Ohannes Zoroghlian

Obituary for Ohannes Zoroghlian 1933-2025

Ohannes Zoroghlian was born in Beirut, Lebanon on September 24, 1933. He died in peace in Glendale, California on November 22, 2025. He was 92 years old.

His name was also John, Jean, Juan, depending what country he was in. He spoke, English, Armenian, Spanish, and Arabic.

He is the 3rd of 6 children. Garabed, Mary, Jirair, Lucy, and Araxi. He was close to his siblings.

His parents, Mgrdtich Zoroghlian, and Zabel Yessayan were born in Dikranagerd Turkey.

John is survived by his children, Anita, Isabel and Garo. Also survived by Isabel’s spouse Hanry and their children, Karina, Nadia and Talia. As well as Garo’s former spouse Marine, and their children Max, and Aline.

John was a boy scout, “Kaylig” from Homenetmen. He was very good in school, he loved geography, and sports, including basketball, and later became a ping pong champion ,and he also loved to play beach volleyball. He also played drums for the school band, and he played harmonica into his later years.

John went to school until he was 13 years old, and left, in order to help out the family, because they were very poor. That first year, he worked as an airplane mechanic, at the Beirut airport. Then he went on to help his brother Garo, in the family garage as a car mechanic.

In 1955, when he was 22, he saw an opportunity to travel to Venezuela. He had been studying English by correspondence to go the US, but this opportunity showed up in Venezuela instead. He felt the unrest in Beirut, and felt that it was time to look for new horizons for himself and his family. He crossed the Mediterranean Sea, and the Atlantic Ocean in an Italian freight ship, where he was exposed to a lot of Italian Napolitan food and music, which he loved. It took a month to arrive to Venezuela.

There he met a member of the Armenian community, who helped him find a job, as he didn’t have any money by the time he got there. Eventually, after surviving hunger, malaria, and loneliness, he found some work opportunities. Then he brought his brother and the rest of the  family to join him in Tucupido, Venezuela. They did well for themselves. They opened their own business, helping with fixing government trucks.

Then, at 38 it was time for him to get married, so he went to Lebanon and after a year of looking he met Rita Yaghjian, whom he married, and went back and settled in Caracas, Venezuela, where they started their family.

Eventually he and the family moved to Uruguay, where he started a delicious bakery named “El Manjar.” His kids got to go to Armenian school and were part of the community.

He loved to play and sing with his kids, he loved to eat mezze,  travel, go fishing, hunting, play backgammon "tavli",living by the beach, napping,soccer, Futbol, John Wayne movies,his animals, including dogs, deer and hamsters. He loved to entertain, had lots of friends. He was very helpful to a lot of people in the community.

At one point he moved to Milwaukee and lived with his sister’s family for a few years. Then when he developed symptoms of Alzheimer’s ,his kids moved him to California, to be near them. During this time, he got to meet and spend time with his grandchildren whom he loved.

He enjoyed sharing  meals, and would say “Ger Ger”, which means, “eat, eat” in Armenian. Loved to make sure everyone was taken care of. And he would say and sing “I love you baby” a lot. His last words were “I love you”.