My mother had natural, spontaneous abortions twice before I was conceived. It had been a period of 11 years since they were married in 1931, and they still could not have a baby. So, my parents prayed to the Virgin of Lourdes about having a child.

I was born on February 11, 1942 the same date Marie Bernarde Soubirous (Bernadeta Sobirós in Occitane, the language spoken in that region at that time) claimed to see the Virgin Mary for the first time and at 5:00 pm which was the same time Bernadette (nick name) saw the virgin at the the grotto of Massabielle.

Of course my parents and my family saw a major significance and not a coincidence in the date and time of my birth.

When I received my first communion, my mother patiently sewed a dress, a veil and a blue sash, and then made a marvelous and delicate tatting around the veil. My dress was completely different from every other first communion dress.

For many years, I accompanied my mother to the Grotto of Lourdes in Santiago. This was a small copy of the place in Lourdes, France.

When the opportunity came in 1988 for me to give a lecture at a Conference in Scotland, I decided to invite my parents to travel with me, attend the conference and then continue on a trip in Europe, visiting all the countries of our ancestors.

In Edinburg, Scotland, we visited the castle where my mother went up the stairs saying, “Only for you, Grandmother, I’m doing this”. It was so cold in Scotland that we had to have many stops at the pubs to recover some warmth. We also went to the region where the ancestors of my great grandmother were from, and we got some wool items with the color of the clan. I still have a scarf, I think.

Then we continued to London by train, and visited all the points of interest including the Tower of London and the Crown Jewels, of course. Then to Soho, Nelson’s monument, St Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Abbey; we waited for Big Ben to mark noon; we walked on the London Bridge; and spend hours at the British Museum. We bought a tea towel and had tea and crumpets at Harrods.

Then to cross to the continent, we went to Dover where we visited the Roman Painted House. We disembarked in Ostend in Belgium and took the train to Bruges, Ghent and Brussels where we were delighted to finally put a real place to the stories of my grandfather, the father of my mother, born in Ghent, Belgium.

From Belgium, we continued to Paris where we spent some days visiting the Louvres Museum and other famous museums and visited with my cousin who lived in Le Pecq, North West from Paris. She took us to the market at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, where we enjoyed buying cheese and baguettes and some French delicatessen. We also visited the places where Alexander Dumas, born in Sainte Domingue (now Haiti), wrote some of his books at Saint Germain. Mother’s favorite Dumas book was “La Dame aux Camélia” (The Lady of the Camellias). I liked better “The Three Musketeers” and “The Count of Monte Cristo”, and “Twenty Years After”.

Then we continued by train to Switzerland where a good friend from my childhood lived. She invited us to stay at the Hotel Du Rhone, managed by her father-in-law. Hotel Du Rhone was inaugurated in 1950 and was the most luxurious hotel in Genève. It was unique in offering en-suite bathrooms in every room. We thoroughly enjoyed the luxury of the hotel and the hospitality of our friend.

From Genève, we went back to France, taking a train to Lyon. From Lyon we continued by train to Lourdes in the Pyrenees. At that time, the time by train from Genève to Lyon and from there to Lourdes was about 16 hours. We arrived at Lourdes around 3:00 p.m., and we went straight to bed at our modest hotel which was only two or three blocks from the Sanctuaries of Notre-Dame de Lourdes.

Since the apparition of the virgin to Bernadette, several sanctuaries had been built in the place to accommodate the pilgrimage of sick people, mainly paralytics, hoping to receive healing through drinking or bathing in the miraculous water. Following Bernadette’s footprints at the command of the virgin to “go drink at the spring”, a water walk is provided for the pilgrims, opposite the Grotto, on the other side of the River Gave. There is a series of stations and a small Lourdes water well.

The first sanctuary to be built was the Crypt, which is below the Basilica of the Immaculate conception. Construction started in September 13, 1863, and was consecrated in May 1866, by the Bishop of Tarbes. Bernadette was present for the completion. The second sanctuary to be built was the Upper Basilica of the Immaculate Conception. It rises above the one of the Rosary and the Crypt. Construction began in 1866 and was completed and open for worship in 1871.

