Page 35 - WashingtonSyCip_Bio_Excerpt_2nd_Edition

Passenger on a Ship

Albino was affectionate but didn’t lavish gifts on his family. Birthdays meant that the
children received a special deposit in savings accounts he kept for them in the bank.
(Much later, Wash would do the same with his children.)

Treats came in the form of vacations to Shanghai and other parts of China, taking
one of the Empress Liners operated by Canadian Pacific. The Baus had a summer
home on a mountain, accessible at that time only by sedan chair.

Helen Bau died of asthma when Wash was only 14. Don Albino did what he could
for his wife, sometimes taking her to a hotel by the sea, but his best efforts could not
stave off the inevitable.

Albino SyCip would remarry, and happily for all, his new bride turned out to be a
reassuringly familiar face. Her name was Anastacia Uy, and she was a tutor from Cebu
who had been hired to teach the children Chinese. By chance, she was also a pianist.
She and the children got along very well. “It was good that my father got married
again,” Wash says. “My father was not a person who would go to night clubs. And
looking back, as we were all growing up, my father would have been very lonely being
alone in the house, and she really took very good care of him. So it was very good that
he married her.” Albino’s granddaughter Vicky remembers that “My dad’s stepmother
was amazing. She stepped right into the role of being mom. They already loved her
as a tutor. She loved us grandchildren, always gave us special treats, like small boxes
of Sun Maid raisins. As I got older, I realized how healthy raisins are for you. She
was very warm, and she was an incredible pianist.” To George, Vicky’s brother, she
was “a very nice lady, always smiling, puttering around.” Wash’s children knew and
liked Albino, whose house they would visit. As George remembers, “He wasn’t a man
of many words. But he was always very calm. He let us nap in his place, in his air-
conditioned study, which I came to look forward to. A few years later, he handed out
to us kids a small card with the Golden Rule distilled from several religions printed
on it. I still have it to this day and have passed it on to my daughters.”

Anastacia would outlive Albino, who died of pneumonia at about 90 years of age.
Albino had smoked a bit, but he was in good health for most of his life, being an avid
golfer, and remained active well into his 80s. Albino cautioned his sons against any
excess, but his counsel must have escaped Alex, who would die from smoking three
packs a day.

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