She remembers the time when the gates of Camp Susupe were opened and they found deserted houses used to be occupied by employees of the sugarcane factory.
“They are not broken. If there’s any damage, you can fix them,” says Tan Escolastica.
After staying in Camp Susupe for six months, the Chamorros and Carolinians were finally settling in their respective places in Chalan Kanoa.
When she was around 15 or 16, Tan Escolastica resolved not to go back to school; instead, she realized she needed to help earn a living for the family.
“I like to work and earn money for the family. My parents were old already,” she recalls.
She first worked as a seamstress for the wife of Commander Victor Schauss. Initially, she was taken to Matuis in a Quonset hut where the sewing machine was. It housed a gift shop, barber shop, and a studio.
“There’s only one machine there,” she says.
For two days, she found it unsettling surrounded by soldiers who would come and greet her “Hi senorita!”
Then, Mrs. Schauss, she says, decided to bring the sewing machine to their place. Tan Escolastica says, “It was very peaceful. I could sit there and just work.”
Not long after, the family was returning to the U.S. and they wanted to bring her with them.
“They came to ask my parents to take me but my mom said, ‘No can do, Mrs. [Schauss]. Boy — OK, ‘uhman’ [how my mom pronounced woman], no,” says Tan Escolastica.
So she didn’t leave yet she came under the employ of Commander Schauss’ replacement, Commander Smith who came to Saipan with neither wife nor family.
Commander Smith, she says, left her a note telling her if she finished early she could go home anytime. That was what she did when she would finish work early. She would board the one bus ferrying passengers from the area to Chalan Kanoa.
Smith’s successor, she says, offered to train her to become a beautician. There was a plan to open a beauty salon. At that time, a commissary had been opened.
“My salary was 35 cents a day — $8.50 a month. But if I take this job, I would still get this pay and earn more from tips,” she says.
But the plan didn’t materialize.
A neighbor of the commander’s family’s, a wife of a pilot offered if she was still interested to learn.
She took her to another military wife on Navy Hill and there she trained for seven months.
By the time their tour on Saipan ended, she says, she was asked if she could buy the salon’s equipment for $500.
She asked her father if he could get a loan at the Bank of America, the only bank at that time. At first they failed, but on their second attempt, they got the $500 she needed to open her own Escolastica Beauty Salon in Chalan Kanoa.
She recalls it was very popular. She did manicure for $1.50, hair wash and shampoo for $1.50, hair dye for $3 and perm or called “co-wave” for $10.
She kept this business for four years until 1953, two years after she got married to Gregorio Cabrera, a policeman.
Up to this day, she says, she still has in her keeping what remained of her salon.
Soon, she tried her luck selling dry goods. At that time, she says, her brother would send items from Guam. “Nobody was selling clothes at that time. I was the first one,” she says.
At first, she shared the business with her family. Later, she decided to apply for business license, pay $10 at the Municipal Office, and open her own store.
Not long after, her business acumen led her to starting her own bakery shop that also became successful.
An idea again struck her after that. When she noticed that no cafeteria could serve lunch and snacks to students of Mt. Carmel School and Hopwood School, she opened again another business. This time, it’s snack mobile.
She pioneered in the selling of lunch bento.
For 10 cents, she says, she would sell the “hot lunches” consisting of rice with a slice of Spam.
She also sold sandwiches, ice cream and donuts.
Tan Escolastica says she and her husband Tun Goru would wake up at 2 a.m. every day to prepare everything.
Soon, Mr. Brown of the airport got wind of snack mobile and asked them to also serve at the airport.
Tan Escolastica was also able to convince Mr.Brown to provide them a 6 x 6 square feet space and power line so they could serve hot coffee for a longer period of time to bystanders waiting for the plane to land.
During the years she served food at the schools and at the airport, Tan Escolastica says, “I never felt hungry, sleepy, or tired. I kept running and running.”
The only time she could get rest was in the afternoon, from 12 noon to 1 p.m.
For Tan Escolastica, they had to work hard to raise a family of 13 children.
Her children were also the reason she moved to Capital Hill in 1970 as she feared for their safety.
She remembers how her daughter would leap out of her crib and walked across the street to her grandmother’s house where she thought Tan Escolastica would be.
There was a time too when her son and two other boys went to the beach without her consent.
Fearing for her children’s safety, she decided it would be best for them to relocate to Capital Hill on a piece of land she bought in 1959.
She initially built a small store but she lost money and the store’s contents when Typhoon Jean hit the islands.
With help from friends who worked in the Trust Territory government, she was able to borrow money that defrayed the cost of building her store on Capital Hill.
It took two years to build and she opened it in 1972.
For 40 years, her store has attracted patrons from everywhere who would trek up Capital Hill for her apigigi, among other delicacies.
Now, 65 years since the day she started earning a living, she now gets to spend more time with family and she enjoys her retirement.
“I get to enjoy my sleep,” she says.
Although she still cooks occasionally, she says she’s not obligated to do so.
“If I want to sleep, I sleep,” she says.
Before, she would get up at 2 a.m. to cook, now she begins her day at 4 a.m. to go to church and pray.
“I pray a lot. I even pray for the whole world,” she says.
Aside from a having a good education, Tan Escolastica tells the young to be self-reliant and learn to live simply.
“Avoid wasting [resources],” she says.
She tells Variety how her father would often remind them to save and keep things they do not need today but they may need tomorrow.
“Everything is so easy today. Now they have machines. During my time, we use our bare hands.”
She also says, “Do not be lazy. Work hard.”
She laments how dependence on America has made the people lazy.
She, however, advises the young generation to learn from the manamko’, how they survived during the hard times.
And times are hard these days.
From someone who has seen the war, how her sisters drank their own tears to slake their thirst, how she saw roads littered with bodies, how they shared space in Camp Susupe, the young have so much to learn.
In the last 40 years she handled her business on Capital Hill, Tan Escolastica slept less as she spent her waking hours working and working hard.
At 81, one of the CNMI’s pioneers in the field of business is a testament to hard work pays huge dividends.
