By Lydia Cruz Williams
12-02-99
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| Philippine Adventist Academy, Pasay, March 2, 1930 Selling candies for 13th Sabbath Offering Photo courtesy of Amabel Tsao Back row L-R: 1) Mrs R. R. Figuhr, 2) Gavina Pulido, 3) Delfina Cupino, 4) Ambrosio A. Alcaraz (center), 6)... Gensolin Middle row, standing L-R: 1) Romeo Brion, 2) Miriam Panaga, 3) Josefina Consul, 4) Aldine Adams, 5) Paz Villanueva, 6) Elizabeth Roda, 7) Elisa Balayo, 8) Lydia. Cruz Front row, standing L-R: 1) Romeo Corda, 4) Agustin Consul, 5) Mariquita Consul, 6) Martin (Sonny) Wiedemann, 7) Bobby Wiedemann, 8) Gerson Brion, 9) Conrado Brion, 10) Mercedes Roda; Sitting L-R: 2) Bobby Harn, 3) Wilma Jean Figuhr, 4) Richard Figuhr |
“Kapag namatay si Merced ay hindi na ako muling mag-aasawa,” [In the event Merced dies, I will not remarry.] Pastor Macario Pascual, breathed in an avowal as he stood at the foot of the wooden steps of his house, watching his wife, ill with typhoid, being carried to a waiting ambulance.
Pausing from their housework, some neighbors, among them Mrs. Agapita Villanueva, Mrs. Jimenez, Mrs. Lamadrid and my mother, Mrs. Cruz, were gathered to say a few kind words to the good pastor.
In the late 20's, these ladies, with their families, in the bond of the simple life-style of Adventism,lived in the small looban [compound] along San Juan Street in Pasay City, a suburb of Manila.
Their husbands worked in the Philippine Publishing House, and their children attended Philippine Junior
College just a stone's throw away.
Four houses fronted the looban. Ours was house number 146, of wooden posts, nipa roof, wooden siding and split bamboo floor, bought from Marcos Comilang when he moved his family to Baguio City. Next to our left, in a two story wood and galvanized house, lived Mr. Regino and his wife, Agapita, and their children and Mr. Villanueva's two sisters, Josefa and Marina. Beyond them, also in a bamboo and nipa house, lived the Pascuals.
To their left, of wood and galvanized iron, another two-story house, was occupied by the Aglubats and later, or previously, I cannot recall exactly when the Lamadrids, among their children, Jessie, to become Mrs. Puen, later Mrs Albano, Napoleon, and Ruth, to be Dr. Drapiza.
Behind these four houses were more houses comprising the looban, meaning “compound” which was their postal address. There lived the Jimenezes, with their daughters, Esther, later Mrs. Myape, Ruth and the twin boys. Also the Balayos, Mrs Pilar Balayo, their elder daughter, my dear friend, Elisa who died in early maidenhood of tuberculosis; Jose, and Loida. The Umalis, Francisco “Kiko” and Maria Umali, and their sons Elias, Filemon, Jesse, Jose, and daughter Betty. Mr. Urbano Oliva, (one time boarder of my mother before he was married to one of the Florendo girls), his good wife, and her sisters, one of them the pretty Zayda, who became Mrs. Pasco.
Beyond this looban on the other side of a fence, was a compound, on which were large two-story houses with screened windows and doors, occupied by missionaries, some of whom were Philippine Junior College College faculty members, the Philippine Union Conference president, then Elder Elbridge M. Adams. On the lower duplex of the Adams’ house lived the young Fred Mote family, with his wife, Florence and son Fred, Junior, and daughter Ardina. The Pasay Tagalog church building also stood in the same looban.
A cute small bamboo nipa house with festoons of tiny kaligay beads hung at doorways, and loose shells filled large shallow bowls where we children loved to run our fingers to feel the smooth coolness of the delicate kaligay. When we did this, we would look up in apprehension to be accorded a firm look from the lady of the house, Mrs. Liberato Fernandez. She was a huge woman, and we could not help contrasting her frame with that of her slight husband who was fair and must have been of Chinese ancestry. The popular Mr. Fernandez was then head of the conference colporteur department. An enterprising man, my mother admired his innovations to enliven the training institutes for which my mother was often caterer of the meals of colporteur recruits from many different provinces of the Philippines. The Fernandezes were our family friends, despite the kaligays of which we children were careful not to tell our mother.
To the right side of our house and separated by a wire fence was a large lot on which stood a two-story house of materiales fuertes-cement foundation and floor, wooden siding and galvanized iron roof. There lived the landowner of our looban, John Brown, and his wife, Aling Bernay, and their two daughters, Mercedes, nicknamed Ceding, and Cornelia, nicknamed Ningnay. Although Aling Bernay was an Iglesia Ni Cristo ardent member, Ceding and Ningnay were sent to the college elementary school. Later on in life, they both were baptized and later migrated to California where I resumed friendship with Mercedes, then Mrs. Gabriel, who owned a chain of Residential Care Homes.
