gold mine?”
“It involves work with the chemist,” Gustavo said. “I think I have a chance of getting it. I should know soon. The pay’s not bad; I’d be able to support myself. One less mouth for Papá and Mamá to worry about.”
“Will Papá manage the farm work without your help?” Oscar asked.
“It’s a good question because he can no longer afford to hire workers at busy times, like the coffee harvest,” Gustavo said. “But our younger brothers are getting bigger and stronger. They’re able to do more at the farm so my absence shouldn’t hurt.”
“Well, let’s hope you get the job at the mine and that this year’s crop is good,” Oscar said. “Looks like I have lots to pray about. And promise me you’ll both pray as well? You should say three Hail Marys each bedtime and three each morning when you awake.”24
Oscar knew he’d be continuing seminary studies, but he didn’t yet know where. It was up to the bishop of San Miguel diocese, Juan Antonio Dueñas y Argumedo, to decide. The bishop, who was his friend Rafael’s uncle, might want him to stay on at the San Miguel seminary.
Alternately, Bishop Dueñas could have Oscar wait and begin studies at a new seminary due to open in 1936 in San Salvador, intended to serve not only future priests of El Salvador but also of Honduras, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. Or the bishop might decide to take advantage of a scholarship to send Oscar to Rome, as he had done with Father Monroy.
Whatever the future, Oscar had to think about earning money for his expenses. Fortunately, Gustavo was hired as chemist’s assistant at the El Mineral Potosí, a gold mine not far south of Ciudad Barrios. Gustavo helped Oscar and his younger brother Mamerto get short-term work there.
With straps slung across their foreheads to support the leather pouches on their backs, Oscar and Mamerto spent full workdays picking up ore-containing rocks and flinging them into the ever-heavier sacks. They earned fifty cents a day and were paid every two weeks. It was grueling.
After four weeks, Oscar told his brother, “Okay, let’s go. With what we’ve earned I have enough to buy my books and the few other things I need.” Mamerto didn’t argue with him.
Oscar graduated from minor seminary as a confident eighteen-year-old at the end of 1935. He had blossomed under the guidance of the Claretian brothers and with his classmates’ camaraderie and acceptance. He had formed friendships that would last a lifetime. He had also acquired a broad base of knowledge and started to hone the musical and oratory gifts he’d use when he eventually became a priest.
17. Most of the information in this chapter is a gift from the prodigious memory of Father Bernardo Amaya, who studied at the San Miguel minor seminary at the same time as Romero, but in an older class. Father Amaya, interviewed by the author in 1998, when Amaya was retired and living in San Salvador, recalled such details as the couplet Rafael Valladares wrote about Oscar and the opening lines of the song Oscar and Fausto Ventura sang at a Marist school performance. Amaya had also served on two occasions as parish priest in Ciudad Barrios, Oscar’s hometown, and thus came to know the family. Oscar’s brothers Arnoldo, Mamerto, and Gaspar Romero also provided useful information.
The specific words spoken in this chapter’s conversations are the author’s creative device to enliven the information; they adhere as closely as possible to what the author learned in interviews.
18. Father Amaya said he had suffered a severe bout of malaria while a preseminarian. He also spoke of seminary director Father Benito Ibañez, who had to leave after a year due to malaria.
19. The súngano is a brown fruit about the size of a large grapefruit with yellow or orange fibrous or “hairy” flesh. With the scientific name Licania platypus Fritsch, it’s also known as sunsa in parts of El Salvador and by various other names in the region, including zapote cabelludo, or “shaggy zapote.”
20. Romero recalled Valladares and his newsletters in a tribute written upon his friend’s death: “In those unforgettable years in the shade of the Claretian Fathers, Valladares sowed joy, initiative, culture, piety. His fondness for journalism shone in the two newsletters he began: ‘Amanecer’ [Dawn] and ‘El Ideal’ [The Ideal].” Romero y Galdámez, “Murió como santo porque vivió como sacerdote,” Chaparrastique, no. 2379, September 2, 1961, 1,8.
21. Oscar’s father noted in his small notebook that he purchased a typewriter in 1925, the year Oscar turned eight.
22. In this tribute to Father Aguadé, Romero wrote of his teacher: “He left us with this indelible memory: he strove to encourage our good qualities and talents. I’ll be grateful my entire life for the time he complimented me on a little beginner’s speech I gave in one of those evening events we organized in honor of our teachers. I felt his words of encouragement were so sincere they seemed to point out to me my responsibility to make good use of the gifts God gives us for God’s own glory.” Romero y Galdámez, “Murió el Padre Antonio Aguadé,” Chaparrastique, no. 2304, February 20, 1960, 1,8,12.
23. Oscar learned to swim as a child in streams and rivers near his home.
24. Oscar’s counsel to pray three Ave Marias at bedtime and upon awakening come from a 1939 postcard that Oscar, twenty-two, wrote to Arnoldo on his birthday: “My dear, often-thought-of Noldo, On September 13, you will celebrate your birthday, so I’m writing you this pretty postcard to congratulate you. To always be happy, you should always do three things: Go to mass on Sundays, always take Holy Communion, love the Virgin Mary, praying to her three Hail Marys upon going to bed and rising. If you do this, God will dearly love you. If you don’t, you won’t be happy. I send you a hug. Your brother Oscar”
4. A Time to Prepare
(1936–1943)
“I’ll be frank with you, Oscar,” Bishop Dueñas said. “Now that you’ve graduated from minor seminary, I’m not sure where to send you for your seminary studies. You might have continued them here in San Miguel, under my guidance, but, alas . . .”
The bishop sighed as he gazed over the campus, now eerily quiet without students. “Odd, isn’t it, how happenings in Spain affect us here in our little El Salvador, an ocean away?”
Oscar’s heart weighed heavy with the events that recently closed the minor seminary. A few months after his graduation in late 1935, civil war erupted in Spain. The Claretian superiors recalled its order’s brothers from abroad, including those who ran the San Miguel preseminary, to replace members killed in the hostilities. The San Miguel diocese lacked its own priests to staff the school.
“Any news of Father Aguadé? Of Fathers Burgoa and Calvo?” Oscar had shed tears when his beloved teachers left for their homeland, headed into violence and uncertainty. How were they faring?
“No news yet. Let’s keep them in our prayers.” The bishop paused and bowed his head in a moment of silence.25 “Now back to your situation,
