I saw my first map of the United States in the warehouse of the Socony-Vacuum Oil Company on St. Michael's Island, in the Azores, where my father worked between 1936 and the time he came to America (1944). I was about eight years old. Since America had held a fascination for me, for it was always a topic of conversation at our house, I looked for some point where I could find such places as Cambridge, Fall River, and Somerville. I never found them. Instead, I did find cities like Boston, New York, Chicago, and one where two rivers met, St. Louis. Although I had never seen a river, for there are no rivers in the Azores, I knew how they were presented on maps. That city's name, however, did hold my interest, for the saint it was named after had the same name as my middle name. I never knew, however, that someday it would be my home, or that there'd be a time when I'd be speaking English over one of its radio stations, WGNU . Being an Azorean in the Midwest is not easy. Often I not only have to explain where the Azores are, but that Portugal is not a part of Spain. On the other hand, as one can see by the pictures of my home, being a midwesterner - even an adopted one - has its advantage. All one has to do is look around and see why very often I feel regretful if I have to leave here to visit elsewhere.

AN AZOREAN IN MID AMERICA - YOU THOUGHT YOU KNEW ME...

SUBJECT INDEX

* A RECOLLECTION THROUGH PHOTOS * AZOREAN TIME *AN_AZOREAN_WITHOUT_AN_OCEAN * AN_AZOREAN_IN_MID_AMERICA * MORE MEMORIES * KATHY'S SITE * MISCELLANEOUS * GERMANY AND SWITZERLAND * IRELAND AND LONDON * AN AZOREAN IN ASIA AND AUSTRALASIA * POETRY * PORTUGUESE CHRONOLOGY,1900-2000 * PORTUGUESE_DISCOVERIES * PORTUGAL IN ST. LOUIS * PRIESTHOOD AND CHICKENS * VIEWS OF SÏ MIGUEL * Latin America Page 1 * LATIN AMERICA PAGE 2 * PEOPLE ALONG THE WAY * KILLING_AZOREAN_NOSTALGIA * CHRISTMAS_and_TOURISM

EVEN... ... if you repeat all that you heard; Even if you spell all letters of my name; Even if you imagine all fragments of my life; Even if you accompanied all my moments; How could you ever know what you did not see in instants outside my mortality? March 6, 1983 St. Louis, Missouri

I had no idea that evening of February 22, 1946, that in far-away America some people that day would be celebrating the birthday of the nation' first-elected President. I boarded the SS S㯠Miguel at Ponta Delgada. On the evening of March 5th, the ship arrived in New York, where it dropped anchor. On the morning of the next day, as New York hypnotized me, the passengers landed - and my life changed completely..

AN AZOREAN IN MID AMERICA - ADVENTURE IN IDEAS, DREAMS, FAMILY, VICTORY, DEFEATS... RECALLING THROUGH TEXT AND PHOTOS AN AZOREAN IN MID AMERICA - AN ADVENTURE IN IDEAS, DREAMS, FAMILY, VICTORIES, DEFEATS - IN LIVING...

LEFT -1949 (Azorean boy at Cambridge, Massachusetts) - 1994 (American Publisher at Frankfurt, Germany) - The numbers are the same, only their order has changed. And look at what happened... PLEASE DON'T JUST STOP HERE, THOUGH. THE SUBJECT INDEX ABOVE IS WAITING FOR YOU.... Please click on any subject you wish to know more about. Thanks.

IMAGES The elderly couple at McDonald's Talked gently as they sat Sharing fries strewn on the paper napkin. Were they older than I, I wondered as I glanced wistfully beyond the vibrant teens at the next table, unlike the couple, talking as if they were hard of hearing. Rising, I ambled to the door, helped by a cane, Still wondering if the couple knew that I found them elderly, While the other patrons watch an old man leaving... St. Louis, Missouri, September 2004

ABOVE (Right) - It had become almost traditional at the '54 Reunions for graduates of Azorean background to photographed together at some occasion during the gathering. I had even written an article on a previous occasion detailing the event at the 40th Reunion. Although I tried to gather several other people, only three of us would showed up - Wendell Perry (the bearded one), Rita Moniz McDonald, and I. The other two individuals in the photo were just classamtes that photographer classmate, Stan Nelson, felt he had to include.

2004 - There were many other graduates of Cambridge Public High Schools who should be In this photo of Harvard '54 Alumni. Unfortunately, in spite of John Douhan's efforts to round them up for a group photo on the steps of Widener Library, only the above small group participated.(Photo: Courtesy of Doreen Dubay (Mrs. Charles Dubay '54)

A FAMILY JOURNEY - FROM AN ISLAND TO A CONTINENT.....

Below - The foliage of Olivette, Missouri

My maternal grandparents we maried at this small country church.

ABOVE - Mother's Birthplace, Feb. 10, 1908

Although I did not come to America until 1946, several of my predecessors on my father's side of the family did. They started coming here at the end of the 19th Century, settling primarily around Fall River, and Cambridge, Massachusetts. My father, in fact, was conceived in the U. S. and born in the Azores 15 days after my grandparents returned. It was only natural that he should have always considered himself American even before he received his citizenship papers. He did serve honorably in the Portuguese Army as a young man, although he almost claimed that he did so because he was drafted. The photo on the right (shot in Cambridge in 1926) shows my great paternal grandmother, Maria Tomasia Mello, on a visit to her family in America which, as one can see, is already quite large.

