Mom in the 1940's
In which Teófilo sketches the times and places of his mother's first decade of life.
The 1940’s augured war, but no one in Don Pedro’s immediate family nor he himself would go to fight. He continued his work as a driver throughout the decade as far as I can tell. In early 1941 Mom came into the world at the aforementioned Calle Dulcinea #2 house in Ponce and with her arrival, Don Pedro’s fledgling family with Mamá Ana reached its final size.
After Mom’s arrival, Don Pedro moved his family again, this time to Tibes (TEEH-behs), another rural ward of Ponce. Maybe the growing family needed more room, or maybe Don Pedro could not afford to live there any longer, or maybe any combination of these and/or other things forced them to move to Tibes.
Tío Jorge, Don Pedro’s son from one previous relationship I described before, went to live with them for a while. The family (minus Tío Jorge) then moved back to Ponce’s urban Second Ward just before the 1950 census took place.
During this time Mom grew up. In pictures she looks like a healthy girl with gestures and stances appropriate to her age. She was a normal, beautiful girl.
By 1946 Mom was old enough to participate in Titi Genoveva’s (“Geno”) wedding. She and Titi Gloria appeared on a picture with the rest of the wedding party. In that picture Mom started her life-long tradition of never looking straight at any camera taking her photo.
By looking at the pictures it is easy to state these were Mom’s and Titi Gloria’s golden years and remained so until the early 1950’s, when things would change, and the unwanted consequences of the change would cascade down to me later on in my life.
There’s a lesson here: as a parent one must encourage one’s children or grandchildren to live their golden years to the fullest, as they don’t know what can happen after that will estranged them.