Aling Bernay was basically a good soul, except on some days, when she had a little too much to drink, she would stand just inside her fence, and rain tirades against the Sabadista tenants on her property, yelling at them to pack up and leave. Since our house stood next to the fence, we sustained the full force of her fury in short episodes of the good part of an hour. Many were the occasions when my mother in aggravation decided to move our family were it only possible to make a hasty disposal of our house. When the news of the Philippine Junior College move to Baesa came, my parents resolved to follow the college in its wake and found the periodic verbal attacks bearable.
We hardly saw Mr. Brown, a quiet man in his sixties. When we moved above the tienda or sari-sari store my mother ran at the corner of San Juan and Leveriza down the street beyond the Brown residence, while playing with Ceding and Ningnay, we would approach Mr. Brown as he left his front yard to go to work as a night watchman in the city. Carrying a satchel containing his lunch, he would pause as he crossed the street to pick up a rock and toss it over his fence of concrete and iron rods, into his yard. Ceding and Ningnay pausing in their play would look up at him to say, “Goodbye, Pa," and so would I. When he returned home in the morning, he would breakfast by himself, with his feet soaking in warm water. Then he would disappear to sleep in his large bedroom upstairs until the afternoon.
Paz Villanueva, Elizabeth and Mercedes Roda and I were close in age and as first graders, were taught by Miss Cunegunda Cruz (later Soberano) in the bamboo and nipa elementary school building behind the Mr. Delbert and Mrs. Milam's house next to the college carpentry shop. Mr. Milam was the elementary school principal, and managed the school vegetable and poultry farm. Mrs. Milam, was a kindly large lady, with a determined chin and greying hair. She was the school nurse. Many years later, when the Milams were assigned to Iloilo, Mrs. Milam was in happy anticipation of their first child, but she lost it in early pregnancy. According to Mrs. Catalino Chay Vizcarra, she was inconsolable.
Mr. Milam was not an extraordinarily large man, but I still can feel his hairy arms around us young first graders whom he would squat down to scoop into his arms as we played on the schoolyard. We loved him, and what I particularly stood in awe of was whenever he met me walking along the compound road, he would raise his hat - making me feel like a grown-up lady. We did not make any remarks as he sat with the rest of the school faculty on the rostrum, not being able to control his facial tics. When once I complained that he did not finish the second-year algebra textbook at the end of the school year, he quietly replied that he purposely slowed down his teaching pace to accommodate the older students by validating their high school diploma when the college resumed government recognition of the curriculum. I thought it was unfair for us youngsters to miss the last section of one of my favorite subjects.
Back to the old nipa-roofed elementary school building near the college carpentry shop, the Milam's
kitchen was the school dispensary, admitting school children at all hours to ask Mrs. Millam to attend
to their ailments. I remember rushing to see her one mid-afternoon.
“And what's your trouble," as she usually asked, looking down at us from her height. Wearing only a wooden bakya, I lifted my right foot, saying, “I just stepped on a rusty nail." While I was seated on a low stool, from somewhere inside the house, Mr. Millam appeared carrying a basin of warm water and bathed my foot, after which Mrs. Millam put clean dressing on the wound before sending me off to class.
I went to show Mrs. Millam my foot the next school day, a Monday, proudly displaying no sign of infection. My mother, who never did anything half-heartedly, and recognizing the seriousness of a tetanus infection, nipped it in the bud (this was in the days of horses-and-caritela). Her unfailing treatment was more in the province of veterinary medicine. Every nail puncture on the foot was given this first-aid treatment. It consisted of dropping hot oil from a rag (the more sooty, the better) soaked in coconut oil burning with a steady flame. The flame did not actually touch the wound, and only three or four drops of hot oil did the trick, dropped on the foot held firmly by two assistants, while the patient lay prostrate on the floor, face down and unable to witness the ordeal. The painful howl could be heard around the neighborhood, but it was short, and the end of the treatment was sweet. One treatment sufficed. The next morning, no infection, no pain; the foot was as good as new no matter if it was an open festering gash or just a tiny puncture, as was my case. Such medical care, drastic though it seemed, enabled us kids to be protected from tetanus infection despite the absence of vaccines and antibiotics.
Along with this sure-fire treatment was my mother's monthly regimen to keep her household's digestive organs clean. Young and old had to take a strong laxative, in the form of lime juice-flavored castor oil for the younger children, and epsom salt in water for me and my older cousins. This was administered after a night's fast; we were given only plain water in the morning and hot clear broth after we had “worked out” in the toilet for 3 times. Then followed the inevitable warm enema before supper.
When the Pascuals were sent on a tent effort to Batangas, the widow Mrs. Maria Roda and her children, Eduardo, Elizabeth, who became Mrs. Roeder, Mercedes, later Mrs. Eliseo Arevalo, Alfonso, who was to become Philippine Union College president, and Arturo, occupied the same house.
Mrs. Roda was an accomplished seamstress who sewed day and night to augment her pension as the widow of Pastor Leon Roda. She had such a fine taste and produced meticulous work, keeping her two girls always nicely dressed. Mrs. Villanueva and my mother kept her busy. Paz, Elizabeth, Mercedes and I were tastefully dressed alike, together performing in church school programs. I well remember a beautifully-made yellow chiffon dress with a blue smock around the neck and waist.
