 

91-year-old has somewhere to be, people to see, but always in Fitchburg

Sentinel & Enterprisesenlandenterprise.com

 

 

By Alana Melanson

 

amelanson@sentinelandenterprise.com @alanamelanson on Twitter

 

FITCHBURG -- Harry Vizigian is the most difficult 91-year-old man to find.

 

Vizigian may still live in the same home he grew up in on River

Street, but you'd be hard-pressed to find him there on most days.

 

Up and out very early every day in his red 1987 Dodge Omni, Vizigian

doesn't usually return home until the sun starts to set.

 

"I can't stay home," he said. "I've got to go out and enjoy things and

do things."

 

Most Wednesday mornings, Vizigian can be found enjoying breakfast with

his friends at the City Hall Cafe, giving an Armenian blessing prior

to the meal, but soon he's off again to other places and seeing more

friends. He also spends a great deal of time at the Fitchburg Public

Library, studying sports, history and "everything I can get a hold

of," he says.

Vizigian attributes his longevity to the fact that he has never -- not

even once -- smoked or drank in his life, and he eats lots of fruits

and vegetables.

 

Vizigian's father immigrated to the U.S. from Armenia in 1913, with

his mother and brother following in 1920, narrowly escaping the

Armenian Genocide. Though born here, Vizigian learned the Armenian

language from his parents and still speaks it fluently.

 

Vizigian worked for the Fitchburg Sentinel for about 10 years in the

1930s, beginning as an after-school job. The 1940 Fitchburg High

School graduate's duties were to proofread and print the major local

and international headlines of the day, by Linotype, on large paper

and paste them in the first-floor windows so that people could read

them as they were walking by outside.

He worked in the original Sentinel building, which was torn down in

the late 1970s and replaced by the current structure.

 

During the time Vizigian was at the Sentinel, all of the newspaper's

operations -- writing, editing, printing, advertising, circulation --

were run out of the same building, in contrast to today, with layout

occurring in Lowell and printing being done at Devens.

 

Vizigian also delivered about 300 papers each day, sometimes not

finishing until 7 p.m. or later.

 

"Papers used to come out at 4 o'clock in the evening those days," he

said. "They didn't come out early like they do today."

 

And if the press would break down, the newspapers would go out even

later, Vizigian said. There also was not a Sunday edition then, he

said.

 

One perk of his job was that the Sentinel used to give its employees

passes to the Whalom Playhouse in Lunenburg, where he would see

Hollywood actors such as Martha Raye and John Garfield.

 

At the time, Main Street was lined with theaters, and Vizigian would

also get to see the vaudeville shows every Sunday, as well as the big

bands that used to come through, led by genre greats such as Harry

James, Glenn Miller, Duke Ellington and Count Basie.

 

Life was hard in the Depression era, and wages were often only 15 or

25 cents per hour, Vizigian said. He worked many different jobs,

taking what he could, when he could.

 

"You had to in those days," he said. "You had to take your job or else

somebody else would take it to put food on the table."

 

Vizigian credits his sharp memory to his mother, whom he says was a

very smart woman. He can remember as far back as when he was 3 or 4

years old, the image of his family's beloved collie that "looked just

like Lassie."

 

Vizigian remembers the days when a mere 10 cents could buy a hot dog

and a root beer.

 

He remembers the 1936 flood, when River Street was navigable only by

canoe and the 1937 hurricane that brought so many trees down that cars

could not pass through for days.

 

Vizigian remembers the days before Boulder Drive existed, when Main

Street was two ways and devoid of parking meters, filled with horses

and buggies and an area for grazing.

 

The thought of the empty storefronts that now plague Main Street

couldn't be imagined then, he said.

 

"Main Street was booming those days when I was growing up," Vizigian

said. "It was booming."

 

Restaurants, luncheonettes, pharmacies, furriers and stores carrying

shoes, clothing, hardware, jewelry and furniture lined the downtown,

and many were often open until 9 or 10 p.m., he said.

 

Dressing up and walking down Main Street on Friday and Saturday nights

was the thing to do at this time, Vizigian said, with people

congregating up and down the entire way.

 

Downtown began to deteriorate in the 1960s and '70s, he said.

 

"When the malls came in, it killed everything," Vizigian said. "As

soon as television came in, the theaters went out."

 

Following his stint at the Sentinel, Vizigian worked for a farm, a

cleaning service, a bakery, a gun shop and made luggage before

becoming a facilities maintenance man at General Electric, where he

stayed for 20 years until he took a buyout in 1983.

 

Vizigian never had any children and "lived the single life" until

1999, when he met longtime companion Beryl Bonczek, an Englishwoman

and a docent at the Fitchburg Art Museum,

 

Vizigian, who has attended Christ Episcopal Church for 85 of his 91

years and has been an usher there every Sunday for the majority of his

adult life, says he met Bonczek on the day of a big snowstorm.

 

"Coming out of the church, you couldn't see two feet ahead of you," he said.

 

While Vizigian had dated plenty of other women, he says he'd never

before met one like Bonczek.

 

"When I met her, I connected," he said. "She was a nice woman, a very

generous person. She'd do anything for you. And boy, was she smart."

 

Back in England, Bonczek studied acting alongside the likes of

Laurence Olivier, David Niven, Helen Mirren and Judi Dench, Vizigian

said, and she sang with Tom Jones.

 

Bonczek went all over the world, teaching English and art throughout

Europe and as far as Doha, Qatar and the jungles of Papua New Guinea,

he said.

 

She loved to travel and Vizigian was afraid to fly. He turned down

offer after offer to fly to London to visit her daughter, who had a

dental practice in Exeter.

 

"I didn't take the chance to go, and I regret it," he said.

 

Bonczek died in her sleep in 2007 at the age of 68, which is "too

young," Vizigian said.

 

Six months later, Muffin, their Pomeranian, was struck and killed by a

distracted truck driver in the plaza next to their home, with Vizigian

still holding the leash. A year and a half later, he finally found

another Pomeranian, named Nico, who simply "dropped dead" while out on

a walk, he said.

 

Vizigian said he was heartbroken and devastated to have these three

tragedies happen in such rapid succession, but he has done his best to

move on.

 

"That's life," he said. "We've got to make the best of it while we're here."

 

Vizigian considers each day a gift, but has been left wondering where

his 91 years went.

 

"It creeps up on you," he said. "Before you know it, the days and the

months are gone. It's as if I just graduated from high school."

 

Follow Alana Melanson at facebook.com/alanasentinel.

 

http://www.sentinelandenterprise.com/topstory/ci_21240948/home-is-where-harry-is