The State - News from April 18, 1989

Half the cremated remains of famed Fresno author William Saroyan soon may be laid to rest beneath a stone monument at the local Armenian cemetery. The rest of Saroyan’s ashes were taken to Yerevan, the capital of Soviet Armenia, after the author of “The Time of Your Life” and “The Human Comedy” died in 1981. But the portion of Saroyan’s ashes still in Fresno is in a bronze urn perched on a shelf at the Chapel of Light. The urn is marked “William Saroyan, Author and Humanitarian.” Now, long-time friend Gail Sarkissian is trying to raise money for a monument at Ararat Cemetery so the urn can be interred properly. Sarkissian noted that Saroyan used to go there to meditate, resulting in one of his later books, titled appropriately “Obituaries.” “I thought it would be nice, a monument to Willy in his old cemetery,” she said.