Capotes y Lopez

NUESTRAS RAICES Y RAMAS

THE CAPOTES AND THE LOPEZ

The Capotes

Antonio L. Capote and Cristina Yanes Díaz (the sister of Doña Manuela) had ten children:

· María Agustina Capote married Luis Manuel Laosa.

· Salvador, now deceased, was a doctor and had two children: Cristina, who lives in the US, and Salvador, who studied philosophy and lives in Cuba.

· Pura

· Emma

· Odilia, who had two daughters, Cristina and Georgina.

· César, a doctor who lives in Miami.

· Patria

· Esperanza, who had one son, Vicente Alegret.

· Lala, who married José Luis Capote

· Juana

María Agustina Capote Yanes and Luis Manuel Laosa had three children:

· Ovidio, a dermatologist, married to Evora Vázquez Rosales, who killed himself in Havana in 1972.

· Luis Homero Laosa Capote, born October, 1919, living in Austin, Texas as a retired physiciano. He was Superintendent of the State Hospital for many years. He has three sons:

o Luis L. is a psychologist who works in Princeton.

o Richard A. is a psychologist living in Seguín, Texas.

o Miguel Angel was publisher of the newspaper in Austin, Texas.

· Esther, born June, 1921, lives in Miami and used to work as a pharmacist.

The López Branch

Zoila's father, Hermenegildo López de Soler, had a famous bad temper, but Zoila, the youngest child, could maneuver him with her flirtatious and seductive manner. Maybe she was also able to handle him because by the time she was born, he was an old man already. In a moment of his temper flaring, she would grab him and calm him down. Authoritarian with everyone, he was called "Don Merejo" behind his back, which sounds a little crude in Spanish. One of his sons disappeared in adolescence after a vicious fight with him.

Hermenegildo López González, also remembered as López de Soler, was born after 1824 in Cienfuegos. He married Rosa Fundora Enrique in 1873. She was born after 1850 in Palmillas, Cuba. She gave birth to fourteen children in the span of twenty years. They were named with a flair:

· Herminia was born the first but died the following year. The girl born the year after that, 1877, was also called Herminia.

· Abelardo was born in 1878. A list of family births and deaths written by his mother Rosa simply says that on November 6, 1895, "...se fue Abelardo para la Guerra."

· Perseveranda was born in 1879,

· Calixta Fortunata (Carlina), the one who killed a one-eyed rooster with a sneeze in the patio of her house in Havana, was born in 1880.

· Vitalia, who raised Carucho's children, was born in 1882.

· Juan was born in 1883 but died as a child.

· Caridad, sometimes called Carito by her mother but Carucho by everyone else, was born in 1884.

· Liberato, born 1887, distinguished himself in communications and eventually became sub-secretary in the Ministry of Communications. After the fall of Machado in 1933, however, Liberato lost that position and made a living by selling insurance.

· Roberto

· Flavio, born 1890, ultimately became head of a post office.

· Diego was born in 1891.

· Dionisio (Niso), who studied law and became a judge, was born in 1893.

· Zoila Rosa was born in 1895.

When Zoila was born Carucho was eleven, the youngest of the girls, and became Zoila's favorite sister. She died in 1928 at the age of 44 of púrpura hemorrágica. Whenever Zoila heard the song "¿Donde estás corazón?", popular at the time of Carucho's death, she would burst out crying so terribly that everyone knew never to let her hear it.

Carucho left three young children behind, Elio(Cuchú), Marta and Lilia, who were raised by Vitalia and her husband José Martín de Cantallops, which couple had never been able to conceive. They moved into Carucho's house while Carucho's widower, Elio Alvarez, moved to Havana where he was a congressional representative. The children became very close to Zoila's son, their primo hermano, Rubén Darío. Lilia was only seven days younger than he.

In the 1954 Vitalia, already well into her seventies, took a trip to Egypt with Marta. When they returned they took to calling the Rumbaut Riera children farruquitos, after then King Farouc.

