In Celebration of Fathers' Day - June 21, 2026 Fathers of Great Men and Women. Many great men and women came from humble birth.

 In Celebration of Fathers' Day - June 18, 2023

Fathers of Great Men and Women

Many great men and women came from humble birth.

“His heritage to his children wasn’t words or possessions, but an unspoken treasure, the treasure of his example as a man and a father.” 

– Will Rogers, Jr.

"Greatness, they say, runs in the family. Not really. Many great men and women came from humble birth." - avr

Let's take these examples.

1. Abraham Lincoln's father was a poor farmer and laborer.
2. The father of the great explorer James Cook was a farm worker.
3. The father of France greatest heroine, Joan of Arc, was a farmer.
4. Christopher Columbus was the son of a weaver.
5. Sigmund Freud's father was a wool merchant.
6. The father of Henry Ford was a farmer.
7. Marco Polo's father was a traveling merchant.
8. Sir Francis Drake was brought up a Puritan, his father Edmund Drake was a clergyman. 
9. David Livingstone's parents were poor, David had to work in a factory at age 10.
10. The father of Lech Walesa, leader of Solidarity that freed Poland, was a carpenter.
11. Daniel Webster was the son of a poor farmer.
12. Benjamin Franklin was the son of a soap maker.
13. The father of Charles Dickens was a wage earner, clerk in the Navy Pay Office.
14. Joseph Haydn's father made and repaired wheels of all kinds.
15. Emperor Diocletian was the son of a slave.
16. Pablo Picasso's father was a painter, but handed over his brushes and paints to his son after discovering his artistic genius. PHOTO 
17. The father of Shakespeare was a wool merchant. 
18. Albert Einstein's father failed as a businessman 
19. Virgil's father was a porter and for years a slave.
20. Franz Schubert's father was a modest schoolmaster.
21. Nelson Mandela, South Africa's living hero, came from a family of herdsmen, born in a thatched hut.
22. The father of John Paul II was an army sergeant.
23. Mother Teresa (Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu) was a daughter of an Albanian grocer.
24. Maria Montessori, founder of the Montessori school, was the daughter of a civil servant
25. George Frederick Handel's father was a barber-surgeon.
26. Joseph Stalin's father was an alcoholic, beat the young Joseph, deserted the family.
27. Ludwig Beethoven's father was ruthless to the young Ludwig.
28. The father of Lyndon Johnson, US president, earned a teacher's certificate, went to farming and local politics.

29. Former US President Richard Nixon grew in poverty, family illness and endless work.
30. Mikhail Gorbachev, the man who "made the USSR disappear" was born from simple peasant parents, and grandparents.
31. Mao Zedong was the son of an obscure peasant from the vast hinterland of China.
32. Austrian composer Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) was the second of twelve children born to a kindly couple of music-loving peasants.  His father Matias Haydn made and repaired wheels of all kinds. 
33. Franz Schubert (1797-1828) was born into a family that regarded music very highly.  His father was a modest schoolmaster.                  
34. The father of John Wesley, founder of Methodism, was a rector of Epworth Rectory
35. Captain James Cook was born of poor parents in 1728 in a village in Yorkshire where his father worked on a farm.  
36. Jesus Christ's father - St Joseph - was a carpenter.

On the other hand, the following great men and women, in spite of their more fortunate  origins, followed the lives of humility, dedicated service, unfailing commitment, like their counterparts who had simpler origins.  

1. Charles Darwin's father was a medical doctor, his grandfather Erasmus Darwin was a renown scientist.
2. The father of Florence Nightingale (PHOTO) founder of the nursing profession was a rich man.  She was born in Florence (hence her name) but returned to England as a little girl.  
3. Leonardo da Vinci's father was a notary, or lawyer and his mother was a peasant girl.
4. Michelangelo's father, Ludovico, was a magistrate and proud of his noble ancestry.
5. The father of Renaissance painter Raphael, contemporary of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo  was an artist of some reputation, employed by the dukes of Urbino near Florence
6. The father of George Frederick Handel (1685-1759) was a prominent barber-surgeon in the town of Halle, Germany. 

References: Living with Nature  AVRotor; Jokes, Quotes and One-Liners for Public Speakers, Prochnow HV and HV Prochnow Jr, 1897, 1931; Ladybird Book Series 

                   He never made a fortune, or a noise

He never made a fortune, or a noise

In the world where men are seeking after fame;
But he had a healthy brood of girls and boys
Who loved the very ground on which he trod.
They thought him just a little short of God;
Oh, you should have heard the way they said his name—‘Father.’

