Historical Background
In
1921, George Ajjan's great-great-grandfather bid farewell to his ancestral home in Aleppo, Syria and left for the United States of America.
The family first settled in Central Falls, Rhode Island, and several years
later moved to Paterson, New Jersey, joining the many other silk-weaving
Syrian immigrants who congregated around Mill Street, including the
Haddad, Fattell, and Wardy families.
As was typical of that time, the first generation children of these families to be born in America grew up bilingual. As they learned to respect and honor their Arab heritage and ancient Christian traditions, they simultaneously assimilated with ease into American society like so many from "the Greatest Generation". Accordingly, as the United States entered into the Second World War in 1941, both George Francis Ajjan (see photo below) and Rizkallah "Charles" Joseph Wardy enlisted in the Army and were deployed to the European theater.
The American Dream
Upon
their return from the battlefields, both men married (George F. Ajjan to
Gertrude Fattell and Charles J. Wardy to Elizabeth Haddad) and started
families in typical baby-boomer style (George M., John, and Karen Ajjan;
Joseph, Charles, and Mary Joan Wardy). As the years passed, the both
families uprooted from their original enclave in Paterson and spread out
across Passaic County.
In 1974, at a hafla at St. Ann Melkite Catholic Church, George M. Ajjan (then completing his medical residency) met Mary Joan Wardy (a schoolteacher), and they married a year later, settling in Wayne. On July 5, 1976, just six hours after the bicentennial of the United States of America, Mary Joan gave birth to George Charles Ajjan (named for his 2 grandfathers), and later to Vanessa and Valerie Ajjan.
