Old Photographs of Cecilia Brainard — 5–6 years old

Here are more old pho­tos. I was around 5 or 6 years old in these pic­tures. I just acquired the col­or pho­to from a nephew. I think this was tak­en near Mani­la de Bay. Dur­ing our sum­mer vaca­tions, we used to vis­it Mani­la, stay in our place in Geor­gia Street, Malate, and from there, we kids used to walk to the Bay. We used to actu­al­ly swim in the water; you can see peo­ple swim­ming in this pho­to. The water was pris­tine then. I learned how to float on my back for the first time in that Bay. I remem­ber my broth­er hold­ing me up as I lay on the water, and then he let go and I was sur­prised that I was still floating.

The sec­ond pho­to shows me play­ing the piano at a recital. Even though my moth­er was an accom­plished pianist, she nev­er taught us. It was a young man named Bokoy who gave us lessons. Papa used to drop us off at his home, in the Par­i­an Old Cebu, if I recall right. I was not real­ly good at it, nor was I inter­est­ed, so I only remem­ber one recital — this one — in which I played Skat­ing on the Lake and Vol­ga Boat Song. I can imag­ine my moth­er, who was play­ing piano from the time she was a child, lis­ten­ing to us and think­ing, “Oh, dear, this is not for them.”

The third pho­to shows me and my sis­ter in our St. There­sa’s Col­lege uni­form. Our skirt was navy blue; our long-sleeved blouse was white. We had a blue rib­bon and we should have had a badge (pin) in the mid­dle of the bow. I don’t know why we did­n’t have the badges on. We are pos­ing in front of some of my moth­er’s orchids. She had a col­lec­tion that hung on a walk­way arbor.

This is all for now. Stay tuned for more old photographs.