OUR ROOTS AND OUR
BRANCHES
THE RUMBAUTS OF LAS VILLAS
Our
grandfather Bienvenido had the Rumbaut
name on both of his parents’ sides. The first Rumbaut
we can trace on his father’s side is Casiano Rumbaut, his grandfather. Casiano
married Candelaria de la Cruz in the 1860’s and had
Vicente Ramón Rumbaut Cruz.
Casiano was born in Güines, in the province of La Habana. He was a land owner.
He had two brothers, one of whom never married and lived in Cienfuegos.
Candelaria was born in Camarones, near Cienfuegos.
Vicente
Rumbaut de la Cruz
Vicente
Ramón Rumbaut de la Cruz was probably born on June 6,
1845 in a rural area of what was then the province of Las Villas. He was a
blue-eyed man of medium build who was known as a guitar player and singer who
made up his own verses. He became a carpenter and married his second cousin
Manuela Yanes Díaz, a
strong-jawed, hefty woman known as Doña Manuelita. They had six children:
1. Vicente
de la Cruz Ramón, born May 3, 1885
2. Bienvenido Ambrosio,
born March 20, 1891
3. Ana
Consuelo Micaela, born May 8, 1901
4. Ramón,
who died in childhood of smallpox
5. Salvador,
who also died in childhood
6. Ricardo
Juan, born March 27, 1908
Doña
Manuelita was tall and severe in her behavior, very
formal and dignified. Nonetheless, she is described as encantadora by those who remember
her. She was very religious, proper and strict. She believed that Cuba needed
the U.S. porque los cubanos no saben nada, and did not advocate independence. Manuela
once met José Martí and was impressed by his eyes: tenía ojos muy penetrantes. She wore
long skirts with long-sleeved blouses, covered by a white lace long vest. She
had a huge baúl in the house full of books.
In
1895 fighting had broken out between rebel Cuban troops and Spanish forces.
Vicente and Manuela were forced to leave their home in the countryside in Potrerillo, near Cumanayagua.
They put their few belongings and their children in a carreta or ox cart and traveled
to Cienfuegos, where they had relatives. Ramón, one of the children, fell
victim to the smallpox then epidemic on the island, and died en route.
José
Elías Bustillos and Manuela
Josefa Castellano, who were
padrinos at
the wedding of Salvador Yanes Rumbaut,
took Vicente and Manuela in until they could afford their own home many years
later. Some of the children were farmed out to other homes. Bienvenido
was raised with his aunts Luisita and Carmen Yanes, [Manuela Josefa, Salvador,
Luisita and Carmen are all mentioned under The Other Rumbaut Line below]
on Tacón street near the school of the French
Dominican friars. At that school taught Father Regis, a very cultured man, who
greatly influenced the development of Bienvenido. He
admired Father Regis and mentioned him frequently.
Vicente
Rumbaut de la Cruz died in Rodas,
May 16, 1915.
Vicente
Rumbaut Yanes
Vicente,
the oldest son of Vicente and Doña Manuelita, had light colored eyes, the characteristic Rumbaut dimple in the middle of his chin (barba partida),
thin lips, and brown hair parted down the middle, partially hiding the deep
indentations of the also characteristic early baldness on either side of his
head. He was conductor on the train to Castillo de Jagua
and station chief at various stops, in particular at Cruces. He married María Toledo de la Rosa, who was the same age as he. They
had five children, plus one who died in infancy:
1. Alicia
2. Vicentico
3. Miguel
4. Luis
Manuel
5. Laura
6. Héctor
Alicia de la Caridad
Fidela was born April 24, 1914. The following year
her grandfather Vicente died. The recipe for getting rid of baby Alicia's colic
was watered-down rum with sugar. Alicia married Oscar Labadié.
They live together with sister Laura in Havana.
Vicente
Juan Gilberto (Vicentico) was born July 12, 1917. He
was married three times and adopted one child, Julio, who has been very
successful in the U.S. Vicente was the padrino of
Rubén Gustavo Rumbaut, oldest grandson of Bienvenido. He died of a heart attack in Puerto Rico.
