Assalamu Alaykum... I'm going to tell you about the ancestral Martelino Building and those who lived there.
The ancestral Martelino building was owned by our great grandparents, Lolo Gaudiosa and Lola Ditas. My grandmother, Ombo Ellen and her siblings were 7 all-in-all. So their parents worked really hard to let them go to college. The house occupied one whole block in the commercial district of Kalibo. It had 7 bedrooms. Each bedroom was as big as the 2nd floor of our house! Four kids can fit in just one bedroom there… Under the house, there was a bomb shelter. Ombo Ellen told us that whenever the bombings started, Lolo Guding and Lola Ditas would gather everybody and go down to the bomb shelter. They would go out only when bombings ended. These bombing happened because they lived during the time of World War II.
The Martelino were a family of singers and musicians… Lolo Guding used to own an orchestra before. And Lola Ditas was a brilliant singer. Ombo Ellen recalls the time when their parents taught them how to sing and play the piano for one hour! Everybody was in one room playing the piano and Lolo Guding and Lola Ditas would guard them until they reach one hour! Sometimes they add 15 to 20 minutes more so they can get their fingering. Ombo Ellen told us about her mother teaching her how to play the piano one day:
One day, Ombo Ellen was called by her mother, Lola Ditas to a room and was instructed to play the piano for one hour to get her fingering. Whenever she makes a mistake, Lola Ditas would either spank her hands with a stick or let her repeat what she’s playing all over again..
She sometimes played the piano crying. Especially when her mother lets her play for 15 – 20 minutes more after a tiring hour of practicing and she would cry saying
“Ayoko na, ayoko na!”…. Hehehehe..
Ombo Ellen said this was also the reason why she was strict about our mistakes when she taught us the fingering… She would let us repeat the ‘DO RE MI’ everytime we make mistakes. But this is no match compared to how strict Lola Ditas was before.
Lola Ditas died at the age of 42 years because she fainted and bumbed her head in the cement while watching her sister being put in the coffin… That was the first time their family had deaths of two people after 1 hour and a half… Inah said Ombo Ellen has a picture together with her sibling with two coffins in the background…
Then Lolo Guding re-married when he was 72 or so… Now, Ombo Ellen and her siblings have three half brothers… Then Lolo Guding died at the age of 93… Zakiran was the only one who saw Lolo Guding. And they had a good time together.
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Here is a list of all of them
(except for the 3 half brothers because I don’t know who they are yet):
Lola Cynthia,
Lolo Dito,
Lolo Rex,
Ombo Ellen,
Lolo Gil,
Lolo Cristine, and
Lola Lilith
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All of them are in Seattle right now. Except for Lolo Rex and Lolo Cristine who are in Aklan, and Lolo Dito who is in Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija. Lola Cynthia died already.
The Martelino Building is now divided into 7 parts. One for each of them.
Ombo Ellen wants us to go there the next time we visit Aklan… And she will try to bring a keyboard so that we can practice more in our fingering… It’s good to know she’s not that strict. But I won’t take it for granted…
The next time we visit Aklan, she said we might stay longer because we have a lot of things to learn and a lot of things to see…
Wassalam…
