She was likely the youngest child of Haji Zakar and Gadar Der Avedisian, members of an important family in Arapkir, Turkey. She had three brothers and one sister. She was married to Mikael Davidian at a very young age, as was the custom. She had to leave her family and was in the care of her mother-in-law, who did not treat her well. Almaskar had a son Zakar who died very young and a daughter Zovinar. Mikael emigrated like many Armenian men in 1913, likely to escape the newly instated Ottoman military draft of Christians. In 1915, Almaskar's three brothers were killed in the Armenian Genocide and the family was torn apart. It seems Almaskar and Zovinar either avoided the deportations or only went a short while before being able to return to Arapkir where they remained for a few more years. During this time a distant relative Kevork DerAvedissian from Erzincan escaped to Arapkir and found refuge with Almaskar. In a census from 1919, Almaskar appears to be living in the Shahroz to Shuga neighborhood of Arapkir, possibly with her mother known as Gadar on a family tree but as Takoumar in the census. It is unknown when her mother exactly died. Life for Armenians in Arapkir became more dangerous again with the political changes which came with the founding of Turkey in 1923, and many Arapkir Armenians left en masse for Aleppo, Syria. Almaskar and Zovinar likely went in one of these caravans, as in 1924 they resided in Syria. Somehow, they got from there to Riga, Latvia, and in 1928 sailed to New York to finally reunite with their husband and father Mikael after 15 years. He was living at the time in Haverhill, Massachusetts, but shortly afterwards they moved to Philadelphia where they both had relatives. They remained there for the rest of their lives, becoming the grandparents of three.