Friday's Faces from the Past: Pictures of a Golden Day

Benita (McGinnis) McCormick (1889 - 1984)
Phillip Columbus McCormick  (1892 - 1981)

One balmy Sunday afternoon in October of 1971 on the San Francisco Peninsula, some 2,149 miles and 18,262 sunrises from where they first pledged their love for each other as husband and wife, Phil and Benita McCormick strode confidently into church, arms linked and faces beaming, ready to begin their second half century together.

Re-enacting a photograph taken as newlyweds, Phillip and Benita

McCormick pose on the balcony of their San Mateo apartment

on their 50th wedding anniversary, October 7, 1971.

Some 30 relatives and friends gathered at Saint Catherine of Siena Catholic Church in Burlingame, California, to witness the McCormicks renew their wedding vows.  

The McCormick Family, left to right (first row): Phillip E. "Bud"

McCormick; Jane (McCormick) and Suzanne Olson, their

daughter; and Benita (McGinnis) and Phillip C. McCormick.

 Golden Jubilee Mass for Phil and Benita, October 7, 1971, 

Saint Catherine of Siena Catholic Church, Burlingame, California.

Among those in attendance were Phil and Benita's daughter Jane with her husband Eldon "Ole" Olson and their daughter Suzanne; their son Phillip "Bud," who flew out from Chicago with childhood buddy and family friend Jack O'Brien; Phil's cousin Maurice McCormick, his wife, Dorothy (Sillers) McCormick and their sons, Maurice "Mickey" and Kieran; and my parents, sisters, and me.  Kieran and Mickey McCormick, both Catholic priests of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, concelebrated the Golden Jubilee Mass. 

 

Phil and Benita (McGinnis) McCormick, flanked by cousins,
Fathers Kieran (left) and Maurice "Mickey" McCormick,
exit Saint Catherine of Siena Church.
Burlingame, California, October 7, 1971.

An early dinner reception followed at The Castaways, a Polynesian themed restaurant on Coyote Point at the edge of the San Francisco Bay. 

The evening was filled with story-telling, song, good-humored jokes, plenty of Irish blarney, and "more laughter than you could shake a stick at," to quote a saying of the day. 

The restaurant has since closed, but fond memories remain of a close-knit family and the beloved couple who enriched not only their lives but the lives of so many others through their charismatic and vibrant ways.  

Author's Note:  All the photographs on this page courtesy of my cousin, Suzanne (Olson) Wieland.  They are reprinted here with loving gratitude.  LHT

Jane (McCormick) Olson and her cousin,
Father Kieran McCormick, at the reception for
her parents.  October 7, 1971, The Castaways
Restaurant, Coyote Point, San Mateo, California.

Phil and Benita McCormick pose outside the Castaways
Restaurant on Coyote Point, San Mateo, California.

One of my sisters with my father, Gilbert Huesca. October 7, 1971,
The Castaways Restaurant on Coyote Point, San Mateo, California.

My mother, Joan (Schiavon) Huesca with my youngest sister and me
at the reception for Aunt Detty and Uncle Phil, October 7, 1971.

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Copyright ©  2016  Linda Huesca Tully

Sentimental Sunday: Happy 100th Birthday, Daddy

Gilbert Cayetano Huesca (1915 - 2009)

Everyone knew this gentle man as Gilbert Cayetano Huesca.
But to my sisters and me, he will always be our "Daddy."

Of the many things he did in his 93 years, my father couldn't be prouder of anything more than his family. "She looked into my eyes," he said of my mother. "I looked back into hers. We were very much in love. How lucky I was. How lucky I am. And here (all of you) are the results.

Today, November 1st, is my father's birthday. He would have been 100 years old.

He showed his love for us: my mother, my sisters and me, our husbands, and our children - his grandchildren - in words and actions, every day. And that's why, no matter how many years go by, his love will live on in the hearts of our family.

I think we were the lucky ones. But blessed, too, so very blessed!

Happy Birthday, Daddy! I love you with all my heart. xoxo

************

Copyright ©  2015  Linda Huesca Tully

Travel Tuesday: The Exotic and the Mundane in Mexico City

Benita (McGinnis) McCormick (1889 - 1984)
Phillip Columbus McCormick (1892 - 1981)

Gilbert Cayetano Huesca (1915 - 2009)
Joan Joyce (Schiavon) Huesca (1928 - 1987)

From the Many Branches, One Tree treasure chest, this 1966 photograph celebrates the spring visit of my great-uncle-and-aunt, Phil and Benita (McGinnis) McCormick, to Mexico City, where our family was living at the time.

