My Memoirs - Citizen of the World

Roque. During that whole time, there was no communication
between my maternal grandmother and my mother.
My Childhood
Nine months after my parents
married, I was born in house No. 20
in Praia dos Santos (Beach of the
Saints) at the edge of town, a few
houses from where the famous
Pedro Pauleta, the international
soccer celebrity was born in 1973.
In later years, whenever my sisters
and I talked to my mother about her
kidnapping adventure, she always
remarked, very angrily and
defensively, “I was never alone with
your father. It’s not like today. Nor
did I have any sexual relations with
him before marriage. I always slept in the same bed with your
grandmother. This is the reason why you were born nine months
after we were married, on March 26 th , 1935.” So the story must
have been true!
I was baptized in the same church and town as my father and was
given the full name of Frederico Manuel da Ponte Pacheco. My
father was so upset with my maternal grandmother that he did not
include my mother’s maiden name, Moniz, in my name, which was
customary at the time. He used his two last names Ponte Pacheco
instead.
About a year after my birth, the family moved to the Parish of São
Pedro in Ponta Delgada, where my sister, Manuela, was born on
December 28, 1937, in a house across the street from a cheese
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