Miguel
Angel Germán was born October 11, 1919 in Cruces. He
died the following year.
Luis
Manuel Felipe was born February 6, 1922 in Cienfuegos and still lives there. He
married Ana J. Oliver Sánchez (Cuquita)
and produced Luis Jacinto Rumbaut, born January 3,
1959, and Jorge Luis Damián Rumbaut,
born September 27, 1963 in Cienfuegos. Cuquita wrote
a short biography of Bienvenido, which was referenced
for this history.
Jorge
Luis maried Marta Castillo, who had Inez Rumbaut Castillo in Cienfuegos on March 13, 1984.
Laura
María was born January 5, 1924 in Cienfuegos. Her
uncle Bienvenido was her padrino. Laura and Alicia have
both kept up with family history, and provided many details for this account.
Héctor Félix
Salvador was born June 23, 1926. He is a dentist in Madrid. He married Lydia (Bebita) Herrera Sotolongo Chacón, who was born in Cuba. They had one child, Pedro
Vicente Ignacio Rumbaut Herrera-Sotolongo,
born April 9, 1950 in Havana. They divorced and Héctor
remarried a Spanish woman, Conchita Luna. They
traveled to many parts of the world.
Vicente
died on July 17, 1947 of heart failure in combination with serious asthma that
had plagued him his entire life.
María’s sister, Andrea Avelina Toledo de la Rosa, was 103 when she died in 1992.
Rubén Gustavo Rumbaut and his sister Carmen had met
her the year before in Havana, where she lived in the same Vedado
apartment with Alicia and Laura. Although blind, she had an extraordinarily
clear mind, and recited from memory an unpublished verse that Bienvenido, at the age of 14 or 15, had written some 80
years earlier to Andrea’s other sister Carmen:
Tu
peseta prontamente
Te envío, Carmen, amiga
Por si muero
de repente
No quiero que nadie diga
"Dejó una cuenta pendiente."
Consuelo Rumbaut
Yanes
Consuelo
married Carlos Gilí, the owner of a pharmacy. They
had three children:
·
Josefina is the oldest and became a
pharmacist. She had one child, Teresita.
·
María
Consuelo de Jesús (Maruja)
was born April 17, 1935 in Cienfuegos. She now lives in Miramar. She had a
child named Rubén.
·
Carlos Manuel José (Carlitos) was born in Cienfuegos on November 26, 1938. He
passed away in 1984. He was a well-known actor in Cuban television. He married
Josefina Méndez, a prima ballerina in Cuba. They had
a child named Víctor Manuel Gilí
Méndez.
Ricardo
Rumbaut Yanes
Ricardo,
the youngest son of Vicente and Doña Manuelita, was born in Cienfuegos. He married Antonia (Nené) Lindenmeyer Alvarez. They
had four children:
·
Ricardo
·
Roberto
·
Berta
·
Carmucha
Ricardo Antonio was born April 29,
1938. He is an architect. He married Carmen Berrayarza
(Cuqui) and they had Ricard
and Alain. Ricard was born in 1963. He was a nuclear
technician working on the plant in Cienfuegos. Alain, born in 1967, is a
technician living in Cienfuegos. Ricardo’s second marriage was to Moraina Rodríguez. They have a
son, Adrián Rumbaut Rodríguez, born 1973, who is a graduate of the National
School of Art, works in graphic arts as a painter and has won several honors
for his work. He lives with his wife and children in Cienfuegos.
Roberto
Flavio Clemente was born in June 22, 1939. He had
typhoid fever, complicated with encephalitis, which left him debilitated.
However, he grew strong and became a rower and a rowing trainer. He was in the
Olympic rowing team one year. He married Berta Caballero and had two sons,
Roberto and Eduardo. Roberto Andrés (Robertico), born
1963, was Dean of Physical Education in Cienfuegos but is also working on a
doctorate now in Mexico, having married Ana María Rivero and produced a daughter, Anet
Beatriz. Eduardo Esteban is a physician in Cienfuegos.