Cover of the folio containing a souvenir photograph of my
parents' and great aunt and uncle's dinner at the Mauna Loa
Restaurant, Mexico City.

Souvenir photograph of dinner at the Mauna Loa Restaurant
in Mexico City. Left to right:  my parents, Gilbert and Joan
Huesca and my great aunt and great uncle, Benita and Phillip
McCormick.  Spring 1966.

My parents, Gilbert and Joan (Schiavon) Huesca, took them to dine at the legendary Mauna Loa Restaurant at 172 Hamburgo Street, in the Zona Rosa neighborhood of the Federal District.

The Polynesian-themed restaurant was considered by many to be quite exotic in its day.  It later burned down, but its former customers and fans still talk about it today, and you can view photos of it on the Critiki blog. Indeed, my parents and my aunt and uncle shared fond reminiscences of their beautiful evening for many years.

The rest of the McCormick's visit was much more mundane.  Some days after their dinner at the Mauna Loa, my parents and youngest sister travelled on personal business to Brownsville, Texas.  Brave souls that they were, Aunt Detty and Uncle Phil stayed and babysat my other two sisters and me for the week.

Uncle Phil used to walk to our elementary school to pick us up at the end of the school day.  Though in his 70s by now, he remained energetic and relished his daily walks through the city, nonplussed by the high altitude.  One afternoon on our way home, he took us into a candy shop to look at all the treats.  It was Holy Week, and the shop, like most others in the city, was sporting a colorful window display of its most festive creations and goodies in anticipation of Easter Sunday.

As only children could do with a loving uncle, we talked him into buying us half the candy store.

Well, maybe not that much, but it must have seemed that way to Aunt Detty when we got home, licking our sticky fingers and chasing each other around the house on a sugar high. There went her chances of getting us to eat our dinner that night!   

As she regarded us with exasperation, I wonder if she recalled the words of our late grandmother and her sister, Alice (McGinnis) Schiavon.  "Nana" once joked to my mother that having four little girls was like going on a wild adventure with four little monkeys.

Luckily for us, Aunt Detty couldn't stay angry for very long.  Hours later that evening. with Uncle Phil nearby in his chair with his pipe and newspaper, my sisters and I sat at her knee, breathlessly listening to her recount one of her Irish fairy tales in a dramatic brogue.

Monkeys never had it so good.

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Copyright ©  2015  Linda Huesca Tully

Sentimental Sunday: Sunday Dinner

Making Memories Around the Table

Left to right:  John Charles McGinnis Mary Jane (Gaffney) McGinnis, Alice
McGinnis, Thomas Eugene McGinnis, (John's wife) Edith (Hoag) McGinnis,
cousin  Eileen Kelly, and Benita McGinnis.  Photo taken at the McGinnis home,
8336 Drexel Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, sometime between 1914 and 1920.

Like many a family in the early twentieth century, my maternal McGinnis ancestors reserved Sundays for family gatherings and dinners.  It was a ritual, understood by all that no matter what everyone did during the rest of the week, they came together at the family home on Sunday afternoons.  

It was the weekly after dinner custom of Thomas and Mary Jane (Gaffney) McGinnis and their children Benita, Eugene, John, and Alice, to linger for hours into the evening to tell stories, read aloud correspondence from far-away relatives, share personal news of the week, and debate politics. 

Extended family and other guests were always welcome. More often than not, my great-grandfather, Thomas, held the room spellbound as he recounted dramatic stories of his adventures around the world while he was a merchant sailor on the high seas. 

Someone must have told a joke right before this picture was taken, because everyone is smiling or laughing, seemingly unaware of the camera.  The exception is Eileen Kelly, a cousin, who is looking at the photographer.  We can surmise that the person taking the picture was a member of the group, as a chair has obviously been pulled away from a place setting at the end of the table.  My guess is that it was my great-uncle Gene, who is missing from this picture.  

I will never forget the first time I really looked at this image.  It was in the mid-1990s, and my husband, our three small children, and I were living in a tiny 1925 Spanish bungalow, our very first home.  It was well after midnight, and despite having tucked our three children into bed, washed the dishes, and started a load of laundry, I was still wide awake. I pulled out my scrapbooking supplies and some old family photos and sat down at the dining room table.  

When I came to this picture, I stared at it in disbelief.  Except for the McGinnises, it could have been taken in our very own dining room.  It had the same built-in buffet and the same large window to the left of the table. Looking at the door next to the buffet, I knew it led to the McGinnises' kitchen, just like ours.  And I was certain that there was a large opening into the living room, right about where the photographer would have stood.  

