| I really feel that I have shortchanged my husband's family. Not one picture! And I do have pictures although only a few of former times. |
| One of my favorite pictures is a picture of my husband's grandparents, Manuel Acosta Ortiz de Peña, Papa Neco, and María de Jesús Pabón Dávila y Ramírez de Arellano, Mama Chu. I like the picture because it shows many things if you interpret the picture together with the family names. Manuel Acosta's grandfather still had some Indian blood, while María de Jesús Pabón Dávila descends in all her lines from old Spanish families that played an important role in the Puerto Rican society of the 18th century. Mama Chu's parents were the youngest children of hacendados whose parents - Mama Chu's grandparents - had already died when the couple married. I think that the picture shows that they were poor, but it is said that Mama Chu knew exactly where she came from and was proud of that fact. I think that shows clearly in the way she stands upright and straight. |
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The next picture is one of my father-in-law when he was young and a member of the Puerto Rican state police. Papa Vachán, as we called him, was never idle and able to provide for his family in times when life was very difficult for Puerto Ricans living in small towns and getting accustomed to a new way of life. |
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The final picture is one of my parents-in-law at the time when I met them over 40 years ago in their little house in Boquerón. |
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