Dionisia’s early life as written in a letter to her great granddaughter

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Dear Iris,                           February 7, 2015

So you really want to know all about my childhood life?  Well, thank you for asking me.  I am sure you will be so delighted to know all about the kind of life I lived as one of ten children in my family and also the youngest. 

It started with my father (Marcelo Seno) with five children – three girls and two boys – in his first marriage. Then my Mom (Salome) had two sons in her first marriage.  Between the two of them they had seven children altogether from their first marriages.  After their second marriage to each other, they had three girls.  I am the youngest of their three girls.  That makes altogether ten children in my family.

As for me, being the youngest was a lot of fun.  I was the most loved and the favorite child in my family.  I enjoyed staying with my adult sisters at their home, or with my grandparents at their farm, or at their house in town.  Most of all, I liked being with my grandparents (Alejandro Sumaljag and Theodora Fiel) at their farm with all the variety of fruits and vegetables.  We had so much of just about everything to live on. 

My grandpa was called in Spanish “Teniente Del Barrio” which mans in English “Officer of the Village” or “Lieutenant of the Village,” because he owned the biggest farm land among the farmers in that particular area.  He owned 14 acres of land in Ormoc, Leyte. 

During harvest season there were a lot of friendly neighbor farmers who volunteered to help harvest rice or corn at my grandparents’ farm.  After the harvest, they had a large storage area for the rice and corn in the basement of their house in town.

These are all my memories of my preschool years at my grandparents’ farm.  We had an abundance of a variety of food including:  chickens, eggs, hogs, all kinds of fruits and vegetables right on the farm.  Also a few Caribou.

Later on at the age of 6-years-old, I started school in my home town.  They called my school Ormoc Elementary School.  During that time, I was at home with my Mom.  My Dad died when I was about 2.  Later on my grandparents died.

My whole family were very devout Catholics, very religious, and very strict disciplinarians.  Sunday was church day only.  We were not allowed to do any work.  We had to say our prayers every evening.  Everyone must know how to recite the Holy Rosary, also to keep with the Ten Commandments.  The Catholic children were taught to be respectful to their elders.

As years went by my sister (Expectacion) as a teenager, the oldest of the three of us, Convinced my Mom to move out to Cebu – my Dad’s birth place.  My other middle sister (Nestoria) was adopted by our half-sister (Serapiona and her husband Nicholas Ablen) when she was a baby, since she and her husband, a school teacher, were childless.  So there was  Mom, me, and my older sister.  During the time I was in sixth grade, my half-brother-in-law (Carlos Solomon) was my teacher in school.  By the way, two of my brothers-in-law were teachers – Carlos Solomon married to Buenaventurada and Nicholas Ablen married to Serapiona.

Finally we got located in Cebu where my sister’s (Expectacion) wishes came true.  My sister got the job she really wanted as a well-paid professional dress-maker.  As I have always wanted to graduate from high school, I decided to go to a Catholic school called “The Little Flower ofJesus Academy” in Cebu City.  My Mom and my married sister (Expectacion) could not afford to pay my tuition.  So I decided to volunteer my services at the Academy in exchange for my school tuition.  I felt so happy and really overwhelmed when they accepted me.  They put me in charge of the school snack bar where students buy snacks during recess.  It was my responsibility to turn in the cash every afternoon to the person in charge of the school snack sales. 

Everything was so wonderful with me and my schooling.  My Mom was happy living with my sister, Expectacion.  Then my sister got married to Ceferino Balverde and soon they had their first born baby girl in 1939, Cipriana.  We were so excited having an adorable baby in the family for the first time.

But then unexpectedly we heard of the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese.  My Mom decided to go home to our city of Ormoc, Leyte.  So one evening we took a boat to get back to our old home town.  It was so scary to see the Japanese already in our home town.  That was in 1941.  I was 15-years-old.  Immediately we all left the town of Ormoc, and we went to our farm to gather whatever food we could take with us.  We were on our way to find a safe place to evacuate and hide, because the Japanese had already occupied our whole place all over.

That was World War II which was during my teen-age life.  The most miserable 4 or 5 years of our lives in the Philippines and in many countries in the world.  Thank God the American forces finally came to save us from the brutal Japanese invaders.  It was a miserable 4 to 5 years of my childhood and teen age life.  There were so many American forces and Filipino soldiers who occupied our home town.  That was in 1945 when the war ended, when the United States dropped atomic bombs in Japan.  The Japanese surrendered finally.  In 1945 I got married to a US army Sergeant First Class when I was 19 years old.  The US Army guy whom I married became your great-grandpa, Servando (Fred) Rilleria Florendo.  We came to the United States on September 11, 1949.  I came here with two children, Carmen 2&frac;12;-years-old and Esther 10-months-old.  My son, born in Vallejo in 1950, was 8&frac;12;-years-old when he died in 1959.  We were so broken-hearted upon his passing.  Your grandma Esther and your great aunt Carmen were my beloved little girls.  They are still my most beloved grown daughters.

Now you truly know about the life I have lived.  End of story.  Iris, I hope to see you soon.  Take care.

All my love to you and Jay.

Great Grandma