CHAMORRO DENTIST

 

Francisco Martínez Santos, the son of Juan Borja Santos and Josefa Concepción Martínez was born in 1900.

Sometime during World War I (1917-1918 for the US), Santos started working for an American Navy dentist, Dr William S Thompson. In the 1920 Guam Census, Santos is described as being a dentist. In the record, the first entry states "App Dentist," the "App" probably meaning "apprentice." But then someone crossed out the "App," leaving "Dentist" by itself.

So impressed was Dr Thompson with Santos that when Thompson returned to the US in 1920, he brought Santos over in 1924 to continue learning dentistry under his tutelage at his dental clinic in Newman, California, not far from Modesto.

Santos returned to Guam and continued working as a dentist out of his home in Aniguak. After the war, when Hagåtña was destroyed and people moved elsewhere, Santos lived in Sinajaña, and practiced out of his home, where the photo at the top was taken

Long before the war he married the former Josephine Untalan Day and had one daughter, Juanita, who married David Ulloa. The little girl in the photo at the top has to be Juanita, as she was their only child and was born in 1938, making her around 7 years old in 1945 after the war, as the girl in the picture seems to be.

For weeks the Americans bombed and strafed Guam before they landed ashore. Many Chamorros were injured, and some died, as a result. Josephine's mother Juana was one of them, getting hit in the legs from American bullets. Santos used his dental tools to take out the bullets from her injured leg.

WILLIAM S. THOMPSON

who trained Santos in dentistry

Like many Chamorro professionals and businessmen, Santos never refused to help a person in need of his services, even if they couldn't pay immediately.

According to the family, he was a jovial man who loved to play solitaire. When Juanita was being courted by her future husband David, the two would sit in the house chatting on the couch while Santos sat off to the side at a table by himself playing solitaire. That was "dating" in the strict days of the past.

When Urban Renewal got going in Sinajaña and new streets were laid out, many lots were lost to residents, to be given new lots in exchange. Even though Santos was given another lot in Sinajaña when his original one, where his house stood, was to be taken over by Urban Renewal, Santos moved his residence and dental practice to Tamuning. He passed away in 1970. U såga gi minahgong. Rest in peace.

FRANCISCO AND WIFE JOSEPHINE

Courtesy of Ed Ulloa