Berta
was known as muy peculiar as a child. She grew to be a
lively adolescent, very social and attractive, but with emotional problems. She
married Arnulfo Lajes, who
left for the US in 1959 and then sent for her. She flew to Spain, where she
stayed a while before reuniting with Arnulfo in
Florida. She gave birth (with a lot of complications) to their child, Richard
Anthony Lajes, in 1970. They subsequently divorced.
When Richard was about nine they returned to Cienfuegos. Berta continued
getting worse and was occasionally hospitalized until her death. Richard moved
back to Miam.
María del
Carmen Brígida de Jesús Rumbaut Lindenmeyer (Carmucha) was born February 14, 1948. Carmucha
was also known as "Bolita" and "Coqueta" as a child. Carmucha
married Orlando Peña Romero and has one son, Orlando Peña Rumbaut, born July 23, 1985.
Orlandito, or Orli, moved
to Miami. Carmucha received a Ph.D. in education and
worked at the Ministry of Education, sometimes as an administrator, sometimes
as a teacher, for 23 years. She and Orlando live in Havana.
Antonia
(Nené)
Lindenmeyer Alvarez
Nené was the mother of the above Rumbaut Lindenmeyer children. Her
own father, Alfonso Lindenmeyer, was born in Germany.
Alfonso kept a secret wine cellar. Alfonso's first marriage produced two
children. One of his granddaughters by that marriage is Silvia, who lives in
Miami.
Alfonso's
second marriage was to Sara (Sarita) Alvarez, who
spent a lot of time tending the sick. They had three children:
·
Antonia (Nené)
·
Sara was a very Catholic yet very
tolerant thinker. Orlando once convinced her to get into a bathing suit and go
to the beach - the one and only time in her life! Sara died in Cienfuegos.
·
Alfonso died in Miami. His wife,
Teresa, still lives in Miami.
Nené
died in 1992. She had suffered from arthritis that deformed her and caused her
much pain. After she broke her hip in a fall the hospital had no pins for the
bones. A body with a pin was exhumed; the pin was sterilized and implanted.
However, Nené died of infections soon after that.
What her family remembers most about her was her kindness and generosity.
By
then Ricardo was already in his eighties, and was left to learn to cook and
clean in a seriously deteriorated economy with a totally disabled daughter. His
biggest dreams, which he was never to fulfill, were to visit his family in the
United States and to publish his manuscript on the history of sports in
Cienfuegos. He died in the native city he loved in November, 1997.
Bienvenido was welcomed at his birth by
his parents Vicente and Doña Manuelita
with a name meaning "welcome.” He was born in San Juan de los Yeras, near a mount called the Pico de Potrerillo
(a potrero
is where horses are raised). There are no others with the same name in the
family.
He
was a scholar and loved to read, especially literature. He loved the other arts
as well, and was often heard singing. He liked the songs of musicals from the
U.S., such as "Indian Love Song," and those of Nelson Eddy, the
singer, and Victor Herbert, the composer. Later in life one of his favorite
songs was “¿Qué me importa?”
by Mario Fernández Porta.
It
was in Rodas as a young man where he met Zoila Rosa López Fundora, a beautiful, voluptuous woman. She looked very
Spanish, a brunette with short stature and fine features. When he asked her
father Hermenegildo for her hand in marriage he told
him to forget it, for he had “nothing to offer.” He set out to make something
of himself. He had been appointed administrator of a sugar factory at a young
age, but now he sought out a career.
He
traveled to the U.S. and studied English and pharmacy at Ohio State University
in Columbus. He paid for his schooling by dishwashing at an Italian restaurant
and by other odd jobs. He returned to Cuba and became the regente of a pharmacy. That did
not mean he spent a lot of time there, as he was usually available just in a
supervisory capacity. He was more interested in journalism and in civic
activities.
He
entered journalism after World War I. He wrote for "El Comercio"
where he was made director at age 29 or 30. He also wrote for "La Correspondencia". He wrote poetry from when he was a
young man until he died. Some of his writing has survived, especially his
poetry, of which there are over two hundred complete poems.