I thought back to when we bought our house, when something about it that I could not pinpoint seemed oddly familiar, and I knew I wanted to live there right away. It was quaint but looked nothing like any of the homes I had lived in, except that it had a breakfast nook that reminded me of the one in my childhood home in Chicago.  Despite living far away in California, I felt an inexplicable closeness to my ancestors in that house.

Left to right:  Erin, Kevin, Charles, Welner "Bing," Patricia (Fay), Michael,
and Linda (Huesca) Tully.  Photo taken by Gilbert Huesca, at the Tully home,
San Jose, California, in November 1996.

That evening, as I studied the photo of the McGinnises and another of them from roughly the same time, I understood.  Though my great-grandparents' home had been a Craftsman bungalow, its interior design and floor plan was roughly the same as our little house, even down to the built-in furnishings in the dining room, living room, and kitchen.  The funny thing was that as far as I know, I have never been there.

I framed that old photograph and kept it on our buffet in our look-alike dining room while we lived there, next to a similar, more recent photo of us at our own Sunday dinner, some 70 years later.  

We no longer live in that house, but to this day when I see the pictures, I can still hear the laughter of our families as they meld together through time and tradition, the stories still as earnest, the news just as urgent, the political debates just as fervent, and the laughter around the table still hearty and memorable.  

Surely some day, our children will think of these as the good old days.

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Copyright ©  2014  Linda Huesca Tully

Thankful Thursday: Life's Lessons, Part 3 - The Forces that Shape Us

Gilbert Cayetano Huesca (1915 - 2009)

(This is the last of a three part series.   To read Part 1, click here.  To read Part 2, click here.)

My father and me on my wedding day, 
just before leaving for the church.
 Santa Clara, California, 1984.

A few months before my father died, we had an interesting conversation about trust. I remarked that we were polar opposites in that he was slow to trust new people and situations, while I might have  been too ready to trust them right away.  I wished he could sometimes be more optimistic and less skeptical.

Surprisingly, he agreed with me and added that he wished he could have been that way, too. 

As far as I knew, he had never said this before.  I asked him if something had happened in his life that had influenced him to think this way.  He briefly pondered my question. "I want you to understand," he began, "that sometimes in this life, you have to protect yourself."

Protect yourself.  How many times had he said this before? As my three younger sisters and I grew up and went out on our own in the world, my father often reminded us to be wary of what we said and did.  In his view, we never knew who might be watching or testing us.  He did not want anyone or anything to take advantage of us.  I took it as wanting us to look over our shoulders all the time and thought it was very pessimistic.  Though his advice about thinking ahead made sense, it seemed as though my father's outlook was based on apprehension and pessimism.  I struggled to understand and told myself that for all his wonderful qualities, he would never change in this regard.

Protect yourself.  My father lived through traumatic times, but he saw no reason to wear these on his sleeve.  He witnessed and was the subject of man's inhumanity to man.  These were major life events over which he had no control or could not have predicted, yet they occurred in life's most mundane settings. Being skeptical and cautious - and encouraging his children to do the same - were ways my father thought would protect himself and us from ever being threatened or betrayed again. He had formed a protective shell and would not let anything or anyone penetrate it again.

Protect yourself.  Now that my children are grown and are making their way in the world, I find myself sometimes wanting to protect them, much as my father tried to protect me.  I have to stop myself from telling them what to do and how to do it.  They will make and learn from their own mistakes, as we all do.

In the months that followed our conversation on trust, my father's prostate cancer metastasized and began taking ruthless advantage of his body.  It wracked him with pain,  forcing him to go from being fiercely independent to become more dependent than ever on others for his daily needs.  It was heartbreaking.  He had protected his family all his life, and now we were powerless to protect him.

But a strange thing happened.  When things seemed at their worst, a new light seemed to go on inside my father.  He became more hopeful, trusting, and optimistic.  He greeted everyone with joy and kindness and patience, from his doctors to his hospice caregiver to the man who delivered his medical equipment.  No longer did he see the need to be guarded around strangers.  Now he regarded them differently that he would have before.  He trusted and respected them, even as it became physically harder to interact with them. The cancer had betrayed his body, but it had not betrayed his soul.

He was hopeful, almost to the end, that he could defeat the cancer.  When it became clear that this would not be, his hopefulness was transformed to peaceful acceptance.  My precious father, ever amazing, found grace in giving up the control he had exercised all his life and accepted his new path to the inevitable that awaits us all.


