After the war, my young parents Pablo and Laura Capistrano had to return to Manila from hiding from the Japanese at my grandparent’s lanzones farm in San Pablo City. They were homeless and were quite worried about their first born, barely walking with no roof over her head, this child Purisima was clueless with what was going on. Fortunately a cousin of my father, who was renting out stables for horses by the San Lazaro race tracks in Felix Huertas allowed us to stay in one of their horse stalls. Literally, we slept in a haystack of a manger for awhile. Thereafter we lived in so many places as my father took us to his job assignments as a Mining Engineer. I led a nomadic life and was even thrown in the deep muslim island of Basilan off Zamboaga after I got married to Ramon Alano Laconico, Jr. There I had a jeweler, Mrs Remedios Baro who kept coming to our house and eventually became my friend after selling me a few pieces here and there. She was a savvy businesswoman but her words were convincing. What struck me was her story about a client of hers who bought a house in USA just by selling jewelry that she sold. We were then preparing to immigrate to the US in 1973 with 3 kids, Yvonne was 6 years old, Ramon III was 5 and Nikki was almost 2. With no job in place and no house, we lived in the living room of my sister Nati’s studio apt. in Chicago and slept on the floor. My focus was to make Mrs. Baro’s words happen to me. There were many prophets of doom who thought I was too much of a dreamer, laughed at me, burst my bubble and discouraged me. They said we had no job and credit history, and that we had to wait for a least 2 years to establish creditworthiness etc etc. That is the reality of it. That was the truth for sensible people. But I don’t listen to what others say. They said I couldn’t find a job because I had no job history but I easily found employment. Even my sister said none of her friends will buy my jewelry because they use credit cards here and I didn’t even have certificates of authenticity. She was right, yet I still managed to sell enough for a down payment. Well we surprised everyone when within 3 months upon our arrival in Uncle Sam’s backyard, we were able to buy a 3 bedroom brick house with a full basement in Roselle, Illinois. It had 3 maple tress in front and an apple tree and a crab-apple tree at the back with lots of peonies, lilies of the valley and hostas all around. All for $ 43,000. in 1973. Our parish priest Father Keys who monitored our goings on as new parishioners ( upon the recommendation of Bishop Cabanban from our church back home) went golfing with the Manager of the Bank of Roselle who approved our loan! My kids claimed one maple tree each and in the Fall they would pile up the leaves into a heap and jump in them with our cat. At the end of the street was a pond that served as an ice skating rink for our kids and for the neighborhood kids at wintertime. At the other end of the street was their elementary school. It was an idyllic place for kids to grow and quite heaven sent for us.
In 1977 we were all very sad to find out Mon accepted a job in San Jose, California. Our kids were crying and no one could understand what in the world was in San Jose to exchange with our Roselle Paradise. His uncle in law Mayor Villegas ( Tita Lydia Alano Villegas was his aunt )offered him to run Cables Electronics, an electronic company he just bought. We had no inkling that era was the onset and beginning of what was to become Silicon Valley. We had no clue that San Jose, once called Valley of Heart’s Delight due to its vast fruit orchards that bloomed profusely like cherry blossoms would someday evolve to become the fulcrum and world capital of Silicon Valley, center of technology. It transformed the vast expanse of exquisite fruit orchards into concrete skyscrapers and urban housing developments whose prices skyrocketed just as fast. Farmers who sold their cherry orchards to developers became instant multi-millionaires. Cables’s early clients were garage operations such as Atari, Apple Computers ( Steve Jobs and Woz Wozniak were mere teen geeks then), Hewlett Packard, IBM, Intel. And luckily I had a job transfer in SFO so I took the train everyday to commute to the city. Meanwhile we lived for 2 months at their castle up the mountain in Portola called Villa Lauriston, a thick book written about the architecture of this marvelous villa. Its onyx pillars were studded with gold dust and gates were from European castles. Hollywood offered to film the Great Gatsby for a thousand a day photo shoot fee but Tito Tony declined. Same architect who did the Fairmont Hotel and other major city buildings. We finally found and bought our first house in San Jose on Viceroy Way where the land beyond our fence were golden yellow mustard fields and apricot orchards. As we were winding down the steep mountainside from their villa to move to our new house, my station wagon’s engine died, turned turtle at the edge of the cliff and Yvonne and I were upside down but alive. Mon and our boys thought we were dead as the car was a total wreck beyond repair. Nothing short of a miracle it was. But then the electronics company shut down due to anomalies of previous owners and Mon had no choice but to start his own garage operation called Aarone Corporation. That’s another story.
In 1982, another miracle happened when I twitched my nose again and worked out ways to get our dream house, an ancestral home. That’s the end of our hopping around from house to house, the longest we have lived in one place. 875 Plaza Drive in Willow Glen is the first suburb of the old downtown in San Jose. Conveniently located by the San Jose Mineta International airport and just 2 miles from downtown and yet has the feel of being tucked away in the suburbs. It’s a much written about house including Sunset Magazine and appeared in a historical book called Old Willow Glen. The contractor built it for himself in 1917 but instead sold it to JS Williams, a clothier for $12,000. Hundreds of palm trees line the streets like giant sentinels. This small enclave is called Palm Haven and our house is right in front of Palm Haven Park. It’s a Spanish style home reminiscent of Villa Montalvo, symbolic of a bygone era. We bought it from its 3rd owner who did a lot of restoration. They stripped off linoleum all over the first floor to expose beautiful hardwood. The entry has a marble threshold and its wooden antique door is encased in beveled glass on both sides and up top. The living room fireplace depicts its period with elaborate mantle and marble base. A Solarium occupies one end, its where I grow my indoor plants and use it as my private phone room as well. At the opposite end is an Aviary which I now use as my office. Between them is a cavernous living room with intricate ceiling and wall mouldings and all original chandeliers and light fixtures remained as part of the house. It has a dumb waiter and laundry chutes too.The Dining room has mahogany walls and pocket doors on one end and mahogany with glass accordion doors on the other end where I entertain sit down dinners. I used to donate sit down Dinner for 12 to the silent auction of the Rotary Club where we belonged and it’s always sold out. They seem to like what I cooked and to see this house which I refuse to enlist for home tours. It has a full basement and an attic where I store old books. The previous owner collected Rolls Royces so it has an 8 car garage, big enough for an apartment. We still don’t own a Rolls Royce. It should come with a chauffer which we can’t afford yet. It sits on a half acre of land which is hard to find in a city so we are fortunate to enjoy the yard. We don’t hire gardeners, just Mon and me. We have lots of fruit trees, redwoods, Japanese maples, sycamores, Italian cypresses, olives, magnolia, a giant fir tree that looks like a hundred years old, etc and my flowering blooms. But gardening is another chapter. In 1984 our youngest daughter Samantha was born and Plaza Drive was her first and only home until she flew the coop to study in San Diego and remained there. We are now empty nesters but this home is so full of treasured memories, it not easy to even think of leaving the spirits that dwell in it. It’s a place our children and grandchildren come home to for family gatherings.
From Manger to Manse. It’s all in the mind. It was sheer will power. Sharp focus on dreams. We seized opportunities. The truth is we are happy to sleep anywhere, be it on a haystack, on the grass, on a hole in the wall, or on a banig on the bamboo floor. But with lots of pillows……to dream on.
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