Old Photographs 3 - Cecilia Brainard 5-6 years old

 

Here are more old photos. I was around 5 or 6 years old in these pictures. I just acquired the color photo from a nephew. I think this was taken near Manila de Bay. During our summer vacations, we used to visit Manila, stay in our place in Georgia Street, Malate, and from there, we kids used to walk to the Bay. We used to actually swim in the water; you can see people swimming in this photo. The water was pristine then. I learned how to float on my back for the first time in that Bay. I remember my brother holding me up as I lay on the water, and then he let go and I was surprised that I was still floating.

 

The second photo shows me playing the piano at a recital. Even though my mother was an accomplished pianist, she never taught us. It was a young man named Bokoy who gave us lessons. Papa used to drop us off at his home, in the Parian Old Cebu, if I recall right. I was not really good at it, nor was I interested, so I only remember one recital -- this one --- in which I played Skating on the Lake and Volga Boat Song. I can imagine my mother, who was playing piano from the time she was a child, listening to us and thinking, "Oh, dear, this is not for them."

 

The third photo shows me and my sister in our St. Theresa's College uniform. Our skirt was navy blue; our long-sleeved blouse was white. We had a blue ribbon and we should have had a badge (pin) in the middle of the bow. I don't know why we didn't have the badges on. We are posing in front of some of my mother's orchids. She had a collection that hung on a walkway arbor.

This is all for now. Stay tuned for more old photographs.

Read also

Old Photographs 1 - Baby Pictures of Cecilia Brainard

Old Photographs 2 - Cecilia Brainard "Happy Days by the Sea" 

Old Photographs 3 - Cecilia Brainard 5-6 years old

Old Photographs 4 - Cecilia Brainard 7 years old 

Tags: old photographs, old photos, vintage photos 

Guest Blogger: Paulino Lim Jr ~ Memory of a Lost Friend

 My Guest Blogger is Dr. Paulino Lim Jr (left in the picture; Lupo Grageda is beside him). 

Paulino Lim Jr. is a professor emeritus of English at California State University, Long Beach.

He is a recipient of the 2016 Presidential Award for Filipino Individuals and Organizations Overseas—for his fiction and scholarly essays that are constructive criticisms of the political, social, and religious problems in the Philippines. Also in 2016, his alma mater, the University of Santo Tomas, conferred upon him a lifetime achievement honor—the Parangal Hagbong Award—for significant contributions to Philippine literature. His latest book, Spots of Time: A Memoir of a Mind, was nominated for the Best Book of Nonfiction Prose in English, 38th Philippine National Book Awards (2018).

He is the author of a scholarly monograph on Byron, dramas, three anthologies, a quartet of political novels, and the novel Death of the English Zen Professor.

He shares with us his personal essay "Memory of a Lost Friend" which appears in his blog:  https://paulinolimjr.blogspot.com/

MEMORY OF A LOST FRIEND

How do you relate to someone who is no longer with us – as the saying goes – but whose voice we still hear and whose face we still see in our dreams? Was the person a dear friend, a lover you broke up with, or a spouse you divorced?

Old Photographs 2 - Cecilia Brainard - Happy Days by the Sea

 HAPPY DAYS BY THE SEA

As I mentioned, I just have a handful of photos from when I was a baby and child. This was during the time when people used real cameras, with real film, that had to be developed and printed.  The paper used were not necessarily archival and the pictures disintegrated; and most of the time, the rolled up negatives got lost or were destroyed. 

Here is one photo I found of me at around 4 years old. I'm with my mother, father, and older sibling. We are bathing in the sea, and this could have been in Talisay or Liloan beaches which we frequented on Sundays.  I suspect this photo may have been taken in Liloan because there is land in the background. I don't recall Talisay beach looked like this.

Old Photographs 1 - Baby Pictures of Cecilia Brainard

 

I thought I would post pictures of me through the years, starting with my baby pictures -- 2 of them, that's all I have.

One shows me on the bed; this photo is in very poor condition (it looks almost like some kind of art). The other shows my siblings and me the baby. L-R: Vicky holding me, Ana holding a doll, and Junior or Jess holding a Brownie camera. In the back, you can catch a glimpse of my father's Buick.  

