THE HAROLD AND OFELIA BUTLER
STORY
1927 to 1987
With origins in Spain and England, the story how
Ofelia Salazar and
Harold Abbott Butler met at Hotel Vedado located at M
street and 19th Avenue during late 1926 has been woven in these
two LINKS. Their friendship quickly gravitated to love as both
were in their late 30's and anxious to pass on their genes. On
July 4, 1927, they married and shortly later moved four blocks
away into a third story walk-up apartment located at Linea and M
street in the Vedado district of Havana, Cuba.
When mother became pregnant she gave up her job with Pesant
Steel and on September 1, 1929, at 4 pm gave birth to their
first son, William, born in the Anglo American Hospital. I love
dad's story:
Mother had been in labor during
much of August 30, with acute pains. He had his work to attend
to as well as a need to watch the NY stock exchange where stocks
were on a daily dip so at 7 am on August 31, 1929, he dropped
Ofelia off at the Anglo American Hospital and went to work. He
called the hospital at noon and still no baby. Meanwhile, the
stock market was taking a humongous dip, which really stung dad.
He kept track of the ever dropping market indicators until 4 pm
when he got a call from the Hospital to inform him that his son
had been born. He closed up shop, drove in, and walked up to the
natal section. A nurse brought his newborn out for him to see.
Dad took one look, and declared, "Two disasters in one day!!"
Ken's birth followed on February
11, 1931. Their 3rd story apartment had access to the roof
area, soon to become an ideal
playground for the two young lively boys. A large sand box,
a swing and a multitude of toys kept them busy and the high
walls around the roof area kept it safe.
In August 1933 political unrest
erupted into a revolution. The sitting President of Cuba fled,
Army officers hid out in the Hotel National, about 4 blocks from
the apartment. Shooting was more than sporadic. The Army ordered
us out as they were set to place heavy guns on the roof of our
apartment to fire on the Hotel. Harold picked up Kenny and
Ofelia grabbed me by the arm amid wild gunfire and the four of
us ran up Linea avenue to the home of a friend where we were to
spend the next three days until things cooled down and we could
return. Soon after, dad started looking for a new home further
away from the downtown area.
In 1935 dad bought a
home in La Sierra neighborhood of Marianao. Three bedrooms
and one bath with maid quarters above the one car garage. A
large avocado tree shaded the backyard. The stove was coal
fired. The ice box worked on just ice. In the years that
followed the kitchen was redone with an electric stove and
refrigerator. An open outdoor patio area was converted into a
guest bedroom with bath, where Benito and my mothers sister
Encarnita would sleep when they came to
stay.
On Sundays Ofelia's brothers
Emilio and Jose would visit during the afternoon and I would
watch the scene unfold week after week.
Jose, a heavy duty Catholic, worked on converting Harold. My
dad's perennial reply was that he was Mohammedan. Jose would
keep pushing and Dad would then fix what he called a Butler
special, an extra strong rum and coke. After two drinks, poor
Jose could just babble while dad giggled.
During the week after work, a
required stop was at the
American Club where Harold and his good friends engaged in
games of poker dice to see would pay for the drinks. A macho
environment, ladies were not allowed.
Unhappy with their two sons' inability to speak fluent English,
they began to take summer trips starting in 1936 to Asheville,
North Carolina, where they stayed at the Biltmore estate.
Cousin Helen would come to visit and would often bring
Leslie and Adele Young with her. As Bill and Ken grew older,
they were placed in a summer camp in nearby Hendersonville,
where they could expend their inexhaustible energy and give
Harold and Ofelia a little time on their own to tour and relax.
In 1936 the Butler's joined the Havana Biltmore Yacht and
Country Club where dad would meet his friends during noontime
Sundays while his family enjoyed the beach. As his sons grew
older and harder to handle Ofelia steered them towards sailing
and in 1943 dad bought them their first boat that set both boys
on a lifelong love for the open ocean.
