Customers who come out from the bakery cradle a loaf or two of unsliced bread as though it is a precious commodity.
“Herman’s was the only bakery on island, bread slicers did not yet exist, and the bread is not wrapped. You carry it as it is,” recalls Escolastica Tudela Cabrera, daughter of Vicente Ramirez Tudela and Rita Diaz Borja.
I was not yet able to shoot my first question when she opened her mouth last Sunday, four days before she will be turning 80.
Without preliminaries, the floodgates of her memory were unlatched and we sat facing her on the table, transfixed as she brought us over 60 years back in time. Suddenly, we were not there at the crowded kitchen table in her house on Capital Hill anymore. Gone were the glass cabinets filled with kitchenware and hundreds of photos and memorabilia from the times past. What we saw was Saipan after the World War 11 through her eyes.
Cabrera could talk, and I mean really talk that time flew so fast we were not aware we had been there for an hour already. Let’s take another trip down memory lane with her.
First beautician
If you think that Cabrera, known as one of the pioneers of the baking industry on island was born with a measuring cup and flour in her hands, you’re wrong. She was the first beautician on Saipan.
“I learned cold wave and beauty shop work from an American lady who was here, and that started everything,” Cabrera recalls.
She was 19 years old then, finding the strong force of the business adrenalin flowing in her young veins hard to resist. She borrowed $500 from her father and opened Escolastica’s Beauty Salon in Susupe, catering to the beauty needs of the people for the next two years. Her business acumen worked and she expanded within a short time, becoming the first store to sell clothes and shoes in the island.
“All the other small stores were selling mainly foodstuffs,” she said.
Two years later, she married Gregorio Camacho Cabrera who passed away in Nov. 2006. The couple then opened Escolastica’s Enterprises which housed a snack bar, general merchandise store, gas station and specialty bakery products.
Into the baking business
Cabrera said that one day in 1954, she woke up and decided to be a baker. She went to her mother to ask how bread is being made but before she went to her mother, her husband had already made ovens for her.
“My mom told me that I need flour, oil, baking powder, an oven and other ingredients. She did not tell me what to do,” Cabrera said.
She recalled going home without any instructions but proceeded to bake her first batch of bread and homemade pastries.
“I worked long and hard until I got the technique, and the rest is history,” she said.
The only equipment they had were ovens using wood and a tub for mixing but they hand to mix 50 pounds of flour by hand. They later bought a mixer which can accommodate 100 pounds of flour and that started to make things easier.
The couple worked together, baking up to 500 loaves of ‘Chamorro bread’ every day for the following years.
Cabrera and her husband started delivering ice cup, ice cream, bonillos, sandwiches, empanadas and other favorites to Mt. Carmel High School and Hopwood School.
“We were always so busy and there never was time to rest. I was always on the move, even when I was pregnant,” she said.
Cabrera established a small snack stall at the old airport in Koblerville where she sold food and home-baked pastries.
“My husband and I go to the airport at 2 o’clock in the morning to open the snack stall. We go home very late, bake bread, sleep a couple of hours and go back to the airport. We also deliver bread in San Roque and Tanapag so we were always on our feet,” she recalled.
“Whenever a flight was delayed, and flights were always delayed, the people who are waiting for arrivals and those who are departing will buy our food,” Cabrera said.
“During those times, when one individual leaves the island, a whole truck of family members and relatives will send the individual off to the airport and the delayed flights gave us plenty of sales,” she recalled.
Up to Capital Hill
In 1967, Cabrera finally got tired of living in the midst of things and decided to establish her own niche away from the crowd.
“My family got bigger and I had 13 children to think of. I got tired of waking up to the foul and salty smell coming from the sea, inhaling all the dust from the roads and worrying about my kids each time a truck transporting workers pass by,” she said.
They were lucky to buy a one and a half hectare property on Capital Hill at the place they are presently located, for $350.
“As soon as we moved up on Capital Hill, I put up a 10×20 palapala by the road side and started selling bread and other bakery products,” Cabrera said.
The move away from the center of activities did not hinder customers from finding them, and business went on as usual.
Esco’s Bake House, which was the new stall name, became a landmark on Capital Hill for the next decades. It closed operations for about a year and reopened in January last year under a new name, Tun Goru in honor of Cabrera’s husband.
Tun Goru is now the favorite stop for island favorites like apigigi, potu, bibingka, tamales giso and others de
Political achievements
Cabrera became the island’s first female member of the Saipan municipal council. She was also the first woman Grand Marshall in 1991 for Saipan’s Liberation Day celebration.
Cabrera held various leaderships in the civic organizations such as Chairwoman for the 1963 Liberation Day “Queen’s Committee,” vice president of the Micronesian Arts and Crafts Association, secretary/treasurer for the Saipan Farmer’s Market Association, vice president of the Elderly Advisory Council, member of the Saipan Chamber of Commerce, White House Conference on Aging, PTA committees of our Lady of Mt. Carmel School, member of the CNMI Energy Office, active member of the Kristo Rai Parish Council, member of the Vocational Education State Advisory Council and other organizations.
On July 26, 2001, then Saipan Mayor Jose C. Sablan awarded Cabrera a certificate of recognition for her outstanding services to the CNMI in both public and private sectors.
Eight decades
Cabrera said she couldn’t believe she is already 80 years old.
“Time flew fast, but I’m very glad to be still here,” she said.
Cabrera and her husband had 13 children — Linda, Isidoro, Daria, Millan, Oliva, Olinka, Noel, Anthony, Gloria, Rita, Eleonita, Eloy and Carmen.
“Only my husband is missing on my birthday and we missed him,” she said.
A party for friends and family was held in the Hibiscus Hall of Fiesta Resort & Hotel on Wednesday night for her 80th birthday.
Cabrera can easily pass off for 60. A paragon of a woman, she showed the world that achieving only a third grade education in school is not a hindrance to succeed in anything you do.
