The Family

About the start of American occupation, Father, in his youth, worked for an American as a houseboy in Manila. There he learned to do housework, to cook meals and to speak English. He went home and attended school. He once told us, when we, his children were already teachers, that when he was only Grade 3 he was made to teach English!

Angela became a Home Economics (then called Domestic Science) teacher in San Antonio while Meliton taught in San Marcelino. Somehow the two teachers met, fell in love and decided to start an life together in 1917.

GENOVEVA, EUSEBIO and ROSARIO
On January 3, 1919, Genoveva was born. The young couple lived in Subic - Mother as Home Economics teacher and Father as Principal at the Subic Elementary School. A boy, Eusebio was still-born in 1920. Then Rosario was born on November 30, 1922.

AUREA
The third daughter, Aurea, was born on Jan. 20 1926. She was sickly as a baby and mother was advised to change the child’s name. So it was that baby Aurea was lost one morning. She was “stolen“ by a woman in the southern part of the town and had baptized the child, Marcela, in appropriate ceremonies “under the plate”. She was retrieved and hence forth would be Marcela, Cela for short, or else she would be sick again and might even die. She grew up to become the most strong willed in the family. As a teacher, she became an administrator. First as a head teacher of Santa Fe Elementary School, then as principal of Castillejos Elementary School.

JULIANA
Juliana was born Jan. 27, 1928. Because she was a big baby at birth, she was named after Apong Ulit. From childhood, she was the tallest in here age goup, healthy and strong. We felt that father wished she had been a boy.

SYLVIA and MELITON
Another girl, Sylvia, was born on Nov. 3, 1933 making five daughters in a row. Meliton was born on July 24, 1936. The only son carried on Father’s name and became “junior” or Mely for Meliton. Of course, the birth of a son called for a big celebration. His baptism, with Father’s closest friend, Atty. Reynera, as godfather, was a fiesta.