This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Diaz, Fernandez, Herrera Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/kRC.2ACE/298.299.301.363.1.1 Message Board Post: Dear Ms. Rabago, My paternal grandmother was Blanca Aurora FERNANDEZ y HERRERA de DIAZ, born circa 1905. Her mother was Carmen HERRERA but I do not know her other surname. I can remember that she was on "Queen for a Day" in Cuba in the late 1950s, where she won a washing machine and a refrigerator. Her daughters were quite proud of her. She had a daughter named America FERNANDEZ y HERRERA. I am confident Carmen HERRERA was Spanish born or the daughter of a Spanish subject, as others would ask her for stories about the Spanish American War and she would decline. She was slightly build, had blue eyes(?) (they had lost their light much by then, and she was very very old). My beloved great grandmother was provided excellent care by my grandmother, who would say that Carmen was over one hundred years old, which would make her date of birth circa 1857, but I believed was later, given her daughter's date of birth. Her daughter America married a man who fought in the Spanish Civil War against Franco, with many decorations for high heroism. They had a daughter named Isaura (BAEZ?). Both mother and daughter did suffer from severe diabetes. Carmen's daughter, Blanca Aurora FERNANDEZ y HERRERA, my grandmother, had very black, really a mane of hair, had creamy white skin, eyes the color of amber (hence the name Blanca Aurora) and her personality was predominated by her generosity. Although she wore the vestiments of a CONVERSO, she belied her Sephardic roots in her self-denying concern for everyone, ability to survive adversity and optimism. She was also physically beautifully sephardic, given the combination of her aquiline features, her raven, thick, tresses, her VERY, VERY stubborn streak (I could tell stories there!!), her untiring work ethic and her Spanish charn. Among the long list of charities she performed was to inject diabetics who could not or were afraid to inject themselves. My great grandmother was of slight constitution but was strong enough to make it to a very advanced age. She did indeed refuse to die until I came to see her, so she was strong-willed in that tiny frame. That stubborn streak, by the way, remains in the FERNANDEZ y HERRERA family to this day. I am sorry that all I have is this, gentle memories or a Spanish woman who taught me songs and dances from her motherland. She was remembered on Queen for a Day as a mother willing to sacrifice for the good of her children. Cordially, Ines Diaz-Oben