My grandfather wrote constantly. He wrote memoirs, journals, letters, and newsletters. One of my fondest memories as a child was when his monthly newsletter, “Pat’s Acres” (named after my grandmother) would come in the mail. He split it into sections about himself and each of his seven children. He’d write about what was going on in each family, birthdays, graduations, if he had seen someone or if he had heard from them. I would go to my mom’s section right away to see if he had mentioned me that month.
When he moved from his house on Wilsky Blvd, I saved as much of his writings, pictures, tapes, film and video as I could find. Other family members saved what they could as well. I ended up with quite a bit of material: the 1990 memoir (60+ pages), the 1994 memoir (300+ pages), a copy of my grandmother’s memoir, and assorted single stories and newsletters.
I had previously completed transcribing his 1990 “History of My Life” on another blog: sibayanclan.blogspot.com. It took me 3 years to do it, along with several single stories and news about my grandfather at the time. I started in 1998 and kept at it sporadically until my grandfather’s failing health and eventual death this January, when I made the effort to complete it.
Since then, I’ve gone over it one more time, editing it for mistakes and consolidating the format. This memoir covers his life from birth to about 1934-1935, with a few detours to other times in his life. I’m going to re-publish it here on this blog, a few entries every week, along with pictures that I recently found from that era.
As I’m doing that, I’m also going to be editing the much longer “Story of My Life” from 1994. That one goes into much more detail and goes to 1970. It includes all the stories that I remember him telling me about World War II, being a survivor of the Bataan Death March, and a Prisoner of War. I’ll post excerpts of some of that information as I go through the document, so stay tuned.
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