This photo was taken in 1947 (yes, so long ago!), and the Philippines was still recovering from World War II. My parents and three siblings were in Mindanao for most of the war years; Papa was in the guerrilla movement. When war ended, and because Manila was almost totally destroyed, my father's house included, they decided to rebuild in Cebu, where Mama's family comes from. In this photo, we were still staying in a temporary house in Talisay and Papa must have been building our house near the Capitolio.

Stay tuned for more pictures!

 

 

Read also

Old Photographs 1 - Baby Pictures of Cecilia Brainard

Old Photographs 2 - Cecilia Brainard "Happy Days by the Sea" 

Old Photographs 3 - Cecilia Brainard 5-6 years old

 Old Photographs 4 - Cecilia Brainard 7 years old 

Tags: vintage photos, old photos, family photographs 

 

In Honor of Filipino American Writer, Ligaya Victorio Fruto

 

In Honor of Filipino American Writer, Ligaya Victorio Fruto who forged the way for other Filipino and Filam writers:

 

LIGAYA VICTORIO FRUTO, whose story "The Fan" is part of the classic collection FICTION BY FILIPINOS IN AMERICA

BORN AND raised in the Philippines, Ligaya Victorio Fruto was trained as a teacher at the Philippine Normal School. While still in her teens, she began teaching and at the same time wrote stories which were published in leading national publications. Because she taught in Baguio, her early stories were mostly about the people of the mountain region.

Ligaya later worked for the pre-war Tribune, forerunner of the Manila Times. Of her contemporaries, Ligaya is one of the few who have not deviated from writing as her main profession. She has covered the field of journalism and creative writing in the Philippines and her adopted country, the U.S., in a range so wide it would be hard to contest. She has written two books, Yesterday and Other Stories and One Rainbow for the Duration, proceeds of which were donated to Philippine charities.

She was married early but was widowed during the Japanese Occupation of the Philippines. She worked for the Philippine Foreign Service; it was in Honolulu that she met and married Larry Fruto, a Filipino, who, as a very young man, went to Hawaii on his own and finished his engineering education there. Her only son by her first marriage, Ramon V. Reyes, lives in the U.S. with his wife and children. Ligaya lived in Honolulu.

Read also:

Philippine Literature: Filipino and Filipino American Writers 

Bienvenido N. Santos - Cecilia Brainard Remembers

N.V.M. Gonzalez - In Honor of Filipino American Writer

Linda Ty-Casper - In Honor of Filipino Writer

Paulino Lim Jr - In Honor of Filipino American Writer

Gloria F. Rodriguez - Editor, Publisher 

To Leonard Ralph Casper from Bienvenido N. Santos

 July 6 is the 100th Birthday anniversary of Leonard Ralph Casper!

 

Excerpt from WILL YOU HAPPEN, PAST THE DARKNESS, THROUGH THE SILENCE: REMEMBERING LEONARD RALPH CASPER (Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/1953716202 )

Letters from Bienvenido N. Santos --
Dear Len:
I’m grateful to you for your letter, that “reverend” portion which…about time someone like you opened my eyes to the truth: I have been luckier than most…

Did I say anything about the National Artist Award? I do not WANT it, Len. Not from that couple…if offered to me, I will turn it down…You are right, what more do I need?

I’m not going to teach anymore after June 10…you can be sure, I’m going to write my heart out…because it is the only way…I know you will be busy but please, for my own selfish reasons, write to me… I’ll be in the Philippines not later than Nov 1...the priority in my life is my health. I spent two days in the hospital week, the usual emergency treatment for chest pains…fortunately everything turned out well…O, Len, you don’t know how helpful you have been. Thank you, dear friend. As ever, Ben. May 24, 1983.

Leonard Ralph Casper Centennial Birthday Celebration

The Centennial birthday of LEONARD RALPH CASPER is this July 6. Please read this writeup "REMEMBERING LEONARD RALPH CASPER" based on interviews of his wife, award-winning Filipina novelist Linda Ty-Casper.

The collection of his letters, (which his wife calls his Memoirs) WILL YOU HAPPEN, PAST THE SILENCE, THROUGH THE DARK is available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, among others.

tags: Philippine literature, Filipino literature, Pinoyreads, pinoylit, Filipino books

Read also;

Interview of Linda Ty-Casper

Book Review of WILL YOU HAPPEN by Joel Pablo Salud