A Family Heirloom

Heirlooms

Heirloom: [air-loom] noun, Something of special value handed down from one generation to another. (source: Merriam-Webster)

An heirloom is usually a material item like a family Bible, a portrait of a long-dead ancestor, or a wedding ring that has passed through multiple generations. Its sentimental value often far outweighs what the item would demand at auction. In some cases, in the eyes of the rest of the world, the item would be deemed of little value. We cling to our mementos and our heirlooms because they represent something more deeply meaningful. They are our personal and family history that we can look at, touch, and meditate upon. It is not necessarily the items themselves, but the stories behind them that earn them their “special value.”

A Family Heritage

Our grandparents Santiago and Carmen Guevara, known as “Lolo” and “Nona” to the family, lived in the Watergate complex alongside the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. Their 9th floor balcony overlooked Virginia Avenue and Rock Creek Park beyond it. If you leaned over the balcony and looked to your right, the spire of the Washington Monument towered over the condos and federal buildings on either side of Virginia Avenue. If you looked left, you saw the Potomac River, Thompson’s Boat House, and the towers of Healy Hall at Georgetown University. In 1966 Santiago and Carmen were among the first to occupy a co-op in the landmark building. Theirs was a simple two-bedroom apartment. It might have been described as cozy, but close, cramped, and confined may have been more precise terms on Easter Sunday, the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas and several other occasions each year when their children, their spouses, a majority of their sixteen grandchildren, and even some of their eventual twenty-seven great-grandchildren would join in the celebrations they hosted. We didn’t mind much. The kitchen was small and the sole common area was perhaps ten feet wide by twenty feet deep. The dining room table and chairs were placed below a crystal chandelier and shared a wall with the kitchen, while the living room extended the remaining fifteen feet to the balcony door. On Christmas day, gaily wrapped packages overflowed from under the tree well into the seating area and made access to the the balcony difficult. The apartment was filled not only with family, but with the delicious aromas of ham, adobo, pansit, and Carmen’s incomparable lumpia.

Santiago, Carmen, and their three children were born in the Philippines, a chain of islands in the Western Pacific whose native culture was greatly influenced by 300 years of Spanish colonization followed by nearly 50 as a United States “protectorate.” Carmen especially embraced her heritage with pride and passion. In 1919, then teen-aged Santiago was honored with an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, and subsequently served as an officer in the U.S. Army Philippine Scouts. Carmen met and married the young officer in Manila, and surrounded by extended family, they lived and grew in relative tranquility and comfort. The Guevaras led an active social life that included formal and informal functions with military and government officials at the highest levels, including Philippine Presidents Emilio Aguinaldo and  Manuel Quezon, and American officers Dwight Eisenhower and  Douglas MacArthur. Their tranquil life was shattered in December 1941, and when the family finally emerged from enemy occupation nearly four years later, Santiago was offered U.S. citizenship and a posting stateside.

“I’m Not Going”

“I’m not going to live in the States,” forty year-old Carmen told her husband. “To visit, yes. But to live there? No.” Their three children were old enough to express opinions as well, however, and Carmen reluctantly gave in. “What was I going to do? Live there [in the Philippines] by myself?” Like their friend Douglas MacArthur, Carmen vowed, “I shall return.” Once in the U.S., Carmen became involved in the Philippine Heritage Society and went into business with her sisters back home to import and sell  Filipino-made crafts at ethnic festivals and the like. Her cooking and most home decor spoke loudly of her cultural heritage. Probably before she left the Philippines in 1949, Carmen commissioned Filipino artist(s) to paint four large canvasses with scenes from the life she left behind, one for herself and one for each of her children. “All of the [paintings] I commissioned. I told them what I wanted,” Carmen told her granddaughter Teresa in a 1997 interview. “Something to remind you of your life. You know. Something of your life.” Her voice trailed off with a slight sadness.

Just as she vowed, Carmen made multiple trips back to the Philippines. Her daughter, also named Carmen but known to the family as Minnie, describes her final journey:

At her request, we took Nona on her last trip in 2004 at age 97 to Cuyo, her native island, to which she had hesitated to return despite our pleas…. [T]hat turned out to be the most memorable and sentimental of all [her] journeys. Seeing her former ancestral home on the beautiful beach, where her 12 natural siblings and 2 half-siblings grew up, turned into a market place complete with fighting cocks pecking in the grass resulted only in her philosophical comment, “It is a different world.” Visiting the four-century old Spanish church where Nona’s native-born mother, Vicenta Rodriguez, hid her father behind the statue of St. Joseph. Filipino revolutionaries and Spanish warships were looking for Spaniards, the latter to return them to the homeland after losing the Spanish-American War. Lolo Clemente [Fernandez] elected to stay with his family. Finding the crypt of his father, Jose Maria Fernandez, on the floor of the church and the plaque honoring Trinidad Legarda ([Carmen’s older sister] the first woman ambassador, who was born in the church) were highlights but being recognized by two former students walking in the courtyard whom Nona taught in high school… was amazing.”

The painting above hung in their Watergate apartment for more than forty years, and in their Albemarle and Garfield Street houses for at least a decade previous to that. It is a rural barrio scene, a feast day celebration – in some ways like (and in others decidedly unlike) our get-togethers at Santiago and Carmen’s apartment – complete with roast pig (“lichon baboy”), cock-fighting, musical instruments, and tinikling, a rhythmic ethnic dance utilizing bamboo poles. A placid river skirts the barrio where nipa palm huts line a dirt road. A pile of bananas, a stack of what looks like hay for the caribou, and a red-flowering flame tree (“I called it poingo,” said Carmen. “Fire tree. They have that in Hawaii but not here. And the mango tree.”)  give color and texture to the village scene. The ox cart in the foreground reminds us of the work that awaits when the festivities end, while the volcano in the background might hint at worldly sorrows. Dormant volcanoes rose above the jungles of Bataan where Santiago faced the horrors of combat and near-starvation, and volcanoes loomed beyond the Japanese prisoner of war camp where his family later visited him.

Our eyes are drawn to the simple stone church, the center of their cultural life. Under the arched entry stand two people, a male and a female. One might imagine this to be our grandparents looking on at their descendants – adults, children, and babes-in-arms – laughing, feasting, dancing, and making music generation after generation. It might also be Jesus and His Mother Mary, a part of and yet slightly apart from the earthly celebration, and beckoning us to one day join our ancestors at the heavenly banquet that awaits.

This, then, is the heirloom. When Carmen died in 2009, it was the memento I most desired. It hangs in my living room today and, God willing, it will continue to be treasured for generations to come.  The painting below hung above the mantle in our family living room growing up for more than fifty years. It now hangs in my brother’s dining room. May it, too, be loved and treasured.

What is your family heirloom, and what is the story behind it? Share your story with your younger family members that might otherwise look at it and shrug, and with us if you like. After all, our heirloom represents something incredibly more deep and meaningful than its outward appearance could possibly suggest.