I understand now. Whether or not we understand the reasons for what people do, it is important to accept them for the way they are.  

My father's life and attitude were influenced by an era of politics and culture, among other things, that converged to shape him into the man that he became.  But there were also other forces at work:  the unique combination of values of love, faith, family, honor, respect, discipline, and strength that he learned from his parents in the context of his unique life.   

We were more alike than we were different.  He influenced me to become the person I am today and shared life's lessons from his heart.  He was a loving and devoted father and the best parent anyone could aspire to be.  I will always be grateful for all the time we spent together and the closeness that we shared. 

I had the perfect father.  I love him exactly as he was and would not want him to be any other way.  

To read the other installments in this three part series, please click on the links below:

Part 1:  Church Record Sunday - Life's Lessons: Unbreakable Faith

Part 2:  Wisdom Wednesday - Life's Lessons:  The Defining Moments

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Copyright ©  2013  Linda Huesca Tully

Did you know Gilbert Huesca, or are you a member of the Huesca family? Share your memories and comments below.

Wisdom Wednesday: Life's Lessons, Part 2 - The Defining Moments

Gilbert Cayetano Huesca (1915 - 2009)



(This is the second of a three part series.  To read Part 1, please click here.  To read part 3, please click here)

My father, Gilbert Huesca, and me.  Chicago, Illinois,
Easter Sunday, 1956

I used to wonder why my father was so reserved and circumspect.  He was not spontaneous like my mother.  He was a kind and loving person who went out of his way to help his family and friends. He had tremendous integrity and honor, and he enjoyed the respect of others in his personal and professional life.

While he hoped for the best, he always prepared himself for the reasonable worst.  He chose his words and planned his actions in his life as deliberately as if they were moves in the chess games he loved so much. Even when the unexpected caught him off guard, his response was measured, cautious, and thoughtful.

Recently I found myself thinking more about him this as I wrote about his personal recollection of religious persecution in 1930s Mexico. Another memory about him, my own this time, gave me pause for reflection.

Our family was living in Mexico City in 1966, having moved from Chicago to be near relatives. My parents rented a house next to my father's sister and her family, at 38-A Altamirano Street in the San Rafael neighborhood.  Our other neighbor was Mr. Torres, an elderly retired professor who did not like Americans. Not long after we moved in, he denounced my father to the Federal Security Directorate, known informally as the Mexican "secret police." The "crime" was speaking English in our home. 

At that time speaking a language other than Spanish at home could be grounds for suspicious or subversive activity against the then-authoritarian state. During the 1960s and 70s the Mexican government was at odds with left-wing and guerrilla groups in what was called the Dirty War.  The Mexican secret police were known for conducting surveillance on persons they deemed "suspicious" for any number of vague reasons. Hundreds of people were taken into custody during this period.  Many were tortured; some "disappeared" and were never seen again.  The secret police's existence was as well known as their power was notably feared.

When my father came home from work one day, he was met by two of these plainclothes policemen and whisked away for questioning.  Before leaving, they let him quickly kiss my mother (Joan Schiavon Huesca) goodbye.  In what must have been a desperate whisper, he urged her to call his best friend and respected attorney, Licenciado Ocampo Alonso.

Mr. Ocampo Alonso told my mother not to panic. He reassured her that he would contact the American embassy and go down at once to the secret police headquarters to negotiate a release. He was optimistic that my father's status as a naturalized American citizen would aid in his release but gave no guarantees.  He would have to move quickly.

Meanwhile, to be safe, he advised my mother to pack a suitcase and be ready to leave the country right away with my sisters and me in case my father was not home in four hours.  After that window of time, the chances of his returning were slim.

My mother said later that the wait felt like an eternity. I do not remember if anyone came over to be with her during that time, but how she made it still astounds me.  I do not know whether my little sisters were aware of the crisis at hand, but I remember asking my mother why she was packing a suitcase.  She sat me down and explained what had happened as calmly as she could.  She knew she could count on me to be mature, to be brave and to trust that God would bring my father back.

I was only 11 years old then, but I was the oldest child. I knew my mother was counting on me, but I felt scared, confused, and helpless. Fighting back tears, I ran up the two flights of stairs to our rooftop patio and looked across the courtyard adjoining our two houses into Mr. Torres' study.

It was dusk.  The old man sat at his desk under a stark shadeless light bulb, folding and cutting out one string of paper dolls after another. I stared at him in disgust and disbelief. How he could do such a mindless thing without a care in the world, while my daddy was being interrogated somewhere and we might never see him again?  Even at my young age I was sure the man must have been crazy.

