The mountains in Valencia bring forth unspeakable beauty, and listening to musical pieces spur inner warmth within each of us. Unlike seven decades earlier when I would witness six to 10 cannons stationed in front of the Dimaya house at the Silliman Campus, spewing fury in the air with all the warheads pointing to the mountains.
Life was different then. Silliman campus sprawled with the non-existence of the gym or the dormitories. From the eyes of a child, I took in the vastness of space, standing on the porch of the Dimaya home, now called the Vista residence, where yellow bells and bouganvillas used to grow in abundance.
I was barely four years old during the onset of World War II. My father, Pedro Dimaya, then librarian of Silliman, was a violinist, and my mother, Venida Cabanos-Dimaya, a high school teacher, played the piano.
At the outbreak of war, my father was tasked by the Silliman administration to ensure that important and rare library books were kept safe.
My dad, a major in the United States Armed Forces in the Far East (USAFFE), was taken captive by the Japanese, and was in the Death March in Tarlac. My mom, on the other hand, refused to leave our newly-built house; the Japanese had a penchant for burning empty houses.
With a lot of time on her hands, my mother would lay my sister Lennie and me on her lap alternately, and teach us how to read notes and play the piano.
That time, the Japanese soldiers occupied Channon Hall, and on some instances from our home, we could hear the cries of prisoners being tortured.
On one occasion, three Japanese soldiers patrolling the area must have heard me playing the piano, and asked my mother if they could come inside our house to listen. Mom said, “Yes, but no guns inside my house!”
The three soldiers must have probably told the others about our piano rendition because our “audience” grew each passing day. Some would have tears in their eyes, maybe remembering their own children left back in Japan.
Then came the Americans, cannons and all, who pitched their tents in the area where the dormitories, the Chapel of the Evangel, McKinley Hall, Rodriguez Hall, and the Ravello Athletic Field now are. The Americans must have also heard music coming from our home because they, too, would come by to listen.
That was when we had our first taste of chocolates, Necca candies, canned goods; and when we actually received nickles, dimes and quarters in exchange for the piano pieces we played for them as solos or duets.
After several months, escaping the Death March, Dad arrived with his other companions, traveling all the way from Luzon to Dumaguete in a banca. While we children practiced our pieces, he would take his violin and play the tunes he heard us play, and there started our nightly family musicales.
These childhood memories gave this realization that amidst the chaos, hunger, and fear of World War II, my sister and I were nurtured musically, playing before strangers, Japanese, as well as American soldiers.
When Silliman reopened its doors after World War II, my sister and I, always dressed alike (that’s why we were referred to as the Dimaya twins), were often asked to play the piano for programs to entertain new students, their parents, and guests in the Assembly Hall, now known as the Silliman Hall.
Prof. Isabel Dimaya-Vista
Silliman Campus
