Grandma Pam was born March 14, 1925.* She was born in Nandacan, Bautista, Pangasinan (which is right across the Agno River from Bayambang, where her mother, Heliodora, was born.
Google Earth screenshot showing Bayambang on the left, where Heliodora was from, and Nandacan in Bautista on the right, where Grandma Pam was born.
* This is according to her passports, but there is one Municipality of Bautista registrar document, which “copied from the original on file,” that says 1923. However, as I’ve researched, I’ve found that all these historical documents get dates and name spellings incorrect a lot of the time.
Grandma Pam and her siblings spoke Ilocano in addition to Tagalog, which we know 1) because they’re from Pangasinan and 2) because a Tito remembers them speaking Ilocano with domestic workers.
I think when she was 6, the family moved to Baguio in 1931 as Felipe E. Jose launched his campaign and became a city councilor. She was the fourth babiest of nine siblings: Armando, Luning, Lualhati (Hattie), Felipe Jr. (Pitts), Dalisay (Dolly), Liberato (Toots), Aristotles (Tolly), and Ligaya (Lil).
Pam [and Toots? or a date?]
Pam, Toots, Luning
The Japanese invaded the Philippines in December 1941 (ten hours after Pearl Harbor) — Grandma was 16. From 1941-1945, the family was running from town to town, being hidden by the people, to avoid being held hostage by the Japanese. Felipe and Rufina and Grandma Pam and Doc Bert and Luning and little Chita and little Bert were together, at one point living in chicken coops in Bulacan, or hiding in dugouts as the Japanese walked past searching the family hiding them’s house. Felipe dressed Grandma Pam and other girls up as small boys. They were with the first people the Americans saw when they landed in Lingayen.
Grandma told the story of the Americans landing, and their procession through the streets as the people celebrated around them. First the recon group, then the artillery, then the big tanks and the corps of engineers. “I can’t forget the time when they said, ‘move, move!’ We were in the middle of the street [whooping] ‘Americanos!’ Me I was a tomboy, oh my god, I was a tomboy: ‘Hey!’ I went in the front of the tank. And this is an American just so scared: [gesticulating] ‘Move! Move!’ He says, ‘Drive…! Drive…! You… You die!!’ [motions sleeping]. I answered, ‘Hey Yank! Can’t you speak English!?’ [laughter, pounds table]”
When she was 24 (in 1949, four years after the war ended), she got a Filipino passport (with visas for the US in March and China in April).
First of five passports.
Pam, Felipe E. Jose, Luning, Lil
Okay, some rapid-fire timelining:
She married Durham Hale Bennett in 1950?
She had Uncle Scott in 1951.
She was naturalized as a US Citizen in 1954.
She had Auntie Kwan in 1959.
She married David H. Mangle in 1961 in Las Vegas.
She had my mom, Cindy, in 1963.
Grandma Pam and Uncle Scott
Armando, Luning, Pitts, Dolly, Pam, Lil
Scott, Cindy, Kwan, Dave, Pam
Grandma Pam, Auntie Kwan, Kia