On July 25, 1943, I was born “Perla Ruby” to Flora, seventh child of the Florendo family, and to Pedro B. Francisco of Pililia, Rizal at the Bethany Hospital in San Fernando, La Union. Uncle Fred, Mama’s older brother was one of the attending physicians and his wife Auntie Puring suggested the name “Perla” after a pearl signifying a tear that also had healing powers. Mama added the second name, “Ruby,” which is my birthstone. I have one sibling, Pedro Jr., better known as “Spanky” who is my senior by one year and nine months.
The Philippines was occupied by Japan when I was a baby. Mama left me in the care of Nanang and Tatang while she and my Manong Spanky joined my Papa, a Philippine army officer, in some remote area. Auntie Nora, a teenager at that time, was my babysitter. When Mama returned to Bauang, I did not know her. She bathed and dressed me in new clothes and told me that she was my Mama. But I did not call her that right away until she was leaving the room, then I cried and said “Mama” for the first time – I was about two years old. My Manong Spanky told me that I was skinny and dark in complexion then. That was the beginning of the constant ribbings I received from my beloved brother growing up.
At the start of the school year in June 1950, I was one month shy of seven, the legal age to enter grade one. I could hardly reach my left ear when I placed my right arm over my head - the test if you’re seven years old. On the first day of school, I dressed myself and insisted on tagging along when Nanang took my cousin Nicky to attend grade one at Bauang Elementary School. The three of us walked from our ancestral home towards the train station, about three blocks away, crossed the railroad tracks, and took a short-cut by climbing a rickety makeshift ladder over a stone fence, walking through someone’s backyard, and crossing a narrow street to reach the back of the school building. Mrs. Sanchez, the grade one teacher who was also our next door neighbor knew me. She told Nanang that I could join her class as “saling pusa” (sit-in/observer). On that first day, I listened attentively to Mrs. Sanchez and would answer correctly when nobody else could give the answers to her questions. By the end of the day, when Nanang came to pick us up, Mrs. Sanchez told her that I was ready for grade one. I was class valedictorian in grades one and two at my first school in Bauang – a feat I accomplished successively throughout my school years.
Our family stayed in Bauang several times so I was close to Tatang and Nanang. Papa started a lumber business in 1948 and kept his inventory on a part of the ancestral property, and Mama gave piano lessons and took orders for homemade baked goods, birthday and weddings cakes. I helped her stir the cake batters by hand. Tatang who was bed ridden at the time, would ask me to sit beside his bed every afternoon and read the Bible to him, teaching me how to read the big words. He made me memorize his favorite Bible verses so I could recite them to him and to our house guests. He was proud of me. Patiently, he explained to me what the verses meant so I could understand and appreciate them better. Our morning devotional would usually start with Tatang singing an Ilocano hymn in a loud voice in his own key. He had a gentle smile and hug for me all the time. Nanang regularly inspected my hair for lice when I was little. Because I was skinny and a picky eater, she handfed me with fresh steamed shrimps and rice and little bits of her homemade chicharon to fatten me up.
We lived in Bauang from 1948 to the summer of 1952 when we moved to Manila. I remember that we were living in Felix Huertas when Uncle Ando knocked on our heavy door one day. Mama and I looked down from our second floor window. Uncle Ando looked up and mouthed the word, “Awanen,” (he’s gone.) Mama was crying while packing our suitcase to leave for Bauang. After Tatang’s funeral, we again stayed in Bauang to be with Nanang where I studied my first semester in fourth grade until Christmas break when we moved back to Manila where I finished all of my schooling.
Until I graduated from high school, I spent most of my summer months in Bauang. Nanang would come to Manila before school ended, bringing boxes of chicos, mangoes, and her special coconut candies and preserves. She would then take Manong Spanky and me (and any of our cousins who wanted to go) back with her to Bauang for the summer. We would ride the train from the Tutuban station early in the morning and arrive in Bauang right around lunchtime. The train stopped at several stations along the way and vendors would hop on the train to ply their hometown specialties. Nanang, at our insistent requests, would only let us sample the foods she thought were sanitary and of better quality.
Summer vacations meant endless games played with my cousins – “piko,” kick the can, “tumbang preso” and “patintero” on moonlit nights. Manong Spanky and my older cousins climbed the fruit trees like mango, chico, makopa, and our all time favorite mansanitas tree. The less brave and smaller ones like me waited for their handouts, if any. Nonetheless, Nanang always had fruits on the dining table for us to enjoy all summer long. I kept my own stash of chicos and mangoes to ripen underneath the bed where Nanang also hid her supply of tobacco leaves for her hand-rolled cigars. It was fascinating to watch her meticulously hand-roll her cigar, bite off one end before lighting the other end, and puff contentedly. When I asked, she said she was fourteen when she first started to smoke.
It was not all fun and games in Bauang. Even on vacation we kept a regular schedule that started with the traditional morning devotional. Nanang woke up around four in the morning to send her newsboys to collect the Manila Times newspaper from the train station. Then she would sit on her rocking chair and read her Bible until sunrise. She would then start singing a hymn with her beautiful voice and tap me on the shoulder to wake me up. As one of the “floor leaders,” I slept with the rest of my cousins on “banigs” (woven mats) on the wood floors in the living room. I in turn would wake up the others, including the privileged ones, who slept on beds in the bedrooms. We read scripture, sang hymns, and recited memorized verses and favorite poems. Nanang ended the devotional with a prayer, after which I helped put our beddings away while the rest read the morning papers, set the table for breakfast, or snuck back into the bedrooms to catch some more “zzz’s.”
