Neruda, a family portrait 
By Bernardo Reyes (March 10, 2011)
On March 27, 1892, the newspaper temuquense "Equality", published in extenso
the "Minutes of the inaugural meeting of November 10, 1891" the municipality of the city.
One of the signatories was Don Carlos Mason, fourth councilor, elected democratically. He must have tried the second body building complex, as the city of Temuco had recently been founded as a fort in 1881 and the final assault of the Mapuche in the city was recorded in November 1883. That is, Mason must have reached Temuco next to the first group of settlers, before the first train made its entry New Year's triumph in 1893, attracting the attention of some five thousand people, more than half of the population.
biography to understand the early life of Pablo Neruda, is essential to understand clearly about these milestones founding, the daguerreotype of these secondary characters, hidden behind the myth, since the relationship of these early settlers, with the formation of the poet hanging, has a defining impact.
Just three years after the newspaper publication, in 1895, was born in Temuco, Rodolfo Reyes Candia, my grandfather, son of José del Carmen Reyes Morales and Doña Trinidad Candia Marverde, then a sister of Charles Mason, and cohabiting the same household.
With this data we can establish conclusively that Don José del Carmen, traveled to Temuco early invitation of his friend Charles Mason, to make sure it was true that in the south, after the military defeat inflicted on the Mapuche, were founding cities a better world, full of prosperity, announced by the horns and hubbub railway bells, which cleared out wild birds, both as individuals, Mapuche wounded in the soul and body after the military occupation.
course the birth of my grandfather meant a serious affront to the family of Charles Mason. He and Michelle Candia, and other family members, determined that the son of Trinidad should be raised, according to the custom of those years away from Temuco. The site chosen was the village of coypu in the river Toltén.
It is this environment that Neruda arrived in 1906, two years after his birth in Parral, after the death of his mother, Dona Rosa Opazo Basoalto Naphtali. And it's the same home, which can live up to his sister Laura Reyes Candia born in 1907, daughter of José del Carmen Reyes and Aurelia Tolrá. Binding of Trinidad
Marverde Candia and Don José del Carmen Reyes Morales, was surrounded by all conceivable emotional injury, including domestic violence, but although the transgression of the order had been a constant foundation, had the necessary cohesion to allow the child to give free rein to their creativity.
As if it were not confusing enough, there Rodolfo before other "natural child" of Trinidad and Rudecindo Ortega Candia, the latter, a young worker, a friend of Mason from the days when I lived in Parral. Ortega had been invited to be his close associate, at the time that Mason explored in various initiatives, ranging from a fledgling bakery to a mill, to a poor stock, which has since been called "The Key", and gradually evolved on his right arm, and his brother in law by accident.
's son - Orlando Mason Candia, adopted the surname of their adoptive parents, that is, and Michelle Mason Carlos Candia, to being the founder of the newspaper "La Mañana", one of the first day of Temuco.
This journalist and poet, was actually my grandfather's brother and mother's side, matter reinforced by their strong physical resemblance. On the other hand, political brother Neruda. Candia Mason
not only became the most important mentor of Neruda, published the first texts of Neruda in the newspaper "La Mañana", but also represented the archetype of the child poetic aspiring poet.
It was known in the family as the official orator at meetings Orlando Mason was social, at such times as the Kings, Candia, the Mason, and Ortega, were one big family seated in front of the Temuco train station, with interconnecting houses with courtyards.
The boy admired his "uncle", which strictly speaking was so like his brother Rodolfo, and forges the idea of \u200b\u200balso being a poet, an orator capable of dressing up as a beggar, and rip their costumes and theatrical performance in each poetic.
The postcard I imagine these days, looking in the mirror of memory is built in a backyard where we grew up, two generations later, the fragrance of lilacs flooding the corners, an annoying black dog showing fangs, perhaps grandson of another black dog, buried next to those purple and white lilacs, a grape arbor where the family gathering was followed on Sundays for the roast and wine ritual. I used the poet
return south each return. So we relate to it. I met him when his wife was Matilde Urrutia, but until recently some relatives remembered him clearly with Delia del Carril. Those who have gone even remembered him with his first wife, Maria Antonia Hagenaar, when in 1933 he returned from the island of Java with the poet.
There is more than a movie where brothers are some of my uncle's hand, walking the streets and the old and poor childhood home in those days it was Temucano fiercely assailed by the press and those big machines camcorders.
Within the bakery ovens of my father, the police went looking for the fugitive poet when in 1948 fled to Argentina, pursued across the country by order of Gabriel González Videla. The house remained under surveillance for months.
Ours-mine, "were in the first hour, when he drank water from rivers, before the contaminated usury, and the forests surrounding the city were the natural places for nesting birds and poems. Everything was precarious opening. Everything was rough and missing. But since these solitudes, from the family the poet received the basic tools to sustain the emotion, often taken refuge in the modest home of street Lautaro No. 1436, a few meters from the railway station, which then out of my paternal grandmother, and finally one can return when desired, the country of memory, using the rails intact poetry.
* Bernardo Reyes Stock Photography © All rights reserved. Taken in the parental home, Temuco April 26, 1932, street Lautaro 1436. * This article adds additional information to my essay "family portrait, Neruda 1904-1920)" to be incorporated in successive impressions .
