Yearam was a devout Seventh-Day Adventist who had immigrated from Armenia to the United States, eventually settling in Oakland, California. In 1915, Harold Williams and his parents began caring for the elderly, ailing Yearam. "Haji asked me to [...] write down carefully a story he was very anxious to tell," Williams wrote, "because he was sure that it would be of use some day after he was dead and gone." According to Williams, this deathbed statement revealed that Yearam, as a boy, had been part of a secret expedition that located Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat. The exact timeframe of this alleged expedition is uncertain, though Violet Cummings concludes that it occurred circa 1856.