Mrs. Roda pursued her calling after nearly all the looban families had moved to Baesa. The last dress she made for me was a voluntary offering of a black dress whipped up in a day so I could wear it to mourn my 38-year old mother. She died unexpectedly of pulmonary embolism in 1937 at the Manila Sanitarium following a simple appendectomy and ligation of her fallopian tubes.
But back in Pasay before the college moved away, the Pascuals rented an upstairs apartment next door
to us on Leveriza Street where my mother owned and ran the sari-sari store on the ground floor. From our large apartment upstairs dining room windows we had a full view of
the Pascuals’ apartment. My cousin, Angustia, of the same age as Honesto, used to watch him through
their kitchen window, cooking his own meals whenever his parents were away on an assignment in the
provinces. Often in the early evenings when it was still light after his work at the college carpentry shop,
he would sit in the large reclining wooden armchair on his porch and sing for hours, accompanying
himself on his guitar. With a strong and trained baritone and being an excellent guitarist, he treated the
neighbors to enjoyable mini-recitals.
Although only nine years old, I took my turn minding the store for an hour after lunch while my mother and Angustia took their siesta. Honesto, in his dark blue maong (denim) working clothes, would drop in for a few cents of roasted peanuts to munch on his way to work. Other working students who learned cabinet-making from Professor Claude Thurston at that time were Luceno Quirante, Celedonio Cruz, Benito Mary and Arsenio Poblete.
I clearly remember one afternoon from our dining room window, my cousin and I were greatly amused watching Honesto put on his work shoes. He had left them out in the rain the previous night, and not having a second pair, he was in a quandary as to what to wear. Aware that we were watching him, he looked across at us and with his wide grin made a ceremony of putting on the soaking rubber shoes. He was somewhat of a comedian and loved telling jokes. Years later as the college Male Chorus conducted by Owen A. Blake, with Juanita Thurston and Irene Stump as soloists, and me as accompanist were having a photographing session, Honesto quoted a Will Rogers joke: “The birth of the Dionne Quintuplets put the mothers on a mass production basis,” followed with his usual hefty guffaw.
When he was about sixteen or seventeen, he was influenced by the screen idol of the day. Honesto trimmed his hairline and eyebrows to emulate Rudolfo Valentino, or was it Ramon Navarro?
In that small, closely knit community of church members, hardly any happening from the ordinary passed unnoticed. I recall hearing someone commenting on the little, sickly but sweet Mrs. Isaac Enriquez' quiet business venture of selling green bananas which she stocked on her porch. For any pastor's wife, that was a “no-no” and the business did not last long. However, since my father was an accountant and not an ordained minister, everyone accepted my mother's sari-sari store.
Along that little strip bounded by San Juan and Leveriza Streets lived other church members. Among them were the families of Legaspi, Taliri, Corda, Tolentino, and not many miles away, the Arevalo, Javier, Pangan, Panaga, Mary, and Consul.
On Sabbath afternoons, after the Young People's Missionary Volunteer Society meeting, the students
walked in a large group, chaperoned by faculty members, to Pasay beach where baptisms were held.
It was a happy opportunity for young men to walk behind groups of girls they fancied. As a curious
twelve-year-old girl (too old for toys but too young for boys) I observed the pretty Zaida Florendo
surrounded by admirers, one of whom was Honesto who was the Society leader, and she, the
secretary.
Tall and broad shouldered with slim hips, the fair complexioned Honesto cut a fine figure. He carried his clothes well, and made the most of his captivating eyes. Whether in conversation or sitting in front leading a meeting, his eyes would focus on an individual, of any age, as if in target practice. Apparently having decided on a message to communicate, he would slightly narrow his eyes as if conveying a challenge to reciprocate. A sensitive musician, with a sanguine personality and being bound by cultural restraints, I watched this silent flirtation whether it was directed at me or on any other person. It was neither as aggressive nor obtrusive as the deliberate slow wink. It also had the advantage of being easily turned on and off by a quick blink. However, like the shaved hairline and eyebrows, it was just a passing phase in his youth.
How was it that I, hardly into adolescence, observed this young man so closely? First, because as a small closely-knit community, whose work and weekly church activities were closely tied with those of their children in the Philippine Junior College, every community member was well aware of the activities of each. Whenever a family bought an ordinary item as a piece of furniture, it was known to all. Second, the Pascuals made no secret of their wish that their only son should marry a girl whose background and development was known to them; and with my modest pianistic ability as an accompanist, not a soloist as was Ruben Manalaysay, it was a foregone match despite the seven years age difference. Third, at that age of extreme curiosity, I was able to engage in my overt observations without attracting attention from observing adults. I could watch and watch.
Honesto's first sweetheart, to my knowledge, was the beautiful Filomena Singuillo, a few years his senior. Attracted by this young troubadour, she had slipped a love-note in one of his school books. I learned about this from my parents having been taken into confidence by Honesto's parents. The good Pastor Pascual advised his son to reciprocate the young lady's feelings so as not to hurt her. Which, I was told by one of my Uncle Cornelio's friends, resulted in a period of courtship between the young man and the young lady.
