From Madrid to Heaven

By William Elihu Palmer

This I can say to you, Dear Reader, is a story of love and marriage beyond the wonders that make of life a grand and incomprehensible mystery. Explain if you can, how a young, innocent Catholic girl in Madrid would become the wife of a naive, Protestant American traveler stopping-over in Madrid en route to Tehran, Iran. Explain if you can, how the Bishop of Madrid would condescend to grant a special dispensation for the first mixed Protestant-Catholic wedding to be held in a Catholic Church in Francos Spain in 1960. These matters can only be attributed to fate, chance, or the intervention of the Divine Hand.
Nevertheless, those days and that adventure were as pure and fresh and exciting as only a youthful romantic can imagine. Those days I would like to hold on to. Those days I would like to tuck away in this book so that I can say: Look at our days, Dear
Reader, days so bright and beautiful that I have kept to show to you so that you can see that we too loved life and treasured the moments that made up our days."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 9, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477150207

William Elihu Palmer

William Elihu Palmer grew up on a farm on the Eastern Shore of Maryland during the Great Depression. He enlisted in the Army at the age of 17 and served n Occupied Japan and fought in the Korean War. He married Angeles Palmer in Madrid, Spain in 1960. They have four children. He spent his career as an educator, teaching at universities in the USA and abroad, including Ohio University, the University of Salamanca, Spain, and at Salisbury University in Maryland. He and Angeles moved to Coronado, California in 2017.

Book preview

FROM MADRID

to

HEAVEN

Fate, Chance, or the Divine Hand

Begets the First Protestant-Catholic

Marriage in Franco’s Catholic Spain

WILLIAM ELIHU PALMER

Copyright © 2012 by William Elihu Palmer.

ISBN:          Softcover                                 978-1-4771-5019-1

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4771-5020-7

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Contents

PART I LOVE CONQUERS ALL

1. Prologue

2. Madrid, Spain August 1959

3. El Hotel Nacional

4. The First Day in Madrid

5. Cupid’s Arrow

6. The First Date

7. The Bullfight

8. Days and Daze

9. A Fateful Encounter

10. A Whim and a Whimper

11. On to the East

12. A Proposal of Marriage

13. Manuela Garcia Barcia: My Future Mother-in-Law

14. The Bishop of Madrid

15. Wedding Day: July 9,1960

16. The Wedding Announcement

17. The Honeymoon

18. The Four Children

Miguel: The First Born

Juliet: The First Girl

Martha: The Second Girl

Laura: The Third Girl

19. Lost Childhood

20. On Graduating from St. Andrew’s

21. To My Daughters at The Age of 22

22. To Angeles on her 50th Birthday

23. From Madrid to Heaven

PART II DE MADRID AL CIELO

24. El Claroscuro de la Vida en Madrid

25. España Pobre

26. El Madrid de Entonces

27. Aventura en Espana

28. Una Tarde a los Toros

29. Versos entre Amigos

30. Sobre la Muerte de Manuela Garcia Barcia: La Abuela

PART III SELECTED LETTERS

31. Letters to Joe Banks

32. Letter on the Death of my Father

33. Letters from William to Angeles

34. Letters from my Mother

35. Secrets of the Heart: Love Letters

36.Final Word

PART I

LOVE CONQUERS ALL

Prologue

The mysteries of life abound and it is a joy to reflect upon them. So sweet is the harmony of all things when the sun shines down on a field of flowers, and the bees and the hummingbirds toil at their summer tasks. In winter it is a wonder to behold that in the great stream of blackbirds that darken the sky, there is for each of them a nest, and for each one that flies in that swarm there is a mate. It is a marvel, indeed, that for each one of the millions who dwell in the world there is a mate to match. And wondrous are the mysteries that bring the two of them together to grow and multiply.

It is indeed a mystery that only Cupid, with his bow and quiver of arrows, knows when to pierce the heart with love. Only Cupid, the great matchmaker, understands the mysteries leading to romance and love.

Madrid, Spain

August 1959

How was I to know what awaited me as the bus to Madrid bumped along the parched fields toward the tall buildings in the distance? Little did I know what lay at the end of the dusty road as I bounced up and down on the hard seat at the front of the bus. How young and uncouth was I as I sat gazing through the open window—a duffel bag and a suitcase tied up with rope beside me. How far from home was I as I breathed the dry, hot air of Castilla and watched a shepherd and his dog chase sheep across the road and along a stone fence up ahead. How alone I felt as my thoughts raced back to the noisy streets of Paris, the long afternoon with my friends at the Cafe Deux Magots, the stroll through Montmartre, the night at Folies Bergeres, the Marcel Marceau mime show at the theater on the Left Bank—and the most memorable moment of all: spotting the actress Lauren Bacall standing atop the Eiffel Tower looking out over Paris. I took from my pocket the photograph I had taken of that moment: Lauren Bacall standing at the rail with two children looking out at Les Invalides and all Paris—all of shining Paris in the sun beyond.

