From Virginia 4/29/08

Dear All:I thought I'd follow up on Sonia's great story with some information about "El Tio." He was known as el Tio, or Uncle Tony but to his children and grandchildren he was Popi. He was born in Aguada on June 13, 1910 to Manuela Feliciano and Emilio Sanchez, the youngest boy of some eight siblings. His oldest brothers were Millito, Fernando and Manuelito Sanchez. According to his mother, my grandmother, Popi wanted to flee Puerto Rico since the age of thirteen and attempted to stow away on a ship three times before he finally succeeded at sixteen. He probably lived with Fernando who was already in New York. Both worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad. (I'll try to send a picture of this time in their lives).At the age of nineteen (1929) he joined the Merchant Marines fulfilling his passion to travel the world over, and nine years later he was made a fireman in the Engine Department. Many of us remember the great sailing ship tattoo he sported on his arm. In the meantime he met and fell in love with the beautiful Elisa Santiago in New York. They were married on June 9, 1935 and 14 months later I was born. My mother begged Popi to leave the sea, and luckily, he found work with the Works Progress Administration (WPA) during the Depression. Soon afterwards, he returned to the railroad where he remained until retirement in the early 1960s. My sister, Aura, was born a few months before the nation entered the Second World War in 1941, and my brother, Ramon, (Junior) joined the family as a baby boomer soon after the war was over. Popi's job with the railroad became essential industry which was the reason he did not serve in the military. In later life he was a diabetic, a disease which runs rampant among the Sanchez family.Popi was a voracious reader and there were very few topics that he did not know about. He continued to travel and kept himself informed on national and international affairs. His nephews attest to the fact that he was a learned man even though he only finished up to the 4th or 5th grade in P.R.In 1967 Popi and Elisa divorced and for close to four years he lived on the second floor of the his house, 315 52nd St. in Brooklyn. During that time he visited me in Long Island and Aura in Boston but maintained even closer ties to his family (Evelyn, Tomas and Harlold; Perfecta and Abdon; Fernando) in Brooklyn. In 1971 he moved in with me and Aura, alternating houses throughout the year but once the Aginaldos began to play on the radio, and the cold weather seeped in, Popi took off for Aguada to spend the winter at the home of his niece, Rayda (Manuel's daughter). By the way, the first and last home he visited on those trips until he died in 1981 was my mother's. She had remarried and lived with her husband, Eduardo, near Mayaguez. He once told me that a piece of paper (the divorce) could never sever the relationship he had with my mother, a woman with whom he raised three children.It was the last ten years of his life that I really began to know who my father was. He was the thread that wove our family tree together; my friend and companion; the one who knew and cared for each of his five grandchildren; kept our homes stocked with needed supplies; and whose encouragement and support allowed my sister to become a lawyer; my brother to become a chef; and me to complete my education. The grandchildren often argued over ownership of Popi, taunting one another about just where Popi lived and where he just visited. His grandchildren were: Aura's Dylan, Seth and Anelisa; my daughters, Pamela and Lauren; and Junior's stepchildren, Stevie, and Theresa. Thanks for giving me the chance to write about Popi. I hope others get the urge to write and that we will be able to begin the process of filling in the family tree.Carinos,Virginia Virginia Sanchez Korrol, Ph.D.Professor EmeritaBrooklyn College, City University of New York