The pretty Nena Singuillo befriended me because my parents and the Pascuals were friends and neighbors. I was only nine years old. Nena invited me to her dormitory room, and on her night table was a photograph of the object of her affection. A dedication was written on the back, “Lovingly dedicated to the queen of my heart'' and signed “The Original”. Nena instructed me to call her Mamma, and Honesto, Daddy, as some of my playmates called Jacinta Quijano, Mamma, and Petronilo Gonzales, Daddy, a popular two-some before their wedding.
Following Nena’s advice, I greeted Honesto the next time I met him on the road, “Daddy”. Evidently, he had not been warned and to my dismay and embarrassment, instead of being greeted in return with a smile of acknowledgment, Honesto was extremely puzzled and muttered disjointly, “How, why, what for?” I never greeted him that way again.
Sadly, the romance was curtailed at the end of the school year, when Nena went home to the Visayas. My parents told me that Honesto was disconsolate that summer.
Sometime later at a Youths' Congress, Honesto met the attractive Natividad Mathay, about his age,
from Balanga, Bataan. He struck up a friendship and corresponded with her until she went to PUC to take
the Teachers' Normal Training Course.
In 1933 I was only fourteen years old and I had to stay in the PUC girls' dormitory because my family had not yet been able to move to Baesa. Interestingly enough, with me as the youngest, Natividad, Paulina Abellada and I became a threesome. Our other dormitory mates were Julita Santiago, later Cabigting; Constancia Buzon, \later Rocero, Filomena Galang who did not marry Benito Mary, Flordeliza Malunes, Gracia Diaz and her sister Dulzura who became Singuillo, and others.
As was the prophylactic practice of the college faculty to oblige with parents' instructions to keep the young people's concentration in their studies and to discourage to any extent, love-matches, there was a yearly dormitory ritual: Unannounced inspection night. Faculty members descended on dormitory students, each one required to open their book cupboards and trunks for any love letters. Mr. Rogaciano Imperio was my very understanding and gentle “inspector”. At his request, I unlocked my cupboard which revealed only chicken “adobo” and other goodies from my home in Pasay. I was extremely apologetic for this “colorum” food prohibited from the college dining room. Mr. Imperio was tickled pink and did not voice any censure.
When it was time for Paulina's trunk to be inspected, she was nervous, but with presence of mind she deftly lifted a small stationery box under a neatly folded bulky garment. Paulina's trunk, unlike mine, was tidy. That little box contained love letters from Naty's sweetheart in her hometown. Included among them were letters from Honesto. Naty was living with her brother, Agustin Mathay, the college mathematics department head, and his wife, Concepción Alejo, the preceptress. Later on, Honesto explained that his letters on pastel-colored linen stationery were only friendly letters.
With his gregariousness and keen sense of humor, Honesto was by no means the shy and quiet type. Whether singing a solo or engaged in a group conversation, he had a perpetual stage presence. His ready laughter was a guffaw, usually ending abruptly in a sucked breath. He loved to make people laugh. But whether in laughter, leading out in congregational singing or in the choir, his voice stood out. He had a wide vocal range from second tenor to baritone unstrained and pleasant to hear. Although he was in popular demand as a soloist or in quartets and duets, to my recollection, he never gave a solo recital, but he seemed to be singing all the time.
Honesto also played the violin in the school orchestra, and the cello, as well, in a trio with Ruben Manalaysay as violinist and either Romeo Brion or me at the piano. He conducted the orchestra and arranged the music for it at times, especially when it performed his kundiman compositions.
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| P.U.C. Male Chorus, 1935 Pianist, Lydia Cruz |
One Friday evening after vespers, in the college chapel and properly chaperoned, he rehearsed with my
piano accompaniment, a song he was to sing at church service the next morning. Vivid in my memory
was the glow of that evening; I was wearing a purple chiffon dress. Although only fourteen, I was touched
by his rendition of “Not a Sparrow Falleth” as he seemed to be singing just for me. We went through the song only once. After the actual rendition
of it during church service the next day, I never heard it sung again. Honesto singing has remained
in my memory.
My memory of Honesto lingers. I can hear him sing Reginald De Koven’s “Recessional”; “The Holy City” with power as easily as with a sotto voce. Gounod's “Goodbye” and “Dry Those Tears”; “Toreador's Song” from “Carmen”. I see a fine figure wearing a “barong”, singing his sentimental rendition of Philippine Love songs at annual Filipino Night programs put together by the equally romantic Professor Senson. Partly as a result of his training at the U. P. Conservatory of Music and Juanita Thurston’s tutelage at the college in Baesa, Honesto had fine control of voice dynamics. I cannot forget his rendition of "Not A Sparrow Falleth '' which, as his pianist, had to go over in the college chapel after Vespers on Friday night. It was a tender song, and he sang it just like a love song, with his voice under complete control. Whenever the male chorus under Mr. O. A. Blake had a new song to learn, the director’s job was made easier with Honesto as a lead singer.
For two or three years while at his alma mater, Honesto took music courses at the University of the Philippines Conservatory of Music. At the same time, as a working student and taking courses in the college as well, he had to practise on the dining room piano at night, while the entire campus was having its study period. He found time to compose. Besides the school song, Shine On; his other compositions, a Harvest Ingathering Song for four voices; “The Eternal Goodness” which won first prize during the schools Music Week one year, a kundiman or two, and a Cradle Song dedicated to my newly-born youngest brother.
