August 27, 2017
My wife's grandfather came from a small town called Quintana del Castillo, near Astroga. She had visited Quintana for a month with her grandfather in 1973 when she was twelve years old. She stayed at the old family house where her great aunt and uncle lived. When we arrived, nothing initially looked familiar to her.
It was Sunday morning and church was just getting out, so we approached an older couple walking home from church and asked (in very broken Spanish) if they knew where the old family house was. They recognized the name and asked a woman (Oliva) who appeared to be at least an octogenarian. She did remember the family, remembered that one brother had gone to America, one to Buenos Aires, and one to Cuba. Much to our pleasant surprise, she also remembered that the brother from America had once visited and brought his granddaughter (my wife) with him.
Oliva's granddaughter (Anna) showed us the house, which my wife remembered well when she saw it. Anna was soon joined by her husband (Javier) who spoke a bit of English also together they brought us to the cemetery, where we eventually found my wife's great aunt fonal resting place. She died in 2004 when she was 97 years old.
Visiting the house again, a man came out from the house acroos the street. We both spoke a little French, so we explained what we doing. He told us he owns the house, which is currently unoccupied.
We drove to Astorga to try to find some flowers for the grave; no luck with flowers, so we got some cookies instead. A quick visit to the Astorga cathedral revealed an unusual statue of Mary Magdaline.
