Everyone has a mother and a father, and this Mother’s Day I choose a daughter: Marie-Josephine Collette.

This Mother’s Day, much more than most I remember, is filled with demonstrations that by no means is everything easy for women, for men, or for families, however constituted, or when.  This post is offered for reflection, and in respect, for the role women have and continue to play in society at large.

arie-Josephine and Alfred Collette, with Aunt Gloria in Manila, June, 1943 June 1943.

Earlier this past week, I happened to visit an envelope labeled “Philippe Collette group” which had rested quietly for years in a family history box.

Among other photos, was the above, taken in 1943:  Marie-Josephine is the little girl at center.

I looked at the Collette family genealogy.  On page 44 was Josephine’s brief life story: “b July 17, 1940 Philippines d: 1945 Manila, Philippines Died bet 2-3 & 3-3 1945”.  She was second of four children born to Simeona Dime and Alfred Collette.  I’ve been told that she was named for my Grandma Josephine Bernard, who was her father’s cousin, about the same age.  I was born two months before she came into the world.

First child, Alfred Jr, was born Apr 14, 1939.  The picture was probably taken about the time Julie, the third child, and person who sent me the photo, was born, June 8, 1943.  Philippe, the last child, was born Sept 21, 1947, and died Aug. 14 1961.

All of us have a story.

ln the summer of 1998, Alfred told me about his little sister while we were driving around San Francisco.  1998 was the centennial year of the Spanish-American War.  Alfred’s Dad and my Grandpa were colleague soldiers from Grafton-Oakwood, North Dakota, on Luzon 1898-99.  Both came home, but Alfred returned to the Philippines at the time of WWI, and lived in the Philippines the rest of his life.

His daughter, Marie-Josephine,  died during the horrific battle in which Manila was liberated from the Japanese near the end of WWII.

Alfred spent much of WWII as a prisoner of the Japanese in the Santo Tomas POW camp in Manila.

On that day in 1998, Alfred Jr recalled that on the day of his sisters death, their mother had taken the three children to what she felt would be a safe refuge, the churchyard of the church where she and Alfred had married a few years earlier.  There were others there as well.  Terrifying combat ensued, and they apparently were in between.  They wanted Mom as a refuge, and Marie-Josephine was killed in her mother’s arms, by which sides shell or shrapnel,  and the exact time of death, will always be unknown.

I was driving the car, and I was the one who had asked Alfred if he would tell me what had happened 53 years earlier.  Telling the story was a very emotional experience for him, which I don’t think even he had anticipated.  War is very personal.  The battle for Manila was very deadly.

Mom lived.  I met Mimi Collette in the early 1990s.  She was a gentle lady….  A mom.  All have passed on.

Alfred, Mimi and Julie, probably in the 1980s. All three are deceased.

Collette family 1947.  Philippe is the youngest.  girl standing at back would be kids Aunt Dinah.

*

War is so easily visible today, that it is, paradoxically, too easy to ignore its effects on those subjected to it.

Some related thoughts on Mother’s Day 2024: https://angeladenker.substack.com/  I saw this commentary (about the situation in Gaza) in May 9, Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Heather Cox Richardson’s commentary today is on the topic.

And just a week ago, we went to see the re-issue of the 1989 film Steel Magnolias, which we had not seen.  It is in theaters now, and it, too, is very much worth your time.   I went expecting a comedy; I left the theatre with so much more to think about.

COMMENTS:

from Fred:  The Battle of Manila was close to the worst urban combat during WW2. Nanking and smaller Chinese cities were in that same terrible grouping.