CHAPTER II : My Abuelito

The beloved Abuelito we never met

This is my grandfather, Ian Collier Trotter Macgregor. Born Aug. 13, 1880 in Nairn, in Inverness, Scotland, he came to the Philippines as part of Smith Bell & Co. which was then actively engaged in exporting abaca from Bicol. This was where he met my grandmother, Leoncia Cipriano. My mother, Praxedes was born on July 21, 1910.

My grandmother, Leoncia Cipriano, was born in Ligao, Albay, a wonderfully quirky rural lassie. She must have been a looker because she had quite a number of suitors. When this dashing young red haired, green-eyed Scot with a Kirk Douglas chin came to town, he held her hand and she did not protest. Her folks regarded that gesture a violation of her chastity and had them married to the delight of my Abuelita. And the rest of course is history.

Ian worked on Philippine railway projects, like his brother Roderick Robert who had once worked on the railway link between Pretoria and Pietersburg in South Africa. Scottish railway engineers are credited for building the first golf courses in the country, and it is highly likely that Ian had either known them or had been one of them.

Ian is part of Philippine golf history. He became the Philippine Open Golf Champion in 1919 and 1920 : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_Open_(golf)

His caddy, Celestino Tugot became Philippine National Open Champion for many years. I met him when I went to Bukidnon as a journalist sometime in the early 1980s. He shared fond memories picking eggs with Abuelito in our farm in Damilag. That was when Abuelito was finance officer of the Bukidnon-based Philippine Packing Corp., now known as Del Monte. My big regret is not having stayed longer to talk with the erstwhile Filipino golf champ. I am sure he would have contributed a lot to our scant collection of stories and anecdotes on Abuelito.

Grandfather Ian died on February 14, 1945 during the shelling of Manila towards the close of World War II. Her Papa's death must have been far more devastating for Mommy than the ravages of the war. When we were little, on All Soul's Day, Mommy would always take us to a crypt in Paco church where Abuelito's remains used to be interred. She would always shed tears remembering.

"Mommy" Praxedes Macgregor spoke fluent Spanish, English, Tagalog, Bicol and Cebuano . A consummate cook who trained with another Scot Mrs. Nicols, we were nurtured by her fantastic culinary wonders. (Some of them are in my other blog: http://pinoyfusion.blogspot.com/)

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Excerpts form Sir Ronald Trotter's book: "Hasten with Care" Ron Trotter's great grandfather John Trotter (born 1822) and my great grandmother Ann Trotter (born 1843) were siblings.

My sister Dorothy provides excerpts from that book:

Chapter 4 ROBERT TROTTER (1785-1856) AND HIS WIFE CATHERINE URQUHART (1800-1872)

Of their thirteen children, five died in infancy - Annie 1825, Margaret 1828, Catherine 1830, Ann Margaret 1835, and Robert 1837. Mary, born 1827, died in her twenties some time after the 1851 census and Elizabeth died in 1863. Elizabeth had some form of handicap; one note (Anna Cameron, 1925) described her as deformed. The remaining children all reached maturity and married.

(Here follows the information on all their children, but I have included only my great grandmother)

Ann Trotter, christened 21 August 1843, married Roderick McGregor at Garguston on 6 January 1864. This family scattered widely around the world. The following notes of their whereabouts were written by Anna Trotter Cameron in 1925:

Ann and Roderick McGregor had seven children, six of whom were living in 1925:

William Lewis McGregor, born 21 January 1865, King George Medical College, Lucknow, United Provinces, India

Catherine Elizabeth McGregor and Helen Mary McGregor (twins), born 27 January 1867, Lyndale Childs HIll, Middlesex

Annie Mabel McGregor, born 6 December 1870. Annie married Walter Percy Milstead on 1 November 1914 at the parish church of St. John, Calcutta

Roderick Robert McGregor, born 9 April 1877, general manager's office, South African Railways, Johannesburg, South Africa

Ian Collier McGregor, born 13 August 1880, c/- Smith Bell & Co., Manila, Philippines

Ian's grandson, Billy McGregor Esposo, provided the following information following a visit he had made to Garguston in Scotland some years ago:

Ian came over to the Philippines in the early 1900s to manage the team that built the railroad system linking Manila to Legaspi City (a southern Luzon city about 450 km from Manila). Towards the end of the job, Ian met our grandmother who was of Spanish and Malay origins. Fell in love. Had to turn his back on his Presbyterian orientation in order to marry her in Roman Catholic rites (Grandma will never have it any other way). Upon settling in the Philippines, Ian became the principal agent in the country for Smith Bell and Company. Later, he became a management consultant of the Del Monte Plantation and Company in Bukidnon (located in the southern island of Mindanao). In 1919 and 1920 he won, back-to-back, the Philippine Open Golf Championship - golf after all is a game of Scots.

During the war years his ability with languages allowed him to talk his way out of a Japanese concentration camp where all nationals from allied countries were herded. During the retaking of Manila by that famous general who himself has Scottish roots (MacArthur), Ian decided to go out from the safety of a bomb shelter to observe the battle of Manila. On the eve of victory and in typical Celtic fashion, a shell exploded right behind him, killing him 30 minutes later.

Billy was born in 1949 and has a background in media and public relations. He was the director-general of the Philippines Information Agency. His mother, Praxedes, was the only child of Ian McGregor; she had four children, of whom Billy was the eldest.

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Scottish presence left a mark in Manila. San Andres Bukid is known to have been named after St. Andrew, patron saint of Scotland. There is a place called "Imbiernes" in Pedro Gil. Scottish friend Angus Campbell of the Manila Club quotes old timers as saying that the street was named after "Inverness" in Scotland, the same city where my grandfather was born.

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