Perfect past tense problem

Tense - especially perfect tense - is one of the most tricky troubles we face studying English as a second language. And I get to know many of the sentences with perfect tense can be sentences without perfect tense.

The upper one of the two paragraphs presented below has many past perfect tenses. And the lower is modified one which I think would be OK with normal tense.

Can you check it out and give me your suggestion?

Santiago had attended a seminary until he was sixteen. His parents had wanted him to become a priest, and thereby a source of pride for a humble farm family. His family worked hard just to have food and water, like the sheep. He had studied Latin, Spanish, and theology. But ever since he had been a child, he had wanted to know the world, and this was much more important to him than knowing God and learning about man's sins. One afternoon, on a visit to his family, he had summoned up the courage to tell his father that he didn't want to become a priest but that he wanted to travel.

Santiago had attended a seminary until he was sixteen. His parents (had) wanted him to become a priest, and thereby a source of pride for a humble farm family. His family (had) worked hard just to have food and water, like the sheep. He (had) studied Latin, Spanish, and theology. But ever since he was a child, he had wanted to know the world, and this was much more important to him than knowing God and learning about man's sins. One afternoon, on a visit to his family, he (had) summoned up the courage to tell his father that he didn't want to become a priest but that he wanted to travel.
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