Honesto's first published music was a danza Filipina titled “Anching”, dedicated to Concepcion Alejo, the popular beauty who worked in the Manila Sanitarium business office. It was arranged by Antonio Arevalo and peddled by the proud Pastor Pascual. My father bought a copy. The gentle and popular Concepcion Alejo years afterwards told me that she felt both honored and embarrassed by being the subject of the love song as her heart already belonged to the suitor from Balanga, Bataan who became her husband, the debonair and enterprising Agustin Mathay.
JUANITA THURSTON
Claude and Juanita Thurston were newlyweds when they arrived in Manila to teach at the Philippine
Junior College. Claude was head of the science department, and Juanita, the music department.
Both were popular among the students and held student parties often in the little apartment in the
boys' dormitory which they occupied. Juanita was my first piano teacher. I was nine. I was so captivated
by her rich voice and engaging personality. When I arrive at her music room for my weekly piano lesson
and she happens to be practising her songs in between students, I would wait outside the door not
wanting to interrupt her. When she practised in her house, her powerful mezzo soprano rang throughout
the entire campus.
When Edward and Cora Lugenbeal arrived to join the college faculty, Mrs. Lugenbeal took over the piano teaching while Juanita devoted herself to the voice students. I took piano lessons from Mrs. Lugenbeal, a fine pianist and teacher. Although I did not take voice lessons, I stayed close to Mrs. Thurston who took me into her heart for the rest of her life.
One evening, the childless Thurstons took me to the Manila Carnival. After walking around, watching free sideshows that did not charge admission fees, we stopped at the pavilion of little electric cars. Juanita bent down to tell me that I might ride in one as soon as Claude had found out the price to drive one. It was fifty centavos. So instead, Claude bought me fried kirip [Editors note: We’re not aware of a Filipino word that comes close, so we’re guessing it’s a fried rice cracker or glutinous rice dessert.] to take home to my brothers, and my first Baby Ruth candy bar in my young life. We went home in a street car to Harrison Street, and walked home along San Juan Street. There were no taxis, much less cars in those days.
As friendly and motherly as the other missionary ladies were, Juanita stood out with her vivacious nature and music talent. Popular with her music students, she was nevertheless close to Honesto, Claudio Brion, Francisca Trinidad, and Rudolfo Capobres, the last two being her housegirl and houseboy respectively.
Honesto and Mrs Thurston were in popular demand not only in the school meetings and functions, but also in camp meetings and weddings in outlying towns and provinces. I was their regular accompanist at the piano. Later on, at age 15, I became the college church pianist and accompanist for the male chorus. Being the only girl in the group, we were properly chaperoned as we travelled to several churches in Luzon.
When PJC moved to Baesa in 1931, it took over two years for us residing in the Pasay loobanto move our homes close to the college. It never occurred to these parents to send their children to the
nearby public schools. It meant a sacrifice for fathers to commute by the Halili bus from Baesa to
Blumentritt; via Plaza Goiti or Plaza Lawton to Pasay by street car; or to Azcarraga and Quiapo by the
Halili and other busses. There were only three daily Halili bus services from Santa Quiteria to the college
and the village around it. It was rough on the men to walk the mile with deep potholes and no street lights
at night. Indeed it was a lonely road that no females travelled alone even by day.
My father carefully picks his way home among the potholes but still steps into a mud puddle on occasion. With his only other white suit in the laundry, the muddied pants comprised an emergency to be taken care of before he could wear them to work early the next morning. Those were the very few times I witnessed my placid father fume.
I attended the Pasay church school that year in the seventh grade, with Paz, Elizabeth and Mercedes and with other children whose parents waited for their homes to sell before building near the college. Meanwhile, we four girls took some fruit preserving and candy-making lessons at the Bureau of Science in Manila.
One day that summer, arriving home from school, I noticed a letter on pink linen stationery awaiting me.
“Brace yourself,” said my mother, but she had already opened the envelope, a prerogative which never
occurred to me to question. Since I was not in Honesto’s peer group, being seven years his junior,
the letter was only a friendly one about the weather in Nasugbu, Batangas, where he was vacationing
with his parents doing evangelistic work in that district.
That year Honesto presented my mother with the kundiman, “Lydia”, a love song. Handwritten, with the covering page a beautiful watercolor done by the talented, young Juan Bueno. It was a moonlit scene on a river, with a young man and a young lady in a boat. Whether it was the buxom maiden in the painting that offended my mother, I cannot remember, but she tore the page out and into bits before I could have a good look at it.
A few months later, my baby brother was born, and Honesto wrote and dedicated a composition titled Cradle Song to him and my mother. Honesto showed pleasure with a smile when I played the piece as an offertory in church.