Compared to the Rumbauts, many in the López branch had darker complexion, blacker hair, and a rounder physique. The Rumbauts were taller, skinnier and more pale. Of Zoila's daughter's daughters, María looks more like her López grandmother, while Estela looks more like her Rumbaut grandfather.

Don Merejo died of stomach cancer in 1924. Rosa died in January, 1945.

Zoila Rosa López

Zoila was born on June 29, 1895 in San Fernando de Camarones, in Las Villas province. She studied education and majored in kindergarten. Though she came from a poor family, she always struggled to achieve, and she had the air of a sophisticated and wealthy woman.

Bienvenido had earned his right to ask Zoila Rosa for her hand in marriage after getting a degree in pharmacy. They married in 1921. They were enthusiastic about promoting cultural life, and were generally regarded as a fine couple. Zoila's family, however, frowned on the "frivolity" of her activities, such as her authorship of "La Página Femenina" in the newspaper for which Bienvenido worked. They saw Zoila and Bienvenido as bohemians, impractical people.

Zoila loved to organize theater and dances. Parties at her house could become productions, with props, sets, costumes, assigned roles, the works. She wrote a kindergarten songbook that was used officially throughout Cuba for over 20 years.

After World War I, the world-wide sugar prices went up and allowed for greater wealth to Cuba. The Great Depression of the 1930's, however, hit Cuba as hard as the United States. Zoila and Bienvenido did not live in high style but they suffered many losses during the Depression. They always rented, owned no car. Bienvenido took the streetcar or bus to work.

Zoila worked as a kindergarten teacher and made a small salary. The average salary of teachers then was $33 per month. Sometimes she did not get paid. By the time of the social revolution of 1933, the government owed all teachers 11 months of pay. This "floating debt" hurt many families. Zoila later became a kindergarten inspector.

When Zoila was only sixteen she was operated on for sand in her kidneys. The recurring condition made all of her pregnancies complicated. After the birth of her first child, Rubén Darío, her kidneys threatened to fail. Zoila was so ill that they had the street in front of the house closed because the noise disturbed her. She was helped by María Felisa Díaz Reyes (Felisa), the madrina of the boy. "Chichí," as she was known to the children (though it was not a name she particularly liked!), devoted her life to Zoila's children, then later to Zoila's children's children.

They lived in Tulipán (outside of Cienfuegos) for many years due to Rubén Darío's asthma. During his childhood he endured treatments for his asthma and intestinal problems. These included hot mustard plasters and having all sorts of liquids and instruments poked into his nose. Despite the heat, the plasters were spread hot on the child's chest and wrapped in multiple cotton cloth layers, so that he was nicknamed La Cebolla. Felisa would concoct treatments using the book "El Médico de la Familia." Rubén later was to claim that he trained to be a physician in self-defense. During the long periods of rest he read voraciously. His favorite sports were tennis, baseball, swimming, and track events like the 400 meters.

Bienve, as Zoila called her husband, died in Havana in August 20, 1966 and was buried in Cienfuegos. Zoila came to the U.S. three years later and lived for a time with her son and for a time with her daughter. She died in Miami in August of 1977.

Carucha

It can be said that Zoila had two hijos únicos, or only-children. The second, Milagros de la Caridad Agustina Emma Rosa Teresita, was born fourteen and a half years after Rubén Darío. The doctors cautioned Zoila against carrying to term, but she was set on having a daughter -- a petite girl who would learn the arts and perform on stage. Felisa tended to her, placing an image of the Virgin on Zoila's belly and praying for a healthy baby. When the blessed event did take place (January 2, 1937), Felisa wanted the child to be named "Milagros."

She was called Carucha by her mother in honor of the favorite sister, and later Tita by her nieces and nephews who were completely overwhelmed by her given name. Carucha was born with an artist's soul and fulfilled her mother's wish for a performing artist. She took drama, piano, guitar and ballet as a young girl. The family has a video of a film taken when she was around ten, doing a pirouette on her front porch. She married a musician, classical guitarist Héctor García (Tony) while still in Cuba. They played many concerts together, in Cienfuegos, Havana, Matanzas.

She was pregnant when they left for the United States, and gave birth to Estela Rosa in Miami on January 2, 1961. This makes Estela the only one of us conceived in Cuba and born in the USA.

It was the dawn of the sixties, and Cuban exiles were forming a military invasion force. Tony put down the guitar, picked up the rifle, and landed with the force at the Bay of Pigs. He was captured and held in prison for 20 months. When he reunited with the family they went to live in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where Tony developed his career as a classical guitarist, teaching, recording and performing. For a time the Garcías stayed with the Rumbaut Riera family. Carucha and her cuñada were pregnant at the same time. Carmita had Michelle in July and Carucha had María Aurora (Mabú) on October 18, 1963.

When Carucha and Tony divorced, she and the girls moved to California. She remarried there, but that marriage did not last long.

Eventually they moved back to Miami, where the girls developed their respective careers in television (Estela) and nursing (María). Carucha married Rafael Fiol. They divorced in 1994. She continues to be active in music, especially choral music direction.

In the spring of 1994 María Aurora was recovering from her own recent divorce. She found herself assigned to care for a seriously sunburnt and dehydrated young balsero named Luis Rivero. He and his raftmates had just been picked up at sea. The pregnant wife of Luis had died in the terrible journey. In April of 1995 Luis and María had a baby boy, Jeffrey.

Rubén Darío

Although he was born on July 10, the birth announcement of Rubén Darío Rumbaut López has July 6, 1922 as his birthday. It names Felisa Díaz Reyes as his madrina. He was named after the famous Nicaraguan modernist poet. Like his father, he was later as a child to write for the newspaper, though his focus was on items for other children to read.

Rubén Darío attended the public schools because the family had no money for a private education. However, Cienfuegos had no public high school, so Rubén Darío was sent to one year of bachillerato at the Colegio de los Hermanos Maristas. This was a concession made by his parents who did not want him in a religious school. He stayed there for another two years. There he was exposed to lots of physical and academic exercise. He began studying Catholicism, discussing moral and ethical problems. San Luis Gonzaga, a saint who hunted birds, was put forward as a model for youth. Rubén Darío questioned whether hunting was saintly.

Though Bienvenido had no money for the tuition, he cut a deal with the Maristas of exchanging tuition for free advertising for the school in his newspaper. Then, a public high school was at last opened in Cienfuegos, and Rubén Darío finished his secondary education there.

In 1939, Rubén Darío went to study medicine at the University of Havana. Though almost no tuition was charged, the family had little money to support him while he studied away from home. He spent his first months in Havana residing in a hospital, in exchange for laboratory work. Felisa decided to help by moving to Havana and opening a boarding house, where she cooked, cleaned and did laundry for Rubén and other students.

Zoila was always longing for a move to Havana herself. She decided that she and Carucha, her young daughter, would move so that Carucha could study piano. Bienvenido was unable to find another professor in Havana that would swap with his position in Cienfuegos. When an opening came up in one of Havana's business schools he applied and was highly rated. However, the position was given to someone more politically connected. He remained in Cienfuegos. For several years they lived apart, sometimes reuniting during the holidays. Carucha would sometimes spend the summer with her father. He finally moved to Havana after he retired.

During the seven years of his university studies, Rubén Darío looked toward the Federación de la Juventud Católica Cubana as his community. He was repulsed by the politics of the time, seeing mainly politiqueros and pandilleros in the field. Later, in 1950, he would help found the Humanist Movement in Cuba, inspired by the Christian philosophy of Jacques Maritain. The movement was rendered irrelevant after Fulgencio Batista's coup d'etat in 1952.

He connected with the Maristas while in Havana. He was representative of Las Villas province in the National Council of the Juventud Católica Cubana, and later national vice-president, after the organization divided into male and female branches. There he met Gustavo Riera (Tavito), an idealistic young man who had been active in the leadership of the Juventud, becoming president of the national branch. It was through Tavito that he was to meet his future wife, María del Carmen Riera, Tavito's sister.