                        –Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850–1919)

* Father’s Day celebrates and honors the men who have embraced the essential role of fatherhood. On this day, we also thank fathers and father figures (uncles, grandfathers) for the sacrifices they make, for embracing the responsibility of nurturing and raising children, and for their devotion to their families. (From the Internet - (avr) ~

Fathers; Day in the Philippines June 21, 2026: Let us instill in our children the habit of reading

 Let us instill in our children the habit of reading*

“Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.” - Margaret Fuller, American journalist and philosopher

Dr Abe V Rotor

Living with Nature School on Blog avrotor.blogspot.com

Based on a research of Claudine R. Bananal

on Development Communication, UST

Faculty of Arts and Letters

National Book Award Winners, 2008, with Senator Edgardo Angara (extreme

right); author is second from left. Some of the works of these winners were

displayed during the awarding ceremonies at the Yurchenko Museum, Makati

A child's reading skills are important to their success in school and work. Children who learn to read from an early age are generally more successful in academic areas. Many children enroll in school, only 63 per cent complete primary school, and the quality of education remains poor in many areas of the country. In addition, reading can be a fun and imaginative activity for children, which opens doors to all kinds of new worlds for them. Reading and writing are important ways we use to communicate.(Source: UNICEF Philippines)

The test is an oral test given to a pupil to measure reading ability. Five test questions are administered constituting the entire test:

Independent reading level – Pupil can read with ease and without the help or guidance of a teacher. In the Phil-IRI test, they can answer four or five correct answers (out of five test questions) and can read with rhythm, with a conversational tone, and can interpret punctuation correctly.

Instructional reading level – Pupil can profit from instruction. In the Phil-IRI test, they answer three out of five test questions correctly.

Frustrated reading level – Pupil gets two or below in the Phil-IRI test (out of five test questions). They show symptoms or behavior of withdrawing from reading situations and commit multiple types of errors in oral reading.(Phil-IRI (Philippine-Informal Reading Inventory)

Reading Levels of Children in the City (%)

Grade 1
Frustrated Reader 64.41
Instructional Reader 20.17
Independent Reader 15.42
Total 23,114
Grade 2
Frustrated Reader 49.98
Instructional Reader 31.45
Independent Reader 19.07
Total 28,170
Grade 3
Frustrated Reader 47.59
Instructional Reader 32.47
Independent Reader 19.94
Total 26,843
Grade 4
Frustrated Reader 44.82
Instructional Reader 32.17
Independent Reader 23.01
Total 25,493
Grade 5
Frustrated Reader 50.78
Instructional Reader 28.48
Independent Reader  20.74
Total 30,288
Grade 6
Frustrated Reader36.50
Instructional Reader34.67
Independent Reader28.83
Total 27,199

Source: Philippine-Informal Reading Inventory Test (Phil-IRI), Schools Division of Manila, SY 2003-04

PROGRAMS, PROJECTS AND ACTIVITIES TO IMPROVE READING SKILLS

• Build more public libraries especially in remote areas.
• Encourage the community via reading campaigns to frequently visit these public libraries to borrow books and read.
• Share the joy of reading to the illiterate by reading books, magazines and newspapers to them and teaching them in the process.
• In this campaign, the public libraries will hold daily reading/storytelling sessions to the poor and illiterate, adults and children alike. It will be conducted by volunteers from the community.
• Parents must play a critical role in helping their children develop not only the ability to read, but also an enjoyment of reading.

1. Turn off the TV. Start by limiting your children’s viewing time.
2. Teach by example. There must be books, newspapers and magazines around the house and children must actually see their parents reading so they will learn that reading is of great value.
3. 
   Read together. Reading with children is a great activity. It not only teaches them its importance but it also offers a chance to talk about the book, and often other issues will come up. Books can really open the lines of communication between parents and their children and broaden their minds. 

Adages on Reading

• “To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all of the miseries of life.” -W. Somerset Maugham
• “Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.” -Sir Richard Steele
• “He who destroys a good book kills reason itself.” - John Milton
• “No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting.” - Lady Mary Wortley Montague ~

Living with Nature Book Series by Dr Abe V Rotor

Award-winning books (Gintong Aklat and National Book Awards) 

published by UST Publishing House Manila

 

* Lesson on former Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (People's School-on-Air) with Ms Melly C Tenorio 738 DZRB AM Band, 8 to 9 evening class Monday to Friday

Senior Citizen House Guests. Welcome to the Living with Nature Home

Senior Citizen House Guests

Welcome to the Living with Nature Home

Dr Abe V Rotor

 

Senior Rotarians from the US pose at the botanical garden with author and family.