Nanang, a disciplinarian, taught me the basics of cooking, how to bargain at the market, and how to wash dishes using plants and coconut barks with a minimal amount of water. I loved to watch Nanang cook our meals on a clay stove using firewood in her “dirty kitchen” under the old house. Using an iron turner and a big iron wok, she showed me how to cook “estrellado” (egg sunny side up) and taught me how to measure the water after washing the rice twice to cook boiled rice. My first attempt to cook rice was with Nicky. I used a small toy clay pot atop three stones on the ground. I may have put too much rice and not enough water or our little sticks burned out too soon, but we ended up eating raw rice with our broiled “tuyo” (dried fish). Nanang was one of the best cooks around and nothing can compare to the memories of wonderful meals served at our huge dining table that could easily seat twelve. One of my favorite breakfast foods was tortoise eggs that were hard-boiled but one could tear the soft shells. I liked playing with the fried frog legs before I ate them. These were field frogs that were a delicacy and Nanang cooked them to taste like fried chicken. Nanang also made the best “pinakbet” and “dinengdeng” and I can never equal her recipes for “lechon carajay” and “igado.”
In the early morning and in the late afternoon, Nanang would take me with her to the market to buy fresh fish and vegetables. A true Ilocana, she kept to her budget and we went home with reasonably priced quality food. She introduced me to her “sukis” (regular vendors) like Tatang Itong for rice, Nanang Piriang for her “padas bagoong,” and Nanang Carmen for dried fish. Occasionally, Nanang would ask me to buy “lomo” (beef tenderloin) from the beef supplier very early on Sunday mornings. I had to run as fast as I could to get there ahead of the maid of Doctor Floresca since only one cow was slaughtered once a week on Sundays in Bauang. Market day was every Thursday when we bought all kinds of goodies like “patupat,” “buyos,” “carioca” and “buchi” from the out of town vendors.
The older cousins were tasked to do more chores and errands. Nanang asked Nicky and me to mind her little store at the plaza (town center). She would give us money to buy halo-halo from Tatang Ricky, two stores down. I also had the task of washing dishes after meals. The older Joaquin brothers and my Manong Spanky took turns at the manual pump to fill up the water tanks in the house for use in our baths, toilet, and cooking. Sometimes Auntie Fema’s suitors would come and do this rigorous chore. A heavy downpour was always a blessing because the water drums around the house would be filled. Nanang also taught me how to wash my clothes with rain water using a “batya” and “palo-palo” large basin and wooden paddle). Frolicking around while taking a rain shower was a lot of fun and helped conserve our water supply.
During my pre-teen days, Nanang appointed me as Auntie Fema’s chaperone when she and her date would attend the jam session held at the plaza auditorium during town fiestas. In the summer of 1958, we had a full house in Bauang. As young teenagers, Nicky and I were sitters for our younger cousins – the Veloso boys and Uncle Teddy’s boys. To keep them occupied and out of trouble, we organized them into a singing band using crude musical instruments and entered them in the talent show during the town fiesta. After several rehearsals, they won third place and made Nanang proud of all of us.
Our ancestral home in Bauang was a haven and home to anyone that wanted to live there. During their early years of marriage, Auntie Melly and Uncle Ramon with Jeffrey, Gaye and Nitoy stayed in Bauang. I helped sell at their little sari-sari store in the summertime. While waiting for his Engineering board results, Uncle Ando also spent some time in Bauang. When he had a hot date, Nicky and I were asked to pick up his laundry from Nana Ining. When we arrived at her nipa hut, we waited while she finished pressing the last shirt using a coal-efficient iron resting on banana leaves. With the freshly pressed shirts hanging from wire hangers, we would run back home in record time – a miracle we didn’t drop them along the way. Auntie Nora and her family also stayed at least once in Bauang. Norissa was only a little girl when Nanang asked her to tell my visitors to go home before dinner time because we did not have enough plates for them. I had my share of suitors in Bauang, some traveled by train to visit me from San Fernando, La Union.
I cherish the anecdotes about our parents’ growing years told around the dinner table that I still remember to this day. Usually after dinner, especially when Auntie Lois was around, we had a program and talent show of sorts and each one came up with a number to perform. I would recite a monologue or declamation, sang a song or danced the hula, but never wanted to be the first number of the program. All these are precious memories and traditions that I am passing on to my children and their children as I inculcate in them the Florendo family values of praying together, working responsibly, loving and supporting each other, and keeping in close touch.
Photos:
Upper left – Perla at 4 years old
Upper right – Manong Spanky at 5 & 9 months
Lower left – Mama (23 years old) and Perla (3 years old)
Lower right - Nanang in 1956
Upper left – Auntie Fema (at 23) and Perla (at 15)
Upper right – Perla graduating Elementary valedictorian (1956)
Lower left – Perla (2 _ years old ) and Manong Spanky (4 years and 4 months)
Lower right – Mama and Perla in 1957
Upper left – Manong Spanky and Perla in 1957
Upper right – Pedro B. Francisco as a PMA Class 1940 graduate
Bottom photo – Francisco family picture in 1960
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