My father's attorney obtained his release that evening.  When he walked through our front door, my mother, who had stayed strong for us all evening, burst into tears.  My father tried to hold back his emotion, too, but it was no use.  He cried as he threw his arms around her and us and held on tightly.

We later learned that he had not been charged with any wrongdoing.  I am sure he filled my mother in on the details, but as far as I know, he never talked about it beyond that and tried to forget those hours of fear and dread.

It must be terrifying to be in such jeopardy and have no control over your outcome, to not know whether you would ever see your loved ones again or you would even make it out alive.  Though I clearly remember being frightened for my father and for our family, I cannot even begin to imagine all the thoughts that must have gone through his head.

Only now I see that this experience, coupled with his personal witness to religious persecution in the 1930s, were defining moments in my father's life.  They must have been why he lived with a sense of uncertainty and reserve.



Next:  Thankful Thursday:  Life's Lessons, Part 3 - The Forces that Shape Us



To read the other installments in this three part series, please click on the links below:

Part 1:  Church Record Sunday - Life's Lessons: Unbreakable Faith

Part 3:  Thankful Thursday - Life's Lessons:  The Forces that Shape Us

***********

Copyright ©  2013  Linda Huesca Tully

Did you know Gilbert Huesca, or are you a member of the Huesca family? Share your memories and comments below.

Church Record Sunday: Life's Lessons, Part 1 - Unbreakable Faith

Gilbert Cayetano Huesca  (1915 - 2009)


(Part One of a three part series.   To read Part 2, please click here.  To read part 3, please click here)

No matter how close you are to someone, the bits and pieces you know about them only scratch the surface of who they are. It's the voids - the spaces between the things they do and the questions you have about the whys - that can fill in the blanks to help you understand what happened in the unknown moments that affected the rest of their life.  

My father, Gilbert Cayetano Huesca,
age 91, about 2007,  San Jose, California

Several years ago, one of those voids surfaced when my father reacted emotionally to a local play we attended.  

The play, "Viva Cristo Rey," was about the martyrdom of a Mexican Jesuit priest, Blessed Miguel Pro, in early 20th century Mexico.  My father, who was 91 at the time, sat very still through the play, straining to hear every word and  tightly pursing his lips from time to time. I sensed a certain tension in him and squeezed his hand.  He squeezed mine back, his eyes never leaving the stage. 

When the play ended, we lined up in the lobby to meet the cast.  As my father approached the young actor who had portrayed Father Miguel Pro, he was trembling.  "All of these things are true," he began, his eyes welling with tears. "I did not see this priest, but I was a witness to that same inhumanity in [the state of] Chiapas."

The actors and audience members around us leaned in as he recounted his story as clearly as if it had just occurred, rather than 72 years earlier. "Unbelievable cruelty, but it did happen in Mexico.  I was there. I saw it with my own eyes."

The cruelty he referred to was religious persecution and anti-clericalism in Mexico.  Although both had roots in the mid-19th century, they reached a peak when the Constitution of 1917 removed churches' legal status and essentially outlawed religious practice. Among other things, the articles of the constitution made public worship a crime.  They outlawed religious orders, religious education, religious organizations, and publications that dealt with public policy. They prohibited priests from performing their ministry and removed their rights to vote or hold office. They invalidated church marriages, allowed the government to seize church property, and banned clergy and religious from wearing religious garb outside of church. Under the constitution, anyone violating these restrictions forfeited his or her right to a trial. During the 1920s, President Plutarco Elias Calles began enforcing these articles, arresting and making examples of those who dared challenge the law.

As a result of the new laws, people could not speak publicly about God or faith. They could not voice dissent for fear of being arrested or worse, executed.  The Mexican bishops made a painful decision to close all the churches across the country to protect their people and their clergy.  

Couples who wanted to be married in the church had to marry twice - once in a civil ceremony and again by a priest. My father's sister, María de la Luz Huesca, and her husband were married in a quiet ceremony at home by their parish priest in Veracruz State, for this reason. 

People practiced their religion much like the Christians of Roman times, gathering quietly in homes for clandestine catechism, Masses, baptisms and rosaries. Families created small devotional altars with religious statues and images, photographs of loved ones, and votive candles for private prayer.