The third sanctuary to be built was the Rosary Basilica. Our Lady of the Rosary was successfully concluded thirty years after the Apparitions 1883 to 1889. The interior of the Rosary Basilica is impressive with a mosaic of the immaculate conception and mosaics depicting the fifteen Mysteries of the Rosary.

The fourth and fifth sanctuaries to be built were the Basilica of Saint Pius X and the Church of Saint Bernadette. The Basilica of Saint Pius X is underground and colossal, the shape resembles an overturned boat. When we went in 1988, the Church of Saint Bernadette was not built yet.

The heart of the sanctuary is the Grotto of the Massabielle. Pilgrims from all over the world come to Lourdes to pray and be healed at the spot where Mary appeared to Bernadette Soubirious.

After a good night sleep, next day in the morning we had a light breakfast at the hotel, and we started our walk to the sanctuaries. It was spring, and the day was sunny at a temperature of 56 F. At the registration in the hotel, they had assured us that we did not have to worry about rain because in March/April Lourdes had no more than 7 to 9 days of rain. Once at the Sanctuary, we first went to the grotto because my mother was eager to see the place. The place was packed with people seated in the pews in front of the grotto and many people in line, mainly handicapped or sick people in stretchers and crutches. My mother was discouraged because there was no way to get near the image of the virgin at the grotto.

So we decided to go see the sanctuaries and planned to returned to the grotto later, hoping for fewer people to be there so we could get near the image.

We returned to the grotto about two hours later. We encountered people leaving the place in a hurry because, surprise, it had just started snowing! In spite of what they had told us at the hotel, we had brought with us plastic ponchos. So we put them on, and we found ourselves being totally alone at the Grotto of Lourdes. My mother and father proclaimed that a miracle had happened, and we were able to not only sit in the closest pew in front of the grotto but also to approach the image and say our prayers without any interruption or noise around us.

When we arrived back at the hotel, out of the blue, the lady at the registration said to my mother in French, ” Vous avez obtenu votre miracle, n’est-ce pas? ” (You obtained your miracle, didn’t you?) She proceeded to tell us that it has never snowed at that time of the year as far as she could remember.

After the Lourdes visit, we went to Pau to find out about the origins of my father’s family. According to the records at the Hotel de Ville, there were four families in Pau, two with the last name ‘Beltrán’ and two with the last name ‘Bertrand’.

Henry IV of France was born at the Chateau de Pau in 1553. The castle was build in the Middle Ages. Later Louis-Philippe restored the castle. My grandfather always told us that one of his great grandfathers was the guardian of the castle at the time Henry IV was born. He said that Henry IV had a tortoise shell as a cradle and when we visited the chateau, the cradle was still there. However, we never could clarify which of the four families were the ancestors of my father–the Beltran or the Bertrand.

The person in charge of the records said that some Beltran or Bertrand families had left France for South America because they were persecuted Huguenots. He also thought that the last name was probably Sephardi, of Ladino (Jewish-Spanish language) origin, and no matter what the spelling was, our ancestors, he said, had probably lived in Bigorre when the region, after being an independent country, went through different dominions including Edward III of England. Bigorre was recaptured around 1370 by France and the King Charles VII of France gave it to the Count of Foix and then, by inheritance, to Henry III of Navarre of the House of Bourbon, who became Henry IV of France. Bigorre remained quite independent until it was joined to the department of Hautes-Pyrénées in 1790. Interestingly enough not far from Pau is the village of Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges which is in the route to Santiago de Compostela, has ancient Roman ruins, and it is considered one of the most beautiful medieval towns in France. Persecuted by the Spanish Inquisition the Sephardim were expelled from Spain in 1492, the same year that Colon sailed to America.

A little disappointed with the lack of more concrete information about our last name, we went back to Paris and returned to the USA. My mother was full of gratitude and thanked God for the weather miracle that allowed her to thank the Virgin of Lourdes for me.