Grade 2: The Year we had First Communion and First Confession

-------Margot Legarda, Mailou San Gabriel, Fr. Tony Sharma, Vivian Veloria (?), Irene Cordero, Kathleen Santiago, Lally Hidalgo, Lucille Vasquez, Diana Gamboa, Belen Alon, ? Annett Agregado, Marianna Unson

See if you can find these faces: Vivian Honorio, Susan Antonio, Chinggay Evangelista, Monica Francisco, Marilou Fabre, Diane Pardo, Nadine Adad ----------------------------------------------------------------

BELOW: Karen Montenegro, Sandy Harper - San Lo First Communicants
GRADE 2: If you were in Section 3 with me, your 1st Communion date was Nov. 21, 1971, and the priest was my grand uncle, Fr. Jesus Diaz. I think the priest who gave us First Confession was Fr. Tony Sharma. I know all that, but I cannot remember who our teacher was. I believe our mistress of class was Mother Martha (now known as Mrs. Remia Evaristo!) Our Mother Superior then was Mother Immaculada.

I remember I had this classmate named Evangeline Eigenmann. One day, her lola and mom came to pick her up in school and I realized her mom was Rosemarie Gil, the actress. Well, Ms. Evangeline is now known to most of you as Cherie Gil, also an actress! I also remember a classmate, Naomi Murakami. At some point during the year, I think she converted and had her own First Communion. I think that was the first time I realized that not all the world was born Catholic. That girl could draw so well, and her drawings of people look just like the people in those Japanese pencil boxes, including all the white highlights in the eyes. I remember we kept drawing and drawing and sending in entries to the Shankar art contest in India. Nowadays, when I think of Naomi, I wonder if she is related to the Murakami person who designed the Louis Vuitton line a few years ago!

I can't remember exactly when it started, perhaps in Prep. But it seemed like every Christmas, when we re-enacted the Nativity, I was always chosen to be an angel, together with Vivian and Angela Quirino. All we had to do was wear a white party dress, and voila, we were angels. Mother Mary was always Salvacion "Ton" Locsin. With a face like hers, no one could ever be Mother Mary but her. I wonder where she is now. I last saw her in college in U.P. Speaking of Angela Quirino, we loved to go to her birthday parties. She usually had swimming parties. Their swimming pool was beautiful, I think it was art nouveau-like, definitely not the modern day swimming pool that most other people had. There was even an actual chapel on the grounds of their compound on P. Guevara Street in San Juan. Sometimes we would attend mass there. We even had a field trip to her house once, because there was also a doll museum there. And on that same field trip, my mom or my lola had this idea that they should come by my lola's house a few blocks away so we could all see the giant pechay our gardener had planted! Imagine that, dolls and giant vegetables, all in one field trip, what fun! Such simple joys we had in our youth.

My lola also passed away this year. Her wake was at the chapel in Assumption, and her funeral mass was in the middle of the school day. I remember that as we drove out of Assumption, along the driveways, and out of that magnificent black wrought iron gate, the road was lined with Assumption girls and nuns and manangs all the way, to say goodbye to my lola. When I think of that day, I am both proud and sad, that all those girls wanted to say goodbye to her too.