Blessed Miguel Pro, S.J., one of the
 martyrs of the Cristero rebellion against 
religious persecution in Mexico

Many clerics went into exile. One of those was the young seminarian Miguel Pro, whose superior sent him and other seminarians to continue their priestly formation in Los Gatos, California, not far from my home.  After going to Belgium to be ordained, Father Pro returned to Mexico, where he openly supported the growing Cristero (followers of Christ) rebellion against Calles' violent religious oppression.

In 1927, Father Pro was arrested on a trumped-up charge of conspiracy to kill ex-president Álvaro Obregón.  President Calles ordered him executed by firing squad.  His martyrdom and final words, "Viva Cristo Rey," (Long Live Christ the King), the motto of the Cristeros, renewed and energized the rebellion, mobilizing 40,000 - 50,000 clergy, nuns, and ordinary men, women, and children to fight for religious freedom.  

The Cristero War officially ended in 1929, but the government continued arresting clerics and persecuting people through the 1930s. After that, though public worship was still illegal, officials typically looked the other way.  In 1988, Pope John Paul II began the canonization process to elevate Father Miguel Pro to sainthood, and four years later President Carlos Salinas de Gortari's government lifted most, though not all, of the anti-religious restrictions.

I never heard about the Cristero War while I was in school in mid-1960s Mexico. This was not unusual; many others who were born long after the persecution did not know of it, either.  It simply was kept out of school textbooks and was not discussed in classes. Many of the people who lived through that era did not discuss it much, if at all, with the younger generations.  

As an adult, I gradually became aware of this dark chapter of oppression in Mexico's history.  Perhaps because it was not mentioned much, I did not gave serious thought to how it affected my father and his family.  It was not until the evening of the play that this sad era of Mexico's history hit home as my father's story, which I had heard before, finally took on the gravity it deserved. 

Surrounded by the actors and others in the theater lobby, my father recounted that when he was 19 years old he traveled for his family's business to Tuxtla Gutiérrez, capital of Chiapas.  It was 1934, a year that turned out to be one of the worst in the government's brutal persecution of the church, even though the Cristero War had officially ended five years earlier.

My father had gone to the zócalo, or town square, when he saw a large band of soldiers gathered there.  Their commander grabbed a megaphone and in a thundering voice ordered the teachers and religious of the town to turn in all their books, crucifixes, and religious images and articles to the square that evening to be destroyed.

The square, once noisy and vibrant minutes, was now stilled by the commander's harsh orders, and people retreated to their homes in silence.  My father left for his hotel, horrified and angry. 

At the appointed hour, he returned to the square to see for himself what would happen. His initial curiosity and fearlessness morphed into an overwhelming sense of helplessness as scores of fearful townspeople arrived and were forced at gunpoint to throw their things onto a large bonfire.  Many sobbed as they watched their treasured and sacred belongings go up in the choking black smoke.

My father would not tell us that night whether anyone fought back or lost their lives on that fateful day.  All he would say was that resistance equalled death, either on the spot or at a later time by firing squad. Overcome with emotion, he left it at that, and we left the theater and went home.

The vivid barbarity of that episode left a deep scar on many, including the young witness who would someday become my father.  The military continued to bully and terrorize the Mexican people for nearly another five years.  Many people worked around the rules, finding ways to exercise their faith quietly.  Others chose to fight back, either as soldiers or by boldly practicing their faith in public, tempting further persecution and even death.  They showed that while it is possible to lose everything you have, including your right to practice what you believe, nothing - and no one - can take away what is in your mind, in your heart, in your soul.

There are many types of formative experiences in life. Most of us would not hope to view persecution as one of them.  It's hard to comprehend how terrible it must have been if you've never felt that kind of oppression and seen the effects it has on people.  

There is a Spanish proverb that says that man proposes and God disposes. The Mexican people suffered immeasurably for their faith, but in the end it was their faith that saved them during the persecution, giving them hope and strength and solace.  

As I drove my father home that night, I couldn't help but wonder about the void in the story - the part that was too painful for him to share. I never did find out what it was. At the time, I was more concerned with the pain the play had resurrected in him that night. It took another recollection several years later, my own this time, to understand the toll that the experience had taken on his life.

Next:  Wisdom Wednesday:  Life's Lessons, Part 2 - The Defining Moments



To read the other installments in this three part series, please click on the links below:

Part 2:  Wisdom Wednesday - Life's Lessons:  The Defining Moments

Part 3:  Thankful Thursday - Life's Lessons:  The Forces that Shape Us

***********

Copyright ©  2013  Linda Huesca Tully

Did you know Gilbert Huesca, or are you a member of the Huesca family? Share your memories and comments below.