The trip started on February 22nd, 1946, when a large part of the wall separating the sea from the land had yet to be built. On March 6, 1946, the next segment of ground that my feet touched was Pier 15, New York City. A big change of scenery, I would say.

1 9 5 6

I was born across the street from this location. I fact, I fished off many of the rocks..

ABOVE3, E. J. Lopez Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts - The last place where my parents and I lived together. I moved out in August, 1956. My parents, however, remained there until my father died on December 10, 1986. My mother eventually until she came to Missouri to live with Katherine and me. She died on December 17, 1996.

(Above) - My mother's birthplace in S. Roque.

In front of 3 Lopez Avenue, Cambridge - my father and I

My parents's American Citizenship Papers - My father, having been conceived in the U. S. always considered himself a U. S. citizen - papers, or no papers... The irony was that he was the only one of the Ponte sons to have served in the Portuguese Army.

July 17, 1980 - Fiftieth Anniversary Photo/ My father died on December 10, 1986, at Cambridge, Massachusetts. My mother died on December 17, 1996, at Bridgeton, Missouri...

Below - 2003 - Laura, one of the daughters of The Girl in a Bathing Suit (Above) escorting a former U. S. President.

If one were to ask my parents about the most noticeable feature of he village where they were born, they'd probably refer to the rock formation that sticks out to sea. Granted that they never set foot on it - as most people on the village have never had, either. Yet the Ilheu de S. Roque (lEFT) is home. At least, a symbol of it. Like the Church....

MISSOURI TIMES

LEFT-Katherine,Mary Beth,Laura, Jane Lucia

LEFT - Daughter Laura, granddaughter of immigrant grandparents, escorts the former U.S. President, George H. W. Bush, at Washington University, St. Louis.

I used my brief sojourn at WGNU hoping that I could help change some local minds. George W. Bush, the son of George H. W. Bush - and, unfortunately, elected President of the United States eight years after his father left office, provided me with enough comic relief that only a professional comedian could ever afford.

BELOW - Easter, 2006. Katherine and I and our 10 grandchildren (Ages 4 to 20) .

Although emigration was hardly ever discussed - at least not while I was within earshot - around me when I was a boy, I was involved with it throughout most of my life. My father's mother, in whose house I lived, looked forward to the letters she'd receive from her oldest son in America, Manuel, whenever the Italian liners, SATURNIA and VOLCANIA stopped at Ponta Delgada on their way from America. Later on, since I was probably the most literate boy on my stretch of road, I would be the person the neighbors would call on to write to their relatives in America soliciting whatever funds the latter could spare to help them. In doing so I got to learn about about the United States. I remember, for example, even writing to someone who had migrated to Fulton, Nevada, a place that did not figure in any map of the United States I had ever previously seen - or in any other I have consulted since. But the Azorean asking for financial help did have a relative in that town and, in time, she did get the help she sought. The above painting, THE EMIGRANTS, somehow, always meant a lot to me. Domingos Rebelo had painted it as a mural at a small store in PONTA DELGADA near the island's departure point. As anyone can see, it shows who the emigrants were and the value of the possessions that they considered important in whatever survival awaited them in their new land. One could only wonder how long it would be before the barefoot little girl would see her grandparents again - if ever - or her father who, after paying all the bills that he left behind, would send for her and her mother. When many years after I had seen the painting for the first time, I went to the same spot to see my father migrate, I also wondered when I'd see him again. He did not bring a guitar, or a framed photo fo Santo Cristo. Unlike the woman hugging her husband, my mother was not at the pier. Nor was there a basket of fruit for his long trip. It was stormy that day in 1944, I remember - but, then, spring storms were nothing unusual in the Azores. I followed my father to America in 1946. In 1969, when I returned to the island for the first time, the painting was one of the first remembrances that I sought. It was still there at the small shop where I had first seen it, while a more luxurious version of it hung at the Carlos Machado Museum. In 2006 I tried to show it to my daughter Jane, who had gone to the Azores with me on a short visit. Unfortunately the museum was closed that Monday afternoon.

ABOVE - Garden views at 23 St. Alfred, Olivette, MO

RIGHT - Christmas Celebration at Olivette Home - People are: Katherine, Allen, Mary Beth, and Dena..... (1999)

On March 2, 2007, Kathy and I celebrated our GOLDEN ANNIVERSARY, thanks to a sort of never-ending parties that extended all the way from a luncheon for friends held at Mary Beth's house, and extending all the way to the dinner at Dominic's in St Louis, where the entire family gathered the evening of March 3rd. As I look at the above photo, I can not but wonder if I had ever imagined on that day in 1957, when Kathy and I married, that someday our family would grow to such a magnificent group - 3 daughters and their almost never-ending families. A long way from the Azores...

1969 - Ponta Delgada Harbor, S㯠Miguel Island. Anyone visiting it today will find the harbor to be one where tourist cruise ships abound, along with an activity that fully represents the growth of the city from the sleepy town I once knew. The breakwater in the distance, was started in the '30s and named originally for the Portuguese dictator, Oliveira Salazar. Although I wasn't supposed to go there when I was a boy, it was one of my favorite city hangouts. I loved being near ships.

LEFT - July 20, 1986 - One could say that, although the date marked my 55th birthday, my wife, Katherine, was quite happy for another reason. Our oldest granddaughter, Katherine Norman, was baptized on that day at the Priory (St. Anselm's) Church, St. Louis County, Missouri. The sacramental ceremony was conducted by Father Timothy Hoerner, OSB, a scholarly English Priest who, although we were not members of his parish,agreed to do us the honor neverthless..