Bienvenido was a key figure in the
cultural life of Cienfuegos, and no history of the city is complete without
mention of him. For several years he was the president of Cienfuegos'
"José Martí Club". He also helped found a
civic and cultural organization named "El Ateneo".
This organization played a large role in the annual "culture week"
celebrated in Cienfuegos on the fourth week of April. He was also the town
librarian for several years. In the 1950’s he arranged to have the remains of
the city’s founder, D’Clouet, flown to Cienfuegos to
be interred there in a civic ceremony.
At
the Escuela de Comercio in
Cienfuegos he became a professor of English. There he co-wrote a book on
Business English with two other professors.
He
died in Havana on August 29, 1966. He was a Mason; on the morning of his
funeral a group of Masons came to his house to conduct a ceremony. He is buried
in the old cemetery of Cienfuegos. His sister-in-law Nené
is buried next to him. His brother Vicente was buried in the newer cemetery of
the city.
The Other Rumbaut Line
Bienvenido’s mother, Manuela Yanes, had a Rumbaut grandmother.
She is the first Rumbaut in our family that we know
of in Cuba. Her name was Concepción Rumbaut, and she
married Salvador Yanes. These two must have been born
in the late 1700’s, because their first and only child, Salvador Yanes Rumbaut, was born in 1815.
Salvador
the son studied medicine and was married twice. He was 49 when he married his
second wife, Agustina, who was second cousin to him.
Her full name was María Agustina
Luisa Díaz Castellano,
daughter of Felipe Santiago Díaz and Manuela Josefa Castellanos.
Salvador
married Agustina in Cumanayagua
on January 1, 1864. They had six children:
1. Luisa
Josefa Teófila (Luisita) had blue eyes. She was physically paralyzed but a
beauty to look at. She lived with her parents all her life and died without
issue.
2. María del Carmen
Genoveva (Carmen) rode horseback into the battles of
the War of Independence to deliver food to her brother Salvador. She bore a
child out of wedlock named Olympia Yanes. Olympia
became known as "La Niña" and never had children. Carmucha
(María del Carmen Rumbaut Lindenmeyer) remembers a
story told to her about La Niña: that Nené was unable
to give milk early after Carmucha was born, and Carmucha was fussing in hunger, and La Niña apparently gave
the newborn Carmucha sweet coffee through an
eyedropper and nearly caused her death.
3. María Cristina Clotilde
married Antonio Capote. She died relatively young, the cause being said to be
overwork. She had been known for her beauty. Vicente Rumbaut,
her brother-in-law through Manuela, loved her very much.
4. Salvador
Antonio Brígido died March 30, 1898, fighting in the
War of Independence. Luisita and Carmen could have
requested the pensions which their brother’s death would have granted them, but
they never moved on it.
5. Ramón
died August 5, 1896, also during the war.
6. Manuela
Josefa was born in Yaguaramas.
Agustina’s
great-grandchild, Alicia, remembers that it was always said that the family had
stored away the slipper from our noble ancestor from Flanders.
Agustina
died on July 17, 1920. Her husband, Salvador, died earlier, in Potrerillo, on March 4, 1892 at the age of 77.
Starting Over in Exile
Castro’s
takeover of Cuba in 1959 decisively changed the lives of all Cubans, and the Rumbauts and Rieras were no
exception. After the new government was in power long enough to start showing
its stripes, Rubén Darío became critical of it,
writing newspaper articles and giving radio interviews concerning the latest
government initiatives. It became more and more apparent to Rubén and Carmita that the country was turning into a system where
they did not want to raise their children. They quietly slipped out of Cuba
with their five children on July 16, 1960, claiming that they were visiting
Miami so Rubén could attend a medical convention.
Although
they believed their exile would be temporary, they still had to build a new
life in a country where they had no contacts, no employment, and knew little of
the language. They had left all their possessions in Cuba and had a mere $450
on hand. Rubén had no income for a long time, and the debts that began to build
up then would not be paid off for many years to come. He started taking courses
in English and Medicine so that he could pass an entrance exam, which could
eventually allow him to practice in the U.S.
