Ermance Rejebian

Ermance Rejebian (March 17, 1906 - September 29, 1989) was an Armenian American woman who captivated Texas audiences with her ardor as a book reviewer, lecturer, broadcaster, and writer. During her 40+ year career, she inspired dozens of book clubs (known as Rejebian Book Clubs and also under various affiliated names) and wrote two books detailing her and her husband's struggles amidst the Armenian genocide.

Personal life Ermance Rejebian was born Ermance Marion Varsaverian in the Ottoman Empire on March 17, 1906. Her father was a prominent lawyer for the Ottoman government as well as a leader in the Armenian community. Her mother came from landed gentry. She then attended the University of California, Southern Branch (now UCLA), earning an elementary grade teacher's certification in January 1927. She worked as a teacher until her marriage to Vahram Rejebian in 1928.

Ermance and Vahram moved to Houston shortly after their marriage, and their son Myron was born there in 1930. Daughter Mary was born in Dallas in 1936.

Rejebian Clubs In Dallas in the 1930s, book reviews were a very popular form of entertainment and women formed various clubs at which they would gather to listen to a reviewer speak. At one such club in late 1936, Mrs. Etta Mae Pickens first heard Ermance Rejebian speak. Rejebian had previously heard another reviewers telling of The Forty Days of Musa Dagh and was disillusioned with that reviewers' lack of knowledge of the Armenian culture and history, so she gave her own review at the Dallas Story League. Pickens was highly impressed and, upon meeting Rejebian again in the summer of 1937, asked to join Rejebian's club. She gave an average of 42 reviews a month for the first 34 years of her career, before having to cut down well into her 60s. That same year, Time magazine named her one of the Outstanding Women of the Southwest. Four years later, in 1963, she won the Zonta Service Award.