As the bus entered the hot, deserted streets of Madrid, I yearned to be back in Paris. Perhaps I should have stayed in Paris and flown directly to Nice and Monaco—instead of taking this side-trip to Madrid. After all, with a first-class airline ticket from New York to Tehran, I had chosen my own itinerary. My Fulbright grant to Iran provided many choices. At that moment, little did I know that Madrid was soon to capture my heart forever. Little did I know that Paris would fade from my thoughts like a wilted rose and Madrid would become forevermore the heartland of my dreams. As I looked out the window at the withering trees and dusty patios along the street leading into the city, little did I know that the outdoor cafe, the one on the knoll beside the Museum of National History with tables and chairs under two drooping trees—that cafe would be the scene of intimate whisperings in broken Spanish under the high moon of an August night. Little did I know that the fountain in the Plaza de Cibeles in front of the main post office would become the meeting place to stroll arm-in-arm along the Paseo del Prado and would become the departure point for a Sunday date to the bullfight. Little did I know that the airline bus terminal in front of the Fountain of Neptune would be the scene of joyful arrivals and tearful departures.

I was caught up in thoughts of meeting my friends on the beaches at Nice and at the casino of Monte Carlo, when the man across the aisle, an American wearing a Hawaiian shirt and cowboy boots, asked: This your first trip to Madrid?

Yes, I said. I’ve been in London and Paris, but first time in Madrid. Where are you staying? he asked. I lived here for three years and if you need a place to stay, you can’t find anything better or cheaper than the Hotel Nacional. That’s where I’m staying.

The man was Joe Banks, a civilian working as an engineer for the U.S. Army in Korea. He was returning to Spain for vacation. He knew Madrid well and spoke Spanish too. It was Joe Banks who would buy the tickets to the bullfight where I would meet my future wife. It was Joe Banks who would insist that I, a young teacher on a Fulbright grant to Iran and a total stranger to Madrid—that I must find a companion to go to the bullfight. It was Joe Banks who would give me a dictionary to find my way through the thicket of an adventure in a great city and a love affair with a slender, pale, fragile senorita still wearing black and mourning the death of her father on these August days and clear August nights in Madrid.

How was I to know as we bumped along on the hard seats of the bus on the dusty road into Madrid that the senorita at the switchboard of the Hotel Nacional was to share the rest of my life? How was I to know that Madrid I was soon to become forever the focus of my life?

El Hotel Nacional

From the airport bus terminal, Joe Banks and I took a taxi to the hotel. The Hotel Nacional was a big hotel for its day and time. Standing twelve stories high and overlooking the fountain in the Plaza de Atocha and the great railway station beyond, it had the look of a magnificent ocean liner on the high seas. It was down the street from both the Palace Hotel and the Ritz Hotel and though it was lower in category, it was as the Spaniards say—more castizo, that is, more noble and more typically Spanish. Like most things Spanish, it had a flair and character which made it more dramatic than the Palace and the Ritz—which were more European in style.

The Hotel Nacional had a sweeping, curving marble staircase leading from the hall and the rooms on the floor above to the spacious lobby below. The staircase was a perfect showcase for the fashionable aristocrats and Spanish grandees who gathered there during the reign of Alfonso XII and Alfonso XIII. Just off the lobby and facing the great fountain on the Plaza de Atocha was the Hotel Nacional Bar and Cafe. It was all done in marble with great squares of black and white marble on the floors and white-veined marble on the countertops. The bar was a noisy place: the waiters in white jackets called out for coffee and sherry, the tobacco girl chatted with the smokers at the bar, the boot-black snapped his shine cloth, the blind lottery vendor shouted out his numbers and the countermen rushed about making glasses of espresso coffee from the huge coffee machines, drawing beer from the gleaming vats along the bar, and shouting out the tab to the lady at the cash register. The lady at the cash register sat on a stool perched high above the bar. She had a view from the crow’s nest of all of the comings and leavings and a sharp eye for the serving and collecting. The cash register was a massive and magnificent machine—with bold round keys for