The following year, I had to stay in the college girls' dormitory as an academy student. At fourteen, I was one of a triumvirate, with Paulina Abellada and Natividad Mathay, both seven years older than I. Lucia Reyes, Julita Santiago and Constancia Buzon, formed another “triumvirate”. Dormitory life being too early for a fourteen year-old, I went home to Pasay almost every weekend. It was on such a trip one Friday afternoon when I was surprised to find myself alone on the bus with Gavino Marquez and Honesto. The latter, like a true gentleman, escorted me to my parents' house in Pasay, by streetcar and the long walk from the carline to my house. I was fearful of disapproval, for in those days, even in broad daylight on a busy street, a boy and a girl walking alone unchaperoned was frowned upon. However my parents knew that the incident had been unplanned and knew the Pascuals well enough to trust their son. On that occasion, for the first time I realized I had grown into a dalaga, and needed an escort when travelling alone. I also became aware of Honesto as a suitor.
Pastor Macario, as he was affectionately called by friends, was tall and lean, with a face permanently
etched with laugh lines. It could turn serious, and on purpose sometimes, when he was about to tell a joke,
or quote from his large store of Tagalog Proverbs ready on hand for apt occasions. When I turned fifteen,
he told my mother `with a double meaning, “Sarhan ninyo ang inyong mga paminggalan bago ko
pawalan ang aking aso” [Trans. Lock your pantries before I unleash my dog.] Another was, in reference to money investing: “Mag mamera man ang kalabaw, kung wala akong pera," [A water buffalo may cost only a penny, bit since I have no money….]
Once, he made my mother laugh, when talking about marriage, he said couples got married because
they were “magka-amoy”. [Trans. Identical smell].
Looking back upon it many years later, I realised with what filial duty Honesto regarded his parental wishes, for under the watchful eyes of the closely knit Baesa community, he did not pursue another young lady. Furthermore, the Pascuals were openly nanunuyo, presenting delectable kakanin, prepared by Mrs. Pascual in copious quantities for my large family.
Mrs. Pascual was a great cook of Filipino kakanin. Her bibingka, suman, and other delicacies were greatly admired by my mother, herself a great cook. Many were delicious offerings, graciously presented to my family by way of panunuyo. Whenever the Pascuals came for vacation from Batangas to visit their close friends, the Sensons, we knew we were in for a treat. While I ironed clothes Mrs. Pascual looked on with scrutiny. One Sunday, my cousin Angustia, also visiting us with her babies, asked if I was not feeling the pressure of being watched by Mrs. Pascual. I truthfully replied that I was not in any discomfort. Always serious with a no-nonsense way in her straightforwardness, she was very kind, and she and my mother liked each other. That was not the case with Pastor Macario. Jokingly, he made no bones about telling, even long after Honesto and I took our separate ways, how badly his son still needed a pianist.
My mother, although disapproving of her daughter being too young to be courted, was polite and did not altogether hide her pleasure to have the Pascuals. In view of the well-known pickiness of Mrs. Pascual, she chose the Cruz daughter as a prospective bride for their only son. But my father took no pains to hide his distinct disapproval to the point of bluntness, with poor Honesto in particular.
One evening, while visiting until almost nine o'clock and close to my father's bedtime, he acidly asked Honesto if he would like to bring his suitcase next time he came to visit. . My mother and I were mortified, because my father was never known to be rude. But this was his favourite child, and he retained his contrariness in the matter of my marrying Honesto. It was pathetic to see him meekly acquiescing without a word of objection when, six years later, I decided to marry.
The year that I stayed in the college dormitory, Mrs. Blanche Palmer, head of the PUC English department, decided, with other faculty members, to present an Indian Program, held outdoors. It was a memorable program. In the moonlight, a tepee had been erected on the lawn just outside the administration building, on the side of the steps towards the girls' dormitory. These were the days before the public address system, and I often wondered how the audience heard the different musical numbers and the long verses of Longfellow's "Hiawatha” recited by Natividad Mathay, Solomon Bayani and Nazaria Geslani, if I remember correctly. Irene Stump sang “Pale Moon”, Juanita Thurston sang “Indian Love Call” with Honesto, and Honesto sang "Fallen Leaf". Francisca Trinidad, Victoria and I, sang a trio. All the participants wore the Indian costume complete with feathers caught in their head bands.
Nowadays, dating is the way of getting young people to know one another, but in the olden Filipino culture,
a young man had to go through the process of pag-akyat ng ligaw, or formal visits by a young man to a young lady in her parents' home, and properly chaperoned. In my case, at age fourteen I was first thus visited for exactly one hour, on a Saturday evening. The visit was held in an open porch close to the street, under a glaring 50-watt bulb. My parents' ears were glued to the other side of the wall. As instructed, my face was averted so as not to receive any overt message. Nothing significant resulted on this visit in terms of deepening a relationship, considering the time and effort of the young man travelling the distance from Baesa to Pasay. To this day, I cannot remember what we talked about or if I talked at all, and absolutely no chemistry reaction resulted. All I knew was that my worried parents survived an ordeal on my account.
The year that I was staying in the dorm, Honesto pursued music studies at the University of the Philippines Conservatory of Music in Manila. Having to spend most of the day commuting and attending classes, he practised piano in the college dining hall for two hours at night. One piece he played was Nola; another was a Polonaise. By hearing it every night, while washing dishes in the college kitchen, I learned to play it myself. I never knew nor asked its title.