Back
in Cuba, Gustavo and Charo were making their own
plans to leave. Businesses were being nationalized, their owners having no
say in the matter. The Rieras went to New Orleans in
October, 1960. Four months later, the factory and their house were appropriated
by the government. They visited the Rumbauts in Miami
before moving to North Carolina. The Rumbauts
received many visitors in those days; as they were one of the earliest ones to
leave in that first wave, their rented house became a beachhead of sorts.
Friends and family fleeing the island would end up there to get their bearings,
some staying longer than others.
The
Rumbauts moved to New Mexico, where Rubén D. had a
career opportunity and where the climate could alleviate Carlos’ asthma. After
five years in Albuquerque and another five in Topeka they moved to Houston. By
then the boys had gone to college and the first two had moved to opposite
coasts. Miryam moved to Tulsa and the rest wound up in
Central Texas: Austin, San Marcos and San Antonio.
When
Michelle was the only child left at home, Carmita
took the first job she had ever had in the US. She was 50, lacked strong
English skills and any higher than a high school education. But she had math
and accounting abilities, as she showed her prospective employer by passing
their math ability test with a perfect score and time to spare, which was a
first in the history of the bank. She also possessed extraordinary social
skills, including an elegant command of the Spanish language. She began as an
entry-level clerk, but rose to vice-president of the International Department
of Texas Commerce, one of the largest banks in Texas. By the time she left she
had a large and loyal staff under her, and they were handling half a billion
dollars worth of accounts.
Rubén
finally quit his clinical practice of psychiatry by the end of 1995. His career
started off slowly in exile, taking several years before he could practice in
the U.S. at a level comparable to what he was practicing in Cuba, then another
four before he was board-certified. Yet he became nationally recognized and
widely respected in psychiatry, taught at medical school for several years, and
kept a flourishing interest in writing in both languages. He continues to add
to his prolific opus of articles, books, poems, eulogies, book reviews and book
chapters. At the 1995 National Convention of the American Psychiatric
Association in Miami, Rubén was awarded the Simón
Bolivar Award and selected as Special Lecturer. It was the first time in 150
years of APA history that a convention lecture was delivered in Spanish.
In
June 1996, Rubén and one hundred of his colleagues celebrated the Golden
Anniversary of their medical graduation. It would be the last time that Carmita travelled to Miami.
She
died on January 14, 1997 in Sugarland, Texas, where she and Rubén had retired.
She left eleven grandchildren by blood or marriage. Through her bout with
cancer, she helped the family, both nuclear and extended, to reunite and heal.
Her last two years were a tribute to her best qualities of dignity, grace and
humor. In a moving ceremony on a boat off the Florida Keys in July, 1997 Carmita's many family members said goodbye to her ashes.
The Rumbaut Rieras
The
children of Rubén Darío and Carmita
each have a few words about their own lives:
Rubén
Gustavo was born September 19, 1948 in Havana. He enrolled in the 8th grade in
a Miami parochial school in 1960 in the month that he turned 12 years old.
Because he knew no English, that first year in the USA is only a blur to him:
but in Cuba he loved to play baseball, and that skill came in handy later that
year when he won his school’s Most Valuable Player award (“baseball has been
very, very good to me,” he has said). He continued his education in
Albuquerque, St. Louis, and Boston, before settling down in San Diego, where he
lived for over 20 years, was married and divorced, and built up his career as a
sociology professor. He has written widely about immigrant and refugee
families, in effect making a profession out of reflecting on his own
experience. In 1992 he married Irene Tienda, herself
the daughter of Mexican immigrants, and moved to Michigan, where they had a
son, another Rubén Darío, on September 25, 1993. They
live Ivine, CA.
