11-17-2011, 10:45 AM
again off-topic, but i thought it was of interest.
this is the obit for maytee's grandmother. a formidable and interesting lady.
{no mention of the husband who hung himself over a week ago.
31 years together and no mention.}
![[Image: 1i8sJ9.Em.56.jpg]](http://media.miamiherald.com/smedia/2011/11/16/16/05/1i8sJ9.Em.56.jpg)
miamiherald.com
Maria Fariñas Rodriguez, matriarch of a Cuban family whose members fought in the Escambray Mountains during the revolution and were later thrown in prison for delivering guns to guerrillas opposed to Fidel Castro’s government, died in Ohio on Monday. She was 95.
Born in a poor farming family in the heart of Villa Clara province, Fariñas raised her own children to seek a better life starting with a strong education — a path that led several to join the student protests against the government of Fulgencio Batista in the 1950s.
Two of her eight children ended up in the mountains to fight in the Escambray Second Front during the revolution, including her daughter, Olga, who married one of the leading commanders of the rebel force, an American named William Morgan.
She “knew it was the safest place. Her and my father [supported] me, in whatever I did,” recalled Olga Morgan Goodwin.
Though Fariñas and her husband Juan struggled financially to raise their growing family, their home in Santa Clara was always open to hungry neighbors and members of student groups, said Goodwin.
“Everybody loved her,” said Goodwin. “She always left her door open. If she had one piece of bread, she would [share] it. If she had a cup of coffee, she would give away half of it.”
Through much of her life, Fariñas struggled: a younger child, Roberto, died at 11 from an infection, and a second child, Gilberto, died in a car crash in Cuba on Mother’s Day in 1959.
During the revolution, her home was searched by Batista’s police and at one point her brother Gilberto was brutally beaten and tossed in front of her door. “Still, she wouldn’t talk about it,” said Goodwin, who learned about it from her sisters.
Years later, when Goodwin and her husband, William Morgan, began running arms to the mountains to rebels opposing the Castro government in 1960, both were arrested. Fariñas attended Morgan’s public trial in Havana, then visited him just hours before his highly publicized execution in 1961.
She later helped raise the couple’s two daughters while Goodwin was in prison until her release in 1973. Fariñas and her husband, Juan, later moved to the United States and settled with Goodwin in Ohio in 1981.
Despite her hardships, “she was a happy lady,” especially after most of her children joined her in the United States, recalled Goodwin. “She would never let us fight. She would say, ‘No, no, no, you need to be together all the time.’ She wanted peace in our family.”
Juan, her husband of 55 years, died in 1981. Fariñas is survived by daughters Olga, Carmen Rodriguez Fariñas, Irma Vasquez, Rita Aguila and Ada Hernandez and a son, Lazaro Rodriguez Fariñas; 12 grandchildren, 30 great-grandchildren and 11 great-great grandchildren.
Funeral services will be Friday at 10 a.m. at the Newcomer Funeral Home in Toledo, Ohio. Burial will follow at Forest Cemetery in Toledo.
http://www.newcomertoledo.com/obituary.a...ledo&st=OH
this is the obit for maytee's grandmother. a formidable and interesting lady.
{no mention of the husband who hung himself over a week ago.
31 years together and no mention.}
miamiherald.com
Maria Fariñas Rodriguez, matriarch of a Cuban family whose members fought in the Escambray Mountains during the revolution and were later thrown in prison for delivering guns to guerrillas opposed to Fidel Castro’s government, died in Ohio on Monday. She was 95.
Born in a poor farming family in the heart of Villa Clara province, Fariñas raised her own children to seek a better life starting with a strong education — a path that led several to join the student protests against the government of Fulgencio Batista in the 1950s.
Two of her eight children ended up in the mountains to fight in the Escambray Second Front during the revolution, including her daughter, Olga, who married one of the leading commanders of the rebel force, an American named William Morgan.
She “knew it was the safest place. Her and my father [supported] me, in whatever I did,” recalled Olga Morgan Goodwin.
Though Fariñas and her husband Juan struggled financially to raise their growing family, their home in Santa Clara was always open to hungry neighbors and members of student groups, said Goodwin.
“Everybody loved her,” said Goodwin. “She always left her door open. If she had one piece of bread, she would [share] it. If she had a cup of coffee, she would give away half of it.”
Through much of her life, Fariñas struggled: a younger child, Roberto, died at 11 from an infection, and a second child, Gilberto, died in a car crash in Cuba on Mother’s Day in 1959.
During the revolution, her home was searched by Batista’s police and at one point her brother Gilberto was brutally beaten and tossed in front of her door. “Still, she wouldn’t talk about it,” said Goodwin, who learned about it from her sisters.
Years later, when Goodwin and her husband, William Morgan, began running arms to the mountains to rebels opposing the Castro government in 1960, both were arrested. Fariñas attended Morgan’s public trial in Havana, then visited him just hours before his highly publicized execution in 1961.
She later helped raise the couple’s two daughters while Goodwin was in prison until her release in 1973. Fariñas and her husband, Juan, later moved to the United States and settled with Goodwin in Ohio in 1981.
Despite her hardships, “she was a happy lady,” especially after most of her children joined her in the United States, recalled Goodwin. “She would never let us fight. She would say, ‘No, no, no, you need to be together all the time.’ She wanted peace in our family.”
Juan, her husband of 55 years, died in 1981. Fariñas is survived by daughters Olga, Carmen Rodriguez Fariñas, Irma Vasquez, Rita Aguila and Ada Hernandez and a son, Lazaro Rodriguez Fariñas; 12 grandchildren, 30 great-grandchildren and 11 great-great grandchildren.
Funeral services will be Friday at 10 a.m. at the Newcomer Funeral Home in Toledo, Ohio. Burial will follow at Forest Cemetery in Toledo.
http://www.newcomertoledo.com/obituary.a...ledo&st=OH