The school song, “Shine On,” must have been composed by Honesto in the year that Philippine Junior College was changed to Philippine Union College.
In one college Music Week, a music composition contest was sponsored. Needless to say, Honesto won the prize for the Sacred Songs category with the one piece which I consider his best work: “The Eternal Goodness” to the poem by John Greenleaf Whittier. He also won the prize for the Foreign Mission Band song, Lend A Hand Society, a marching song. Solomon Bayani won the second prize for the melody to “Summer is Coming”, which only Mrs. Thurston could decipher as she sang to introduce it while I tried to play the unwritten accompaniment.
I, with no lessons in Music Composition, submitted an entry, but was too shy to receive the prize so I shared authorship with Paulina and Natividad. Much to their surprise It was chosen as a theme song for the newly formed Missionary Band. By then, at 14, I had already set my sights on venturing abroad.
With parents of limited means, Honesto worked long hours during his college years. His last job was typist for the college treasurer. After his marriage, he taught in his alma mater and directed the music activities, including the male chorus and the school orchestra. His young bride, Josie, fresh from high school started college, but the following year, the pair was sent to East Visayan Academy in Cebu.
Those last few years in college, before and after his marriage, Honesto was the college music leader. There was no head of the music department at that time. Ruben Manalaysay and I divided the piano students to teach. By this time, the Thurstons had been assigned (consigned) to Guimaras, the Blakes went on furlough. Honesto directed the college male chorus as well as the orchestra, and led in the music services. With Romeo Brion, he played piano duets to provide music on students' Saturday marching nights. After they played the first half-hour, it would be my turn to play for the rest of the evening. I can’t figure out why they wanted me to play the piano.
The entire college Harvest Ingathering Campaign was headed by Professor Roman Senson, a most human and lovable teacher whom it was my good fortune to know over the years of my college life. At my mother's untimely death, he wrote, dedicated, and read at her funeral a long poem in Tagalog, Balang Araw. With his peculiar smile which could be sincere or a test, he came to my house across the road as I sat on the porch in deep mourning. He presented to me a poem written by a student in his Bible Doctrines class, portraying a mother to be sorely missed, waiting to meet her family at the resurrection. After reading it to me, with that characteristic smile of his, he said, “Tutoo iyan.” That was why he was so endeared to me. I met him several more times on his visits to Toronto, and then in Berrien Springs before his death.
In those good old college Harvest Ingathering days, Professor Roman Senson was the indefatigable faculty member organizer. Oh, those nightly student mass excursion to Manila City in singing bands, boarding as many as twelve Halili buses, filled with energetic students, properly chaperoned, but yet able to associate outside the sex segregated school activities! Seated in a full bus provided some release to students with love interests but deprived of any opportunity to associate closely. I was too young, only fourteen to sixteen to be personally involved.
Each band was comprised of a faculty member as chaperone; two pairs of solicitors, a boy and a girl; a guitarist, accompanying four or five singers. I was always a solicitor, invariably partnered with Silvino Cabigting. One night, I inadvertently stepped into a mud puddle; Silvino laughingly hosed my feet at a gas service station's free air and free water. My other regular partner was Sy Ling Pong, whose command of the Tagalog was so cute, he had the intonation of a San Pablo native.
Honesto was always in Mrs. Thurston's band; he was one of the best guitarists besides Guillermo Coreces and Silvino Decena; all could play without notes and in any key. But Honesto would always disappear when his group was assigned to the well-lit Rosario and other Manila streets where his UP Music Conservatory classmates might materialize. He never failed to pull off that stunt to the despair of the rest of the band. But it tickled the Professor's sympathy and sense of humor.
Fortunately, I was always in Mr. Pan Lok Leung's band, although our guitarist was only so-so, our group did not miss the guitarist. I never knew how the students' names were picked out to form bands, for the faculty was very careful not to pair together love-struck boys and girls. Not to my knowledge, anyway, for I was only fourteen and fifteen.
After two weeks of rigorous nightly forages into Manila, the college reached its Harvest Ingathering goal and settled down to the regular business of studying.
JOSIE - THE LONG-SUFFERING CHISTIAN WIFE
Josefina Consul, like her younger sister, Maria Mariquita, early on skipped the joy of childhood. The second wife of a widower with several children by his deceased wife, Josefina's mother was a kind soul who worked hard all her married life to help an imperious husband and father. Early in life, Josefina had to help her mother run a dining stall in a market. With two younger brothers and a sister, Mariquita, Josefina, a very nice girl and a bright student, had a rough time all her years.
With only her mother to encourage her, Josie, as she later became known to her friends, left home at age 18 to marry Honesto without her father's knowledge because he was capable of resorting to any means in order to prevent his daughters from marrying. Against her father's wishes, Josie's mother sent her children to the Adventist Philippine Junior College where Josie was baptized at an early age. Although of the same age, she was a year behind me in school. After the college moved to Baesa, the Consul family also moved to their provincial home in Balayan, Batangas where she was discovered by the Pascuals who were assigned to do evangelism in Nasugbu.
In Pasay, the Consuls lived on Buendia Street, and so Josie was not a part of our quartet of girls from San Juan. Neither were the Consuls able to follow the college to Baesa.
