Three little maids from school
Once there was a school run by American nuns that opened its doors in Manila. It was on Pennsylvania Street, now Leon Guinto. It was known as Maryknoll College.
I went to kindergarten at St. Theresa’s College in San Marcelino under the famous Mother Redempta. My mother taught there but the Belgian nuns discovered she wore a bra and half-slip under her dress, and insisted she wears a full slip instead. She quit. She pulled me out and put me in Maryknoll College instead. There I stayed until high school and made lifelong friends.
They were Margarita de los Reyes, whose nickname was Tingting and Velma Bess Richardson, whose nickname was Buki. Buki was born on a mountain in Cebu. “Mountain” in Visayan is buki, hence her nickname. My real name is Concepcion Barbara Gonzalez. No one knew me as Barbara. Later my nickname surfaced—Tweetums, given by my father who was killed by the Japanese when I was six months old. The nickname stuck for sentimental reasons, a precious gift from my father.
The three of us played in each other’s homes. In sixth grade, our two sections were split—one stayed grade six, and the other half became grade seven. Tingting, Buki, and I remained in grade six. The following year Chingbee Kalaw enrolled and the year after Josine Loinaz. We were known at the Ateneo as a gang of beauties. We graduated from Maryknoll College High School in 1961, 62 years ago.
Real life swept in. Tingting, Chingbee, and Josine went to Assumption for college. Buki went to Los Angeles, USA and I went to Lausanne, Switzerland. Tingting and I got married at 18. Buki married after she finished college as did Chingbee and Josine. As life progressed, our marriages eventually broke up. Chingbee and I remarried but mine broke up again in 1977 and I didn’t remarry until 2018, when I finally learned to become a wife.
Occasionally we ran into each other. Chingbee and I met at the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP). Buki became Mrs. Burke, then she divorced and never married again. She was a successful realtor in California. Tingting married Peping Cojuangco and turned into a politician who has hundreds of masters and doctorates. Tingting and I only ran into each other when Chingbee passed away. She was first to cross over followed by Josine.
We said we would have lunch but nothing happened. Then suddenly Buki was coming over and she wanted to see both of us. She hadn’t seen Tingting for 60 years. She also wanted to visit Henry Hotel because her daughter recommended it. So off we went. Buki and her cousin Margie Taylor (who is not in the photo because she took it), Tingting, and I.
We remember how we felt and realize that our hearts paint a sweeter picture, a more sentimental memory.
Tingting and I had been to the Henry Hotel before. It was a first for Buki and Margie. The Henry Hotel was an old Pasay compound that had been turned into a boutique hotel. You come in from the chaos of EDSA and F. Harrison Street into a peaceful, tree-filled large garden full of old 1940s houses with the original tiles as the floors. The main house, which is the premier hotel, has the restaurant, Apartment 1. The acacia and star apple trees are so tall they must be a hundred years old. The frangipani or kalachuchi trees are also tall, old, totally leafless but full of blooms. It is so quiet inside once you enter the gate. It brings you back to a time in your life when you were small, lived in a house similar to these, and hung your legs out of the window.
We had lunch but we were not there to eat. We were there to remember our classmates, who lived, who died, who had epileptic fits that sent one of us rushing to the clinic whenever an attack began. We remembered Tingting’s grandparents—Pappy and Dada. Pappy always affectionately called Dada “alma,” Spanish for “soul,” and their lovely home in Paco where we used to spend nights when we were children. “I used to think it was a big house but I went there recently and discovered that in reality, it was small,” Tingting related.
Yes, we all seem to remember our childhoods as we saw them from our child’s eyes, which don’t necessarily reflect reality over time. Nevertheless, we remember events well because when we grow into our 70s, we do not simply remember what we have seen. We remember how we felt and realize that our hearts paint a sweeter picture, a more sentimental memory. It is from our hearts that we sing that old mellow song—ah yes, I remember it well.
Three Little Maids From School is a song from The Mikado, a musical presented by the Ateneo Glee Club when we were around 14.