A long trip for two days.

Still, it was a chance to visit granddaughter Adela at college. College! Where the years went is still a mystery, but there she is... a freshman at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, Rhode Island.

She left in late August, but hubby and I were quick to lay plans to go up to New England to see her campus, hear about her courses and judge for ourselves how happy being there is making her.

We were joined in the trip by daughter Terri and our grandson Nate. We found a confident, happy young woman, preparing for a career in the hospitality industry, studying interesting things like public speaking, technology and intro to hospitality, where she is just scratching the surface of the field she hopes will allow her to travel and see as much of the world as she wishes.

While in Providence, though, I asked for only one thing (besides finding Adela happy). I wished to find and visit the grave of my father's brother John... the Rev. John Camillus Rubba, O.P., who graduated from Providence College from 1923 to 1925. In 1925 he entered the novitiate of St. Joseph’s Province at St. Rose Priory, Springfield, KY, was ordained at St. Dominic’s Church in Washington, DC. and pursued advance studies leading to the degree of doctor of  literature, which he earned in 1938.

That same year, he began his teaching career at Providence College. He was to go on for the next 60 years, teaching Italian and Spanish  to generations of students. He was a noted writer who authored booklets about the lives of the saints. He filled his life doing the kind of work St. Dominic envisioned: advocating for Cuban, Spanish, and Laotian refugee causes, working to assist in the rehabilitation of alcoholics and derelicts and gaining a reputation as an excellent gardener. He died on 2003 at the age of 96, with many who knew him well considering his life a saintly one.

Uncle John was a quiet, modest man who went about his daily ministry without fanfare or glory. I remember him as a steadfast supporter and counselor to my mother as she struggled with the Church's teachings about marriage after divorce. To this day, I don't know how he advised her, but she was able to find happiness with my stepdad in spite of losing her ability to receive Communion. I hope whatever he said gave her the courage to move on with her life.

Last time I spent any time with Uncle John was in the very early sixties. I had come home from college for a weekend and he was visiting his family in Hammonton. He managed to get to Egg Harbor for a few hours with my mother and me, and I ended up driving him to 30th Street Station in Philly for his return trip to Providence. We must have had a long conversation and I remember getting out of the car at the station to hug him goodbye. What we discussed has been consigned to memory, lost somewhere in the fog of age. But I know I admired him, even without knowing the impact he was having on those he taught and those whose lives were changed for the better because of him.

It took a bit of walking around the campus to finally locate the Dominican Cemetery where Fr. John is interred with other members of the clergy who taught at Providence College. The graves are all alike, differing only in the names inscribed on them. His is approximately in the middle of a long row, backed up to the fence surrounding that small cemetery almost incongruously now surrounded by the busy new college buildings with students scurrying around it, oblivious to the histories of the men who are buried there. Still, I had long wanted to see that place and in a matter of minutes I had done so. I hope he knew I was there.

Visiting two dear people in one day! Adela in the early afternoon, Uncle John later. Not bad for less than 24 hours.