One of my mother's young student boarders was Antonio Carungay, brother of Sofronia who became a nurse. An engineering student at the University of The Philippines, Antonio was also a scholar of languages. At my request, he wrote my valedictorian's speech when I graduated from grade seven in the Pasay Church School. The following year, Jossie was valedictorian of grade seven in her Batangas church school. She wrote asking me to lend her my valedictorian's speech, entitled “Every Cloud Has A Silver Lining.”
Little did either Josie or I know how much clouds would shroud our individual lives. Looking back at hers, from her childhood, the sweet and hard-working girl would lose her husband to a war, a grown-up son to drowning, marry an abusive second husband, work hard all her life to the neglect of her own health, to suffer diabetes and its complication of blindness, and finally succumbing to the disease after the increasing devastation of three strokes.
Through it all, during the years of our friendship, Josie never uttered nor wrote one word of complaint. All she wrote me about her hard work was that she was perennially confined to the four walls of a kitchen, first in the Philippine Union College cafeteria, then at Pacific Union College..
Born to a mestizo father and a half-Chinese mother, Josie was fair-complexioned with a baby face, a snub nose, a small mouth, and fine naturally wavy hair. On the chubby side in childhood and adulthood, she had a sweet singing voice which she gladly, but without any affectation used even after she was losing her sight.
It did not occur to me that she would marry Honesto until two months after my mother’s sudden demise, when she arrived to stay with the Sensons in Baesa. For the first time since we were separated after Grade Six, we met again when she visited me on the day after her arrival in Baesa.
“I have come to get married,” she said. “Will you be my maid of honor at my wedding?"
Without second thought, and knowing it was Honesto whom she would be marrying, I agreed without
hesitation. The Pascuals told my mother before she died about the marriage. Luceno Quirante,
the best man, and I sang “Oh Promise Me". Right after their wedding, both Josie and Honesto had to undergo appendectomy. They made their
home in the faculty cottage next to the Afenirs.
During their term in Cebu, I got married and finished my last year in college before going to Singapore, my husband's home.
One night that summer, Josie and Honesto, with their firstborn, came to visit and say goodbye. Honesto was his usual cheerful self and offered me and my husband an impersonation of a noted buxom singer. Honesto was much amused and in his characteristic exuberant laughter guffawed heartily. That was the last time I saw him.
Josie and I lost touch during the war, but we resumed communicating afterwards, and on her way to California, my husband and I entertained her for a few days when she passed by Hong Kong. That was in 1953, when she related to me the circumstances of Honesto's death at the hands of the Japanese. By then, I had met Pastor Fordyce Detamore. During one of his visits to our home, I played Honesto's “The Eternal Goodness” from my original copy in Honesto’s handwriting. Touched by the song, Elder Detamore had it printed and called it “A Song of the Island” which, to my humble opinion, deducted a certain amount of "classiness” from the composition by giving it a popular status.
Josie lived and worked in Los Angeles while I lived and taught high school in Canada. But I managed to visit her while she was still married to Marcelino Trinidad. She treated me in her restaurant, The Lumpia House. Josie’s sister, Mariquita, whom I’ve not seen again since we were in grade school together in Pasay, welcomed me as well. There I met Marcelino for the first time. Some years later, in 1965, Josie wrote saying that while many other people were busy obtaining their PhD's, she was getting her PH.TS, that is, Putting Hubby Through School. She never gave any inkling about her second marriage, though I heard from other sources that he had left her and they were divorced.
I wrote Josie, begging her to come with me so she could stay in my Residential Care facility in Santa Rosa. She graciously declined because she would be removed from her sons' care. I recall visiting for the last time and letting her know her generosity and acts of kindness are not forgotten. Countless times whenever my youngest brother arrived late for mealtime at the college cafeteria in Baesa, Josie, as matron, still made sure he was fed. Almost sightless, Josie walked with the aid of a walker. We embraced and then in her characteristic high spirits, she asked me to pick up the opened large Bible on her bed and read a text. Ever cheerful, kind and hard-working, plagued with misfortune from childhood throughout her life, yet uncomplainingly she kept her trust in the Heavenly Father from Whom she drew a full measure of love and loveliness.
MACARIO AND MERCEDES PASCUAL
Ever the loving and inseparable couple, the Pascuals walked with each other in a love that was quiet and firm albeit totally devoid of any outward show of passion. But there was no mistaking the strong bond between this man and wife. The last time I saw them was in 1961, the couple, now lonely without their two grandsons and their mother who were in California. I made a special trip to Baesa to visit them. "Have you no plans to go to California?" I asked. They had no other family besides their son's. Mrs. Pascual replied in her characteristic pointedness, “What for? Just to take our bungo [literal meaning, skull] to another country?” Her husband did not add a word. They did relent and at their grandchildren's insistence, came to California and stayed a year. In 1972, Mercedes Pascual died of cancer. Her husband of over 60 years survived her for seven years, but they were empty ones in his bereavement at the loss of the love of his life. To his admirers, he appeared ten feet tall, especially to me.
Lydia Cruz Williams
12-02-99
Edited by: Joselito Coo & Delio V. Pascual as requested by Amabel Tsao.
August 25, 2021
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