My Mother & Father's Wedding

anonymouscuban

Last year this month, I traveled to Cuba for the first time in my life. While I was visiting my uncle on my mother side, he pulled out an album of some very old photos. The album belonged to my mother. She left it behind when my parents left Cuba. As I understand it, my parents' departure was very hurried and she wasn't able to bring it with her. Fortunately, I was able to bring it back, albeit, over 40 years later. This is the only photo that survived of their wedding. This is a picture I took of the photo. This would have been about 50+ years ago, taken in the town of Jaruco, which is in the province of Havana, about 30 KM or so from Old Habana.



This is a picture I took of my wife sitting in the park that is across the street from the church my parents were married in. This too is in the town of Jaruco where my parents lived. It was very surreal to see these sites in person. I heard so many stories growing up about this park and how my father would sing and read poetry to my mother on the steps fo the park during their courtship. She would laugh when she recalled that her parents would make her younger brother accompany her and my dad would give him money so he could go buy himself a pop or candy to give them time alone. Different times.

Agnieszka

anonymouscuban wrote: »

I heard so many stories growing up about this park and how my father would sing and read poetry to my mother on the steps fo the park during their courtship. She would laugh when she recalled that her parents would make her younger brother accompany her and my dad would give him money so he could go buy himself a pop or candy to give them time alone. Different times.

Awwwwww ... I wish those times would come back, sounds wonderful

Beautiful photos, both of them. I bet your parents were really happy to have at least one of the photos back.
(p.s. I wonder what kind of car it was, loooove old Cuban cars )

Thanks for sharing

Dmanning

Wow, that is fantastic. There is only one photo from my parents wedding so it makes it pretty special. Thanks for sharing.

mmmatt

Nice story!!

matt

anonymouscuban

Thanks guys. Yeah, I think a lot of Cubans have similar stories about life before and after Castro. My parents left after the Revolution. My father was very skeptical of the revolution but he stayed because my mother did not want to leave her family. There was promise of a democratic form of government with free election and such so my father decided to wait it out. Eventually, he realized that things were not what they seemed, especially after his business - my father was a welder - was appropriated by State, he decided it was time to go. I don't quite know all the details but my mother was sent to work on a rabbit farm. It seems to me like she didn't have much of a choice in the matter. My father was going to leave to America alone and then some how get my mother, brother and sister later. But he feared this would never happen. While all the arrangements were being made for my father to leave, my mother got very ill and with the help of a family friend, she was able to get back home. They took the opportunity and left Cuba. It turned out that the illness she had was morning sickness. She was pregnant. About 7 months after they arrived in California, I was born.

It's quite interesting because my parents named me Alexander, not Alejandro which is the Spanish name. I am American, which they remind me constantly and they wanted me to have an American name. Another thing I found out much later in life is that my grandmother's - dad's mom - dying wish was that my father have an American born son. My father never mentioned this to me and it wasn't until my 30's that I found out from another family member. Not sure why but I became very emotional when I was told that.

I plan on going back next year for longer this time. I want to spend more time with my family, which I only met last year. I also want to see more of Cuba, other provinces. I want to fish in a river that my father used to fish in. I grew up fishing with my father and he would always tell stories of how him and his friends would camp out near the river and fish for several days.

cab.in.boston

Wow, a nice story becomes even better. That's fantastic, and I can understand why you got emotional learning that. I'm getting a little emotional just reading your story. thumb

Agnieszka

cab.in.boston wrote: »

Wow, a nice story becomes even better. That's fantastic, and I can understand why you got emotional learning that. I'm getting a little emotional just reading your story. thumb

+1. Thanks so much for letting have a peek into your life.

Blurmore

That is a great old photo, and the focus is exactly where it should be...on your mom...she is a beautiful woman.

ian408

What a cool story

I don't know if you read the paper today (and without making it a political comment) but Raul Castro announced the layoff of a half million gov't workers and some changes that would make it easier for private industry to hire those workers. Maybe change is coming sooner than we thought?

anonymouscuban

ian408 wrote: »

What a cool story

I don't know if you read the paper today (and without making it a political comment) but Raul Castro announced the layoff of a half million gov't workers and some changes that would make it easier for private industry to hire those workers. Maybe change is coming sooner than we thought?

I didn't catch that... will have to read. I did read report a few weeks back that talked about how little work there is. I had a conversation about this very topic with my uncle while i was there. He basically summed up the situation like this... he said if there is a ditch that needs to be dug that only requires to men to dig it, they send 12 guys because they have nothing else to do. But then the ditch never gets dug because no one wants to be the guy doing the digging.