World War II kept most Cubans trapped on the island as enemy
submarines lurked in the Atlantic. Their first trip North after
the war was during August 1947 when the family flew to Miami
where dad rented a car to drive to West Lafayette, Indiana to
drop Bill off at Purdue University where Bill was would pursue a
career in electrical engineering. Dad returned to continue his
career with the Cuban Electric Company as their General
Superintendent, in charge of all power generation and
distribution facilities.
In June, 1951, he and Ofelia flew to Indiana to joined Bill and
Elsie Covell at their
marriage on June 9 and to attend Bill's
graduation June 10. Also attending was Aunt Helen May Butler
(Nell), cousin Helen and many other family members.
His career with the Cuban Electric Company went well all the way
to his retirement in June, 1956. He and mother settled into
their new easy lifestyle without dad's daily commute to his
office which often became tedious. Since the day they had first
mover in, Dad roamed the neighborhood on a daily basis to shop
for groceries, or on occasion, headed to the main markets
downtown. Every one knew him as his six foot two height made him
a standout everywhere. Fresh vegetables were provided by Chinese
pushing large carts that they would park in front of the house
and call out advising they had arrived. The butcher always had
fine cuts ready for dads liking. Chickens would be bought alive
and butchered at home, dipped in boiling water to remove the
feathers, and prepared for dinner. Our maid/cook was Maria who
as well headed out to the street to pull Ken and I out trouble
when chased by neighborhood boys. The Butler's lived comfortably
and at ease.
Bill had been drafted in June 1954
and after basic training sent to Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas.
Elsie provided our first grandchild, Susan, on September 7,
1955. That Christmas Bill and family flew to Havana and we got
to meet Susan. A beauty. When Bill was released from the Army in
June 1956, they went to New York where he reported back to GE
for a rehabilitation program then sent to Havana on his first
overseas assignment together with new born Billy. A third
grandson, Jimmy, was born Christmas eve, 1957, at the same
hospital where Bill was born in 1929.
Meanwhile son Kenny was working in
the New York City area, had a nice girlfriend and owned a small
sailboat. One day he and a friend took the boat up to New Haven
for a series of weekend races. On a Sunday in the fall of 1957,
while at the helm, he had a brain hemorrhage. His friend sailed
the boat onto the beach in front of the New Haven Yacht Club
where several doctors diagnosed the problem and got him to the
Yale Hospital. When word reached Havana of what happened Bill
flew to New Haven and stayed until mom and dad arrived. They
stayed for two months then brought Ken back to Havana and cared
for him at home as he slowly improved.
Ken slowly went down hill, was sent to a clinic in Tampa,
then to a Military Hospital in Marion, Indiana, where he died on
December 26, 1961. With mother and dad unable to leave Cuba
without lengthy waits, Bill flew from Manila to Marion for the
funeral
Fidel arrived in early 1959 but
life went on almost as usual for the Butlers. Dad always
expected the Castro regime to succumb as had the 3 previous
revolutions he had experienced. That was until 1964 when he
decided to leave. The process to obtain an exit permit was long
and tedious. When I left Cuba on August 8, 1960, I just turned
the house over to a friend and left with my original property
deeds and was able to ship out all of our furniture. Appliances
were not permitted and I had all of them delivered to mom and
dad. Soon after, the government instituted regulations requiring
people who wanted to leave the island to turn their property
over to the state. These people, at the moment they were about
to leave their home, destroyed their furniture and appliances
which brought about new regulations. Mother and dad had to turn
over their deed to the state after inspectors made a full
inventory of ALL items in the house. When their departure time
came, inspectors once again checked the full inventory, and if
was all there, they OK'd their departure at which time mother
and dad had to turn over their keys and abandon their home.
Friends provided lodging until
their plane flew out via Mexico where they arrived with but two
dollars in their pockets. A good GE friend met them at the
airport and helped them out as they departed for Miami. After
two years in a Hotel in downtown Miami they moved to the Dallas
Park Hotel where they lived very comfortably in a