Glimpses of Old Cebu: Images of the Colonial Era

By Lucy Miller (Author)

Quick Overview

Glimpses of Old Cebu: Images of the Colonial Era is a 276-page coffee table book of nearly 600 of the best photographs, postcards, storeoviews and lantern glass slide of Cebu and its many towns taken between 1870-1945. These images form part of a thousand images collected over the past 20 years by Lucy Urgello Miller, a Cebuana now based on California.More than just a mere showcase of rare, never-before-seen images, the book also provides a treasure trove of information accompanying nearly every pciture.Lucy Urgello Miller has mied every possible source of information such that the reader is able to locate every picture and understand its place in Cebu's history . She herself injects personal anecdotes that were told to her by her aunt, Milagros Espina Urgello, on some of the images shown in the book.Cebu's progress as a town and then as a young city is chronicled in the book through pictures of streets , private and government edifices and public works projects. These are complemented with pictures taken of different towns, their churches, prominent streets and public infrastructure.The very rare photos of the war against the Americans, the slaying of four American teachers in 1902, the great typhoon of 1912, the first CEbu Carnival in 1914, the sensational Fuente murders in 1915-- these are but just a few of the many significant moments in Cebu's history that are also chronicled in this book.All told, this book is a must, not just for a lazy Sunday reading but also as an important source of the colonial period information about Cebu, told through colonial lenses.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lucy Urgello Miller has been collecting vintage Philippine postcards and photographs for over 20 years, the thrust of her collection being Cebu. She acquired 90 percent of her Cebu collection in the United States where she is living with her husband, Richard. Most of the collection was bought at antique postcard shows. Lucy has about 1,00 pictures and postcards on Cebu but she selected only the best and most interesting for this book.A blue-blooded Theresian, Lucy spent her entire education, from kindergarten to college at St. Theresa's College here in Cebu. She obatined her Bachelor of Arts degree with minors in English an Mathematics in 1970. During her college days, she contributed poems and arcticles in The STAR, the Theresian student publication.Her paternal grandfather was former Rep. Vincente Urgello, whose congressional district covered Carcar. Her great-great-grandfather, Roman Sarmiento, was the original owner of Balay nga Tisa in Carcar, and her grandfather, Vincente grew up in that house. It is now owned by the Valencias who are related to her.Lucy's mother, Milagros Valenzuela, a Cebu carnival queen in 1937, married her carnival consort, Manuel Urgello, in1939. They have five children and Lucy is the fourth child. Lucy's mother passed away when she was two years old and she was adopted and raised by her father's unmarried sister, Milagros Espina Urgello, who was living with her parents, Vicente and Visitacion Urgello. She also grew up with her three older siblings who were raised by Vincente and Visitacion much to the disappointment of her maternal grandparents who wanted to raise their deceased daughter's children. The youngest child, Bob, who was a week shy of six months was raised by the two unmarried sisters of Visitacion, Dra. Salud Espina and Soledad Espina. Her father had promised the baby to them if they could make them live. They kept a 14/7 watch over him and saved him several times because of their vigilance.Lucy moved to the U.S. in 1974 and worked at Little Lake School District in 1979 as a teacher's aide. She got her teacher's credentials and became a teacher in 1984. She met her future husband, Rick, at the school where they were both teaching, they got married in 1983. Both retired from teaching in 2006.