Transitions – Where’s Fran?

Farewell to a Few Old Friends…

I seem to get the jitters whenever I go on-line these days. Who will it be this time, I wonder. Which of my former students has died and left that familiar sinking feeling in my heart as I read through his obituary?

There have been a multitude earlier this year, but in recent weeks three high-profile Xavier High School graduates have passed away. All of them were not just former students who became FSM notables, but they were also good friends.

When Cuthbert Yiftheg began high school at PATS, he came across as a modest individual from a modest background. Bert, as he was then known, was not from one of the higher strata in Yap, an island where clan determines social status. He was not a stand-out student, perhaps because of his limited educational background. But, long afterwards, the young man was remembered not just for his modesty but his interest in studies. Not only did he always turn in the homework carefully and on time, but he would regularly ask for help from his teachers in the early evening. So often that a teacher might excuse himself from the dinner table a bit early with the side remark that he had to be in his room to help Yiftheg when he made his inevitable visit. It all proved effective for Bert, who graduated near the top of his class.

If ever there was anyone stamped with a “made in New York” sticker, it was Pat Sullivan. Yes, he might have once been a fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers and forever afterwards mourned their loss. Even so, he identified as a New Yorker. As I recall, it was a Yankees baseball cap he was wearing when he was sitting at a table, head bowed and listening to classical music as he pondered how to respond to the storm damage at our seminary on Guam.

On Sunday morning just before the Pohnpeian mass I say each week, I stopped to greet Jefferson, the man who has regularly stood at the door to welcome any and all into the church. “You look very thin,” I told him. It had been a few weeks since I had last seen him. “Cancer,” he said, “in the head, stomach and chest.”

I always thought of Ken as a kid—but a big kid, for sure. He had that playful smile that made you feel that, sincere as he seemed, he might be stringing you along just a little bit. But the smile was real. The earliest vivid memory of him was sitting on the hull of our overturned boat with that triumphant smile as Xavier freshmen splashed in the water around him. The boat had been swamped by waves not too far from shore, but Ken and a couple of his buddies held tight to the food packages they had saved from the floor of the lagoon.

Many years ago I was invited to a party at the home of an acquaintance who lived out a ways on the southern shore of Long Island. It wasn’t just another party, but something special in a home that was more than just a house. Let’s call it a mansion. The locale was not just any old suburban town, but it was like one of the Hamptons—a plush community that could have been the setting for “The Great Gatsby.” I didn’t know the hosts too well, but I was looking forward to the party for other reasons, as you might suspect.

Dan and I first met in 1955 at Canisius High School where I was a senior and he a newly assigned Jesuit scholastic starting his teaching stint before ordination. We were surprised to find out that he was a veteran—who had lost one of his lungs in service, for that matter. None of us ever imagined Dan in military uniform. To us he was an unimposing, kindly figure who seemed temperamentally well-suited to be moderator of the poster club and the prefect of the school’s book store. We liked his friendly smile and wished him well, but no one regarded him as a contender for the faculty Wall of Fame. Dan just wasn’t the kind of heroic figure that we Crusaders took to heart as our champions.

On April 12, very early in the morning, I left Guam to attend the funeral of of Elsa Veloso, the “co-founder of MicSem” and a dear friend over the thirty years of her work with us. After seven hours at the airport in Manila, I caught a flight to Cagayan de Oro in Mindanao. There I was met by my old friends Danny and Arlene Dumantay, along with Elsa’s niece Melba. It was dinner time and we all had so much catching up to do that we decided to spend the night in the city and make the three-hour drive to Kinoguitan, Elsa’s hometown, the next day.

Category - Transitions

Farewell to a Few Old Friends…

Cuthbert Yiftheg, Modest Minister to the End

Pat Sullivan: From One Xavier High to Another

The Passing of a Devoted Dad

Ken Urumolug: 1965-2023

Too Late for the Party?

RIP: Dan Mulhauser, Seminary Director and Universal Pastor

Elsa’s Funeral at Mindinao