My Lolo Genaro Mendoza

I grew up in Bogo under the care of my maternal great grandmother Loleng Mendoza, the wife of Genaro Mendoza. I didn’t have the chance to personally know my great grandfather Genaro but through my great grandma’s memories, my Lolo Genaro came alive.

According to Lola Loleng, she was 16 or 17 then when Lolo Naro spotted her in Bogo. Lolo Naro was studying in UP Los Baños when on one occasion he came home from school and was smitten by my Lola’s beauty. Lola Loleng said that “si Lolo nimo na CRAS (that was how she said that) man sa ako” and will not go back to school not unless he married her.

I was a little girl then when Lola narrated that story to me. I was too young and too naïve to understand the story. At the back of my young mind I was asking myself that if Lolo “CRAS’d”, how come they got married and had children? What I was thinking then was Lolo went down on an airplane crash from Laguna to Cebu. I kept myself from blurting that question to Lola until a few years later, Lola again told me that story on how Lolo got a CRAS on her.

One afternoon, there was this man who was paraded around town because he accomplished something great. This man was the late Chief Justice Marcelo “Celing” Fernan. When the motorcade passed by our house, the man looked up and waved at us. Lola and I were on the window looking down at the passing motorcade. Lola then waved back and said, “oy, si Celing man diay ni.”

My jaw literally dropped. I asked Lola, “kaila diay mo niya La? She said, “kaila kayo..kuyog man ni cya sa imong Lolo sa una inig pamisita niya nko.” That was the second time I heard the Genaro-Loleng love story. And that time around, I realized that what she meant by CRAS was actually CRUSH. And yes, before Marcelo “Celing” Fernan became THE Marcelo “Celing” Fernan, he accompanied Lolo Naro to court Lola Loleng.

So, Genaro Mendoza refused to go back to UP Los Baños and continue with his college education because he was smitten by a barrio lass named Dolores Andrino. They got married when Lola was 17. They had 5 children, Aurelio (Auring), Loreto (Nene), Jesus and Rosita (Inday) and another son who died due to health complications.

Lolo Genaro died before I could even meet him. Lolo Naro was hauling his family to Leyte during the World War II to escape from the invading Japanese and then back to Cebu again after the war. Because of that, he contracted tuberculosis and died of that disease. He was in his late 30’s or early 40’s.

Through the verbal accounts of my great grandma, I came to know my great grandfather. He was a brave young man and a fool at heart.