This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Baez, Diaz, Fernandez, Herrera, Pazos Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/kRC.2ACE/298.299.301.363.1.1.1.1 Message Board Post: Dear Ms. Rabago, Other than the information I provided, I only know that my grandmother, Blanca Aurora FERNANDEZ y HERRERA was born in Santiago de Cuba circa 1905. Carmen HERRERA, my grandmother's mother, was probably Spanish but I do not know any more. I know of her love of Spanish music and that her accent was not Cuban. I know that the FERNANDEZ y HERRERA family held Spain close to their heart as one of them, America, probably named so for being the first born in the new land, was married to a hero of the Spanish Civil War's Abraham Lincoln Brigade against dictator Franco. (You know, as in Ernest Hemingway, Langston Hughes and Nicolas Guillén). During my teenage years I did visit my second cousins whose grandmother was America FERNANDEZ y HERRERA. They lived on 86th Street and Fifth Avenue in Manhattan and we would play in Central Park, almost every weekend, we were like first cousins (the BAEZ's). All of us knew little of the HERRERA story, only that America, their grandmother as well as Isaura, their mother, were quite diabetic. Their grandfather was radicalized by the Spanish Civil War and this caused a divorce, as the FERNANDEZ y HERRERAs are liberal but not communists. Isaura is knowledgeable regarding textiles and her husband worked with antiques. She possesses great kindness and used to come to Cuba bearing gifts of textiles for the seamstresses in the family. There are several stories to illustrate her sweet personality and infinite patience, but you might think that I exagerate. We are a good, liberal, patriotic family rent asunder by communism. The FERNANDEZ y HERRERAs are a very generous and altruistic lot. My grandmother married into the DIAZ family of Santiago de Cuba. One of my father's PAZOS y DIAZ cousins, Alicia PAZOS y DIAZ de PAZOS, married a liberal representative from Oriente, so there was a tradition of liberal political involvement. I read an obituary for Dr. Felipe PAZOS, an economist, in the New York Times but I do not even know for sure whether that is him! The one in the obituary is famous for demonstrating that Castro was not dead, as some had thought, but alive in the mountains, by arranging an interview with him by a New York Times reporter. All this to advise you that at the time of the revolution, when I was only five years old, there was much turmoil, for liberals as well as labor leaders (which my father was) were persecuted along with conservatives by the "revolutionaries" who sought complete control. The uprooting was sudden and cruel, so that we (the DIAZ-OBENs) grew up with the PAZOS-DIAZ second cousins, in New Jersey, as our only link to our homeland. Everyone just wanted to forget the old and start anew in the land of opportunity. It hurt to open old wounds. Also, discussions might lead to arguments and to hurt feelings. Cordially, Ines Diaz-Oben Please feel free to contact me off-board with any information or to post the information for others to benefit as well.