Filipino native’s family
unharmed by devastating typhoon
“The relief was overwhelming,” said Iolan Helen Westerman, when she learned Saturday that her sister, Maylin, brother-in-law and father were safe after a typhoon struck a devastating blow against the Philippines. HELEN, 53, has lived in the United States since 1980, coming here with her first husband, whom she met while working as a housekeeper at Clark Air Force Base, about 60 miles north of Manila. HELEN RECALLS what it was like to grow up “very, very poor in what they call squatters’ land.”
She has three other sisters, two in Manila and one on the west side of an island that took the brunt of the once-in-a-lifetime storm. Helen knows the two in Manila are fine and has reason to think the fourth is as well.
“I told Maylin if I didn’t hear from her, I’d know my other sibling was OK,” she said.
Calls between the Philippines and the United States are expensive, which limits their frequency, even under such trying circumstances.
Sister Maylin and family live in the community of Bacolod, in what Helen described as a shack on stilts near the ocean. That’s where she grew up.
“Maylin called Friday, before the storm hit, to tell me they were in a shelter in a concrete rice warehouse, stacked in like sardines” Helen said.
Severe weather frequently strikes the Philippines and no one ignores orders to seek refuge in shelters when the alarm comes.
Maylin called again Saturday to let Helen know they survived the storm without injury, although her brother-in-law, who was electrocuted a week before the storm hit in a home accident, is fighting infection.
Maylin also told Helen they were without food or water at the shelter and wouldn’t be returning to their home soon. It was flooded by ocean surges and Maylin was confident all they had was lost.
“I wired some money Saturday so Maylin could buy food,” Helen said. “I told her to cook what she could and share it with her neighbors and friends.”
“I’ve been back home twice since then,” she added, once when her mother was gravely ill with cancer in 1998, and again three years ago, after being laid off when Haldex Brake closed.
The day after she returned to Iola in 1998, her mother died.
The last journey to the Philippines Helen took along money she earned from her separation from Haldex and from volunteering to work in Mexico when the company moved operations there. She used the money to help fix up her family’s home.
“My father is suffering from dementia and I bought him a bed with a thin mattress,” Helen said, noting that prior to that all slept each night on the floor.
“They asked if I was going to a motel,” she said, but stayed at home and joined Maylin and her brother-in-law sleeping on the floor. “That’s how I grew up. I don’t mind.”
While all was lost to the storm surges, Helen said “all” wasn’t much.
“They had a TV, but never have had any other appliances,” she said. “It’s a simple life there. My family is happy if they have food and water.”
Their small home is government-owned. They have few of the social or economic worries that trouble many Americans, other than finding enough money for sustenance.
The family’s only income is from Helen’s brother-in-law driving a bicycle-drawn taxi. Maylin cares for their father.
“They don’t have nursing homes,” Helen said. “Families take care of their elders.”
But, “they’re happy,” she said. “I’m happy when I’m there. There isn’t any of the stress that we have here.”
Helen and husband Dean have helped her family for years, sending money when they could.
“My family always has been my priority,” she said.
The Philippines is a “pretty country, but very poor,” she said. “There are few jobs,” and those who find work aren’t paid much.
Helen walked barefoot three miles to school and often had trouble concentrating on her studies because she was hungry.
“Sometimes on the way home I’d stop by the market and go through the trash,” he said. “I’d try to find a piece of fruit, even it had a little rotten part.”
By the time she was 9 or 10, when most little girls are occupied with dolls and electronic gadgets, Helen was washing clothes “for rich people” — by hand. She also cleaned fish at a plant. At age 15 she moved to the main Philippine island to work as a housekeeper and nanny at Clark AFB.
Money earned was given to her parents for food.
“That was a good feeling for me, helping my family to buy food,” Helen said, allowing a person never becomes accustomed to “going to bed hungry.”
On arrival in the U.S. she first lived in Wichita, and then moved to Iola with her first husband, who was from the area. She worked at TG&Y and Miller and Sons before spending 25 years at Haldex Brake. A year ago she returned to work at Gates Corporation, on the night shift.
Many Iolans know bits and pieces of Helen’s story, including that she is a native of the Philippines and still has family there.
“Wherever I go people ask me about my family,” she said, and many have stopped by the Westermans’ downtown business, Towne East Flea Market, 9 N. Jefferson Ave., to inquire.
“I’m OK most of the time, but sometimes I get a little choked up thinking about my family,” she said. “I sure wish I could go help them.”