Golden years well spent in travels abroad,

for these kindly guests in their senior years,

thousands of miles from home and country;

for us here, welcome in a thousand cheers.

Life opens at fifty, many people start anew;

retirement to Webster a re-definition indeed,

old and new generations in a single thread;

longevity's essence to our Creator we bid.

Peace a runabout of place and time, a cycle

interconnecting the famous French trilogy:

Liberte', Egalite', Fraternite' - as basic law

of universal unity, cooperation and harmony.

Trends "to see the world in a grain of sand,"

and a heaven in a wild flower," so Blake says,

ride on technology today, yet wanting still

of in situ experience, true sense and praise.

Home across boundaries of bond and race,

evasive yet eternal may be our yearning

to fill the missing link of a global community

with the seed you've sown in your coming.

Senior couple balikbayan with author's wife at the home art gallery

Schools of art, past and present, old a new;

in harmony to us natural artists in our view;

Lascaux to Sistine, Van Gogh to Amorsolo,

we simply feel blessed for we are a part, too.

Guest poses with childhood memorabilia

at the home museum.

A thing of beauty is a boy forever, sages say;

     live life truly with childhood forever;

like good wine aged to its fullest to the day

     it's offered as toast in joy and prayer. ~

5 Shrines in the Garden Living with Nature Center

5 Shrines in the Garden

Living with Nature Center

San Vicente Ilocos Sur 

 Heritage Zone of the North (RA 11645)

Dr Abe V Rotor

1 - Rizal in Exile Shrine at the Living with Nature Center

 

 

The restored icon is now enshrined at the San Vicente Botanical Garden

 (Living with Nature Center) San Vicente, Ilocos Sur. 

 

Bust of Philippine national hero Dr Jose P Rizal gets a thorough cleaning from the author. The icon is a masterpiece of the late Francisco "Boy" Peralta, a local sculptor of San Vicente. 

Rizal was exiled to the remote town of Dapitan in Mindanao. Throughout his 4-year exile, Rizal practiced ophthalmology and general medicine at no charge to the townspeople. He became a farmer and proved that farming is a good profession. He demonstrated it on an abandoned farm he bought in Talisay, a barrio near Dapitan. This farm had an area of sixteen hectares and was rather rocky. 

Not only as a doctor and farmer he pursued scientific studies, continued his artistic and literary works, widened his knowledge of languages and established a school for boys.  

2 - Emilio Aguinaldo Shrine 

A broken icon found refuge in a garden

One sunset a broken bust glows alive

     Under the trees in my garden;

Smashed on the chin and across the face, 

     This figure is sadly spoken.

If heroes were immortals by their deeds,

     Mount Olympus won’t be forgotten;

Legends live in the hands of the artist,

     Even those who’ve sought in vain.

Concrete bust probably that of General Emilio Aguinaldo, president of the First Republic of the Philippines, who fought the Americans after nearly four centuries of Spanish colonization of the islands, but lost. The country became Commonwealth of the Philippines for 50 years under the US. The bust was discovered and acquired by the author in a lumberyard in San Vicente, Ilocos Sur in 2018.  The sculptor  remains unknown to this day. 

 

Restored bust image of General Emilio Aguinaldo 

by local sculptor Bhoy Adora 
 
Emilio Aguinaldo fought for a free and independent Philippines, first against Spain and then against the United States. When the Philippines declared itself an independent republic in 1898 and Aguinaldo became its president, a significant milestone was reached in the struggle against colonial rule in Asia.

3 - Apo Baket' 

Keeper of Time-Honored Tradition and Values 

"She sits calmly in a garden,

full of thoughts and memories, 

while our troubled world grinds; 

would you like to hear her stories?"

                     - AV Rotor

 

Views and details of the concrete icon with local artist Bhoy Adora at work 2021.

The icon, symbol of the old folk generation, keeper of time-honored tradition and values, was made by the late Francisco Boy Peralta in the seventies, and restored recently by Bhoy Adora.  Both sculptors are natives of San Vicente, Ilocos Sur.  The icon can be viewed at the Living with Nature Center, San Vicente Ilocos Sur.

 

Apo Baket' Shrine

Holder of time-honored tradition and values passed on

from generation to generation.

4 - The Unknown Nanny in the Garden

A Tribute to Ignacia Repulleza (1900-1984) et al

   

Concrete icon of The Unknown Nanny, counterpart of The Unknown Soldier in honor of the unknown hero in the battlefield. For all we know, the role of the nanny carries a great responsibility of taking care of children, particularly those orphaned or abandoned for whatever circumstances, for which nannies are regarded guardians to these unfortunate children. 

