So it’s 1951. There’s my dad in a clean prosperous city, Minneapolis, with a good job and good prospects, without a wife, not getting any younger, and going through a sort of anxious “last chance to have a family” phase.

His only hope for matrimony lay in the three—count ’em—three penpal relationships he started after he and Margaret the Irish-American housekeeper called it quits in St Louis and he followed his new boss, starting out in Mpls in a one-bedroom in a big old building near 38th & Chicago where the George Floyd memorial is now, and where my mother, then I four years later, were brought home to.

The Jai Alai Building in Manila—home of young marrieds, Filipino swells, and the WWII Japanese secret police.

Now, as I recall it, there were a couple of cousins on my dad’s side from Manila, spinster sisters, who came around to the house after dad died to: one, pay their respects; and two, make sure they were still getting their remittances. (Dad supported a lot of cousins in his lifetime.) Relieved at mother’s assurances that the checks would keep on coming, the two sisters—let’s call them Patti and Laverne—sat me down privately one evening during…I guess it was dad’s wake, more or less…to tell me the saga of the Three Penpals and My Father’s Quest for Ms Right.

My dad had her letters and her picture—like I said, she was as pretty as a movie star. And as Patti and Laverne reported back to my father, she was educated and from a good family in the professional class (her father, my lolo, my grandfather, José de la Peña a municipal judge; her mother, my lola, my grandmother, Cristina Abérin a schoolteacher). Domestic talents—nil, but look at that punim! They couldn’t have done a better job if they’d been selling Edward Rochester on Bertha Mason.

But more on that later. Let’s just say it worked like the plot of a Mamoulian musical, a fairy tale where all the women are either witches or princesses and there’s always that Magick Choice of Three…

So, according to Patti and Laverne’s scorecard, candidates one and two struck out but candidate three, my mother, was the bride for my dad. He wrote and proposed to her, she answered yes, except he’d have to meet her family first. Cut to scene of my dad landing in Manila where he hasn’t set foot in 24 years. Dad spends the rest of the dry season making the rounds of the de la Peñas, being inspected and generally approved of; my dad was always a simple, up-front guy and people got to like him very easily.

O, let us be married, too long we have tarried! But what shall we do for a church? was the question, as my father, a divorcé (remember Margaret?) didn’t qualify for a church wedding. Before too long someone in the family suggested the Jai Alai Building in Manila, the Art Deco showcase where the local smart set had their do’s and where the Japanese in World War Two had their secret police headquarters.

But the inside is nice and my parents’ wedding even made the society page. They described my dad as an “American businessman”.

EXTRA! For those of you who’ve read this to the end, here’s the danceable jukebox version of “Dahil Sa Iyo” I grew up listening to.

FULL DRESS // A gifted mesmerist—a sinister composer—a naive young conductor from the north…inspired by an episode from the life of Rachmaninoff // DOWNLOAD FREE BOOK POSTER

PATREON

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