Timothy Reagan

A Lifelong Bond

I never met my grandfather, John Smyth. He died in the mid-1930s, a few years after my mother was born. I learned from mom that my grandfather had a previous life and wife before he married my grandmother. Grandpa John traveled to the Philippines at the turn of the previous century to work as a teacher. As I read in his little black book, his travelogue, I learned that he married a Filipino woman named Thelma. Most of the book was a daily log of how his new wife was faring. Thelma had fallen ill during childbirth. Not long after, he cryptically wrote that his wife had perished, as did the baby. His entries stopped for a while. A heartbroken young man, my grandfather returned to the United States. Grandpa kept his memories of the Philippines in a small wooden chest, which included his little black book.