Juliana Mamaril

Juliana Acosta Mamaril

February 16,1919-January 24,2022

BIOGRAPHY

On April 23, 1919, Juliana Gapasin Acosta was born to Juan Vergara Acosta and Florentina Gapasin Acosta in San Nicolas, Pangasinan, Philippines, the eldest of three other siblings to follow, Cresencia, Cresencio, and Arsenia. Her father however decided to establish residence in Bacuit, Bauang, La Union, Philippines. then a farming community.

While still a young girl, Juliana and her three other siblings, Cresencia, Crescencio, and Arsenia, now all deceased, had to live a life without their father who had decided to seek his fortune overseas to provide for his family.

Happy memories of humble origins as farmers/sharecroppers were the constant subject of her bedtime stories and songs as we were growing up, unable to finish grade school. As she grew up to maturity, to fend for their livelihood, she and her sister Crescencia, moved to Baguio for greener pastures sometime during the Great Depression in America at a time when the Philippines was a Commonwealth of the USA. They engaged themselves in all kinds of job opportunities such as housekeeping the vacation homes of the country’s rich and famous. At one point, Juliana was trained and worked as a medical assistant to a lady American doctor at Camp John Hay, a Rest & Recreation Base of the US Military for about three years. While still single, she enrolled herself into the Centro Escolar Fashion Academy where she proved her
talents in sewing and dressmaking which became very useful in later life.

Everything changed when World War II happened. The family had to abandon their home in Bauang and flee to the mountains in fear of the Japanese Army who had taken over their house and the country. She then had to travel by foot for days between Baguio and Bauang, hiding in caves along the way while barter trading to help provide for the family. Her survival stories of various adventures and misadventures during the war are nothing short of the stuff that books for great reading are made of. One of those stories was about a small cherry wood carved table and incense burner that she snuck in to retrieve from their house at night under the nose of the Japanese forces, a table which we still cherish and keep up to now. One of the jobs Juliana had before the war was as a maid at the Elizalde Compound along General Luna Road in Baguio. That is where she met her future husband, Hilario Caan Mamaril of Bolinao, Pangasinan who was then the cook for the Elizaldes before the war and left as the Property Caretaker during the war. Earlier plans for marriage were thwarted by World War II. it finally happened on January 14, 1949, my Dad’s birthday in Bacuit, Bauang where they cordoned a part of the highway for the festive occasion.

Starting a new family led the new couple to forge harder for themselves, landing them a job as caretaker/property manager of the Baguio vacation home of Gerald and Mariana Wilkinson on 32 (now 100) Outlook Drive. Unbeknownst to us, Gerald Wilkinson was actually a very important person in WWII, the MI6 Liaison Officer between Gen. MacArthur and Winston Churchill. The relationship was such that it was more like a friendship/helper that resulted in the Wilkinsons graciously providing for our (Me, Tito, and Flor) private school education up to high school.

While working as a caretaker for the Wilkinsons, Juliana also met various friends of theirs who eventually engaged her sewing talents that provided extra income (I.e. Some of the curtain drapes of the John Hay Main Club were her work).

When Gerald Wilkinson passed away in the ’60s, Juliana and Hilario felt it was prudent to leave the property as it was then taken over by the Marcos family. Landing the same opportunity with the Jardine Davies Company staff house on Arellano Street, they retired in the mid-’80s and joined me and my family as legal immigrants in California. While still working, she was also an active member of Saint Joseph’s Church in Pacdal, Baguio City where she used to be the leader of one of the biggest Block Rosary Crusades in Baguio and the Catholic Women’s League.

Being widowed in 1994 opened up whole new horizons for Juliana. She was now the second mother to many of our friends, a grandma, and a babysitter to our kids who also loved her cooking Filipino delicacies. The warmth of her love and kindness that was her trademark among friends and relatives in the Philippines was now radiant in the US. She loved visiting friends and relatives and particularly liked fiddling around in my garden. She also tried to replicate making her Baguio famous strawberry jam which was particularly sought after by many, way before Good Shepherd started their industry and was featured in a Philippine Women’s Magazine in 1980.

She truly loved life and everything that came with it. Her Catholic faith was her constant source of hope in stressful times and gratitude in good times. Amazingly healthy passed the age of 100, she suffered a stroke in July 2018 which landed her in hospice care in Clovis California until her demise on January 24, 2022.

Juliana Acosta Mamaril, widow to Hilario C. Mamaril is survived by her children Rudy & Eva Mamaril, Tito & Elvie Mamaril and Flor & Robert Astudillo, her grandchildren John Paul, Brian Joseph & Bobbie, Camille, Abigail, Gerald Jon, Marck Anthony & Aleiah Martin, Michael John & Anne Astudillo, Myk & Hector Martin, Mylene Joy & Julienne, her great-grandchildren Leanne & Katelyn; Ayden & Alex; Irianne, Lionheart, Phoenix, Yohan and Jamil.