My family called Rebecca Self, Auntie Billie. She was not a blood relative but she was such a close friend to my parents, it seemed too formal to call her “Mrs. Self.” Becky Self was an army nurse. During World War II, she and her husband, Leonard, were imprisoned with us in Cebu and Manila...
Category: Memoir
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Memoirs: A Pilgrimage to Medjugorje
July, 1991, just before the outbreak of the war in Bosnia/Herzegovina, I made my pilgrimage to Medjugorje. I had heard about this little Yugoslavian village from a member of my parish and found her descriptions, especially of the little ten year old boy kneeling stock still for thirty minutes at a time, with his eyes...
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I Cried Yesterday
I cried yesterday. At church. Totally unexpected. Totally spontaneous. This is what happened. My church is large. It seats 1500 in the pews with room in the back for rows of folding chairs. There is a center aisle that leads toward the altar. At the Offertory, the time during Mass, when lay persons carry up...
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Illustrations that Never Made it into the Book
There was no way any of these pictures could have been included in the book, although I wish they could have been. When we went to Montalongon, we took the Mullaney’s with us. This picture of the four of us children was sent to me by Dorothy Mulaney in 2017. Left to right: Bill, Dorothy,...
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How I got Started Writing
Just before finishing my PhD, the UCLA School of Nursing offered me a job as an Assistant Professor. I was warned right away that UCLA was a “publish or perish” university. That meant that if I didn’t publish research papers, no matter how wonderful I was as a teacher, I would not get promoted or...
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How I Decided on the Title for my Book
Someone asked me the other day, “How do you decide on the titles for your books?” For a moment, I was speechless. How did I decide? “It just came to me,” I said. And that was that. But then someone else asked and then someone else. Then, I realized, the title “just came to me”...
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Deciding Which Illustrations to Include in “Only by the Grace of God”
One of the most difficult decisions I had to make in producing this book was which pictures and documents to include and which to leave out. Since every illustration increased the cost of the project, I needed to keep the number of illustrations down. Some family pictures came from my cousin, Bill Mattas, and some...
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Why I Wrote “Only by the Grace of God”
My brother Bob died in December, 2013. Three months later my brother Bill died. As I was the executor of Bill’s estate, I had the job of going through all his papers. I found some typed and handwritten pages about our experiences as prisoners of war in the Philippines during World War II. I have...
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The House in Need of Love
I was living in the country, in a very pleasant house, in a very pleasant neighborhood, but the drive into town to work in the winter became tedious. So I decided to move into town nearer work. I contacted the Real Estate Agent who had sold me the house I was living in. She and...
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