Luis
Eduardo was born October 27, 1949 in Havana. He never quite fit in his new
country of residence, having had the odd luck to go through culture shock and
adolescent angst while the country was turning upside down in the 60’s: the
Kennedys, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X; Vietnam and civil rights; Bob Dylan
and the Beatles; and hippiedom. By the mid-1970’s,
having recovered enough to become a lawyer, he was ready to go back to Cuba.
After a couple of trips there he saw it made more sense to stay and use his
English-language and legal skills in the U.S. On June 2, 1983 he had a
daughter, Jazmín, with Beatriz Pérez
Gómez, from El Salvador. On November 2, 1993 he had a
son, Luis Ernesto, with Elda Betancourt Delgado, from Mexico City. Both were
born in Washington, D.C. Occasionally Luis still plays a little guitar, tres and cuatro, and writes for
the Spanish-language press in D.C.
Carlos
Alberto was born on November 11, 1950 in Havana. He suffered asthma and other serious
diseases during childhood. His playmates called him “Borracho”
in Cuba and “Hangover” in Miami, perhaps because he was characteristically slow
to respond. After getting a degree in philosophy, Carlos spent ten years in the
restaurant business. He was married to Hendle
Pendleton and they had one child, Sasha María, on
February 20, 1972 in Austin, Texas. Sasha moved to Texarkana after completing
college but later moved back to Austin. Carlos was a software developer until
he retired. He married Marilyn Hinton in 1981; they adopted Andrea Rose two
days after her birth on June 19, 1989.
The
three boys graduated from college during the height of the military draft for
the Vietnam War. None of them was drafted. Rubén got a medical deferment for a
pin in his ankle, just two weeks before he was due to depart for a second
exile, this time to Mexico. Luis got a high number in the draft lottery. Carlos
was recognized as a Conscientious Objector.
Miryam was born June 17, 1953 in
Havana. She was seven when the family arrived in Miami. She quickly learned
English at school. She enjoyed music and played flute in the high school band.
She met Jerry Bentley in high school when they were both 17. They married in
1973 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where Jessica Lynn was born August 5, 1976 and Joshua
Miguel on January 17, 1979. Miryam was trained as a
registered medical assistant and later worked as a medical transcriptionist.
She suffered from duodenal ulcers and later Crohn’s
disease from the age of 23 through 37, at which time she had an intestinal
resection surgery and went into remission from Crohn’s
disease. Jerry and Miryam divorced in 1995 after 22
years of marriage. Jessica and Joshua have both started families of their own.
María del
Carmen was born June 24, 1955 in Havana. She was only five when the family left
Cuba on her Saint’s Day in 1960. She decided to change her name to Carmen María Rumbaut as she grew tired
of jumping to attention every time the nuns called out “Mary,” a common name in
Catholic schools. She considers herself to have a very adaptable personality,
as she adapted to more than seven different schools in two different languages
by the time she graduated high school. She obtained her Bachelors and Masters
Degrees in Social Work at the University of Texas, and specialized in
counseling sexually abused children. Ten years later, Carmen decided to obtain
her J.D. at the same university, and has since dedicated her law practice to
protecting civil rights. Her other interests lie in painting and music, particularly
Cuban rhythms. She married three times and had no children. What she would most
like to see in her lifetime is “world peace.”
The
sixth child, Michelle, came as a complete surprise three years into the exile.
She was born July 29, 1963 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, when both parents were
40 years old and struggling to rebuild a career and their financial security.
Despite the added hardships Michelle brought, she was welcomed as the “baby” of
the large family. She turned out to be like her mother in many ways: their
looks, their likes and even their jiribilla. Michelle obtained her degree in hospital
administration (combining her parents’ medical and business influences) in San
Marcos and San Antonio. For years she has been assistant administrator at the
hospital in Seguin, a town close to where she lives. In 1986 she married Dugan
Taylor and had two boys, Clinton Travis (born July 15, 1990) and Keegan (born
August 16, 1993). Michelle is currently married to Dr. Steve White and living
in Seguin, TX.
Introduction
| Index | 1800-1900 | 1901-1940 | 1941-present
Other Rumbauts | Early Rumbauts
Roots and Branches | En español