Seeds in the Wind

Part Armenian history, part World War I history, but most dramatically, Seeds In The Wind is an intimate portrait of one family’s struggle to survive and triumph – with dignity and humanity – over the most life-threatening adversities. 


Mary Ovian, daughter of Armenian immigrants, has written a compelling and captivating narrative of the 1915-23 Genocide as witnessed and told by her mother, Anna Samsatlian Ovian. 


As a young girl in Adiyaman, Turkey, Anna recalls her peaceful childhood: sharing a home and adventures with relatives, visiting the vineyards and orchard groves at harvest time, the “delicious smells” of the fascinating and boisterous market place, care-free days at school, family engagements and weddings, and the religious rituals of the Armenian Apostolic Church, practicing Christianity since 301 A.D.


Anna’s idyllic and innocent childhood came to an inhumane, merciless, and violent ending when the Turkish Government officially unleashed its genocidal policy in 1915 to eliminate and remove all Armenians from their treasured ancient land. Men and boys were ruthlessly slaughtered; women and children were brutally forced marched in nightmarish refugee columns. The reader can genuinely feel and sense their horror and agony, as in one chapter titled “Oh, for one drop of water.”


Over 1.5 million Armenians were massacred, but “miraculously” Anna and a few relatives survived and immigrated to America in 1920 – “a country which has opportunities and freedom known nowhere else in the world. I am happy here,” – where she married another survivor, and raised a large, multi-generational family that has prospered and thrived into the 21st century.