Papers of the Armenian-American journalist, covering the years 1986-2005 when Ms. Samuelian wrote interviews and reportage for The Armenian Observer and The Armenian Reporter International weekly newspapers and for Armenian International Magazine. Her research files for her book "Kero Antoyan: His Life and Art" (1988) are also included.

Janet Samuelian was born September 22, 1934 in Mt. Vernon, N.Y. to her Armenian parents, Samuel and Zephyr Samuelian, immigrants from northern Persia, and grew in Scarsdale, N.Y., the elder of two children. Janet loved art from an early age and enrolled at The Cooper Union School of Art in New York City at age 18. There Janet met and later married architect Thomas Aidala, with whom she had two children. They moved first to California and, in 1960 to Rome, Italy. After the marriage ended in 1962, she came back to New York to raise her two children, first there and later in Berkeley, Calif. Janet worked as a graphic designer for Giaccio and Associates until 1969, then as a freelancer in Berkeley, and later on in the 1980's, for Merle Norman Cosmetics in Los Angeles. On her return to Manhattan in the 1960's, she befriended other Armenian-Americans and soon developed a lifelong passion for her ancestral culture. Moving back to Los Angeles in 1983, she became a writer for two American-based Armenian newspapers, The Armenian Observer and The Armenian Monitor, reporting on Armenian cultural events and figures, both here and abroad. [Adapted from The Desert Sun obituary, February 5, 2011]

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