Her story
A long life, lived kindly.
Lola Remedios taught Grade 2 for thirty-nine years, sewed every school uniform her daughters ever wore, and answered every letter the same week it arrived. These are the years her family remembers most.
- 1938
Born in Jaro
The fourth of seven children of a tailor and a woman who sold kakanin at the Jaro market. She learned to sew before she learned to ride a bicycle, and she never did learn to ride one.
- 1959
Her first class
At twenty-one she stood in front of her first Grade 2 class. For thirty-nine years she taught children to read, with word cards she cut and lettered herself, and she remembered nearly all their names.
- 1962
Ernesto
She married Ernesto Santos, a quiet draftsman who had written to her every week for a year. His wedding gift was a treadle sewing machine. She used it until 2019.
- 1980s
The Sunday letters
When Tess left to nurse in Riyadh and Jun to work in Dubai, the letters began. She wrote every Sunday and kept every reply in a blue biscuit tin under the bed.
- 1998
The long table
She retired from teaching, and Sundays became pancit molo at her long table, with a chair always made for whoever turned up.
- 2026
What she leaves
Five children, twelve grandchildren, three great-grandchildren from Jaro to Madrid, a town full of people who can read because of her, and a tin of four hundred and twelve letters.