This icon stands in the San Vicente Botanical Garden, a tribute to Basang Asiang (Ignacia Repulleza), nanny of the author, then an infant when his mother died at the outbreak of the Second World War.  Basang Asiang also served as nanny to two siblings of the author, and stayed as member of the household until she died at the age of 84. 

The word Basang (Ilk) is a respectable title befitting a new kind of hero or martyr in our troubled society today.  The icon is an interpretation by the late Francisco "Boy" Peralta a local sculptor of San Vicente Ilocos Sur. His other works are the bust of our national hero, Jose Rizal, life-size Apo Baket (an old woman regarded as keeper of time-honored tradition), and The Apparition of the Blessed  Mother before the child Bernadette at Lourdes.  The three masterpieces of the local artist grace the garden, a tourist attraction and landmark of the historical town.  

5 - Apparition of Mary before Bernadette at Lourdes

  

Our Lady appeared to 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous in Lourdes, France, 18 times from February through July, 1858. During the apparitions she told Bernadette to dig a hole which later in the day produced a stream of water, bringing about thousands of spiritual and physical cures even to this day. Replica of the grotto dedicated to the 1917 Marian Apparition that took place in Fatima, Portugal, in loving memory of the author's sister, Sr Venie V Rotor, ofs. ~

Emptiness at Sundown - a Challenge

                         Emptiness at Sundown - a Challenge

"Wonder how Rodin created from bare rock The Great Thinker." avr

Dr Abe V Rotor

Sunset, Lemery Batangas, Photo by the author, 2018

      How can I be romantic when the world is sad and lonely, 

      the sea in its ebb, the air still, save a passing breeze?

How can I love the classics, the timelessness of their beauty,  
the deafening silence, neither music nor of peace? 

How can I appreciate humanities, man's creativity,
peep into the biblical Garden of his birth?
How can I amend my evil ways, rise from human frailty
with the dying sun, soon to abandon the earth?

I am lesser than those who instead found opportunity
to explore the deep source where love and hope never cease. 
Monet taming a fiery sunset into a lovely beauty,
and on wasteland Wangari planted a million trees.  

I wonder how Rodin created from bare rock The Great Thinker;
Fleming by serendipity found from a moldy culture -
the life-saving Penicillin, a most potent drug ever,
while Thoreau alone wrote a treaty of man and nature.  

Crowning glory, masterpieces were not at all born in bed,
so with man faced with the impossible to solve,
when a tree stands alone leafless, the sea in ebb;   
and I, I wait for darkness envelop my world. ~  

Light trapping of insects is effective and practical.

 Light trapping of insects is effective and practical.

Dr Abe V Rotor

Green Tree Frog stalks potential prey, sulfur butterfly (above).

At the onset of the rainy season old folks trap winged termites (gamugamu or simutsimot) with a torch or a Coleman lamp placed at the center of a basin of water. The swarm may come early or late at night. In the morning the trapped insects are gathered and cooked into a delicacy. Fowls, house lizards, frogs and toads have their fill during the swarming period. The main species of termites that compose local swarms are Macrotermes gilvus and Heterotermes philippinensis, which build anthills (punso) in the field. The dry wood termites are smaller and darker in color.

IRRI recommends light trapping techniques under the Integrated Pest Management (IPM) program against insects attacking the rice plant.

• Army worms (Spodoptera mauritia, S. litura) and cutworm (Mythimna separata) moths, both are highly attracted to light traps, especially during a new moon.

• Rice gall midge adults (Orseolia oryzae) are also attracted to light traps, but their numbers are highest during the full moon. So with plant hoppers (Delphacidae) and leafhoppers (Cicadellidae and Meenoplidae).

• Other insect pests attracted by light are the adult moth of the green hairy caterpillar (Rivula atimeta), green semilooper moth (Naranga aenescens), rice caseworm (Nymphula depunctalis), and rice bug (Leptocorisa acuta).

• Mole cricket (Gryllotalpha orientalis), June beetle (Leucopholis irrorata), both are also delicacies in many parts of Asia and Africa are also attracted by light.

The idea of light trapping is to capture the adult insects, especially the gravid female about to lay hundreds of eggs that hatch and cause widespread infestation. It eliminates the hazards of using pesticides so that the edible insects may serve to augment nutrition in the countryside. ~

Living with Folk Wisdom, AVRotor -UST Manila

LIVING WITH NATURE Book Series

LIVING WITH NATURE Book Series

By Dr Abe V Rotor

Award-winning books (Gintong Aklat and National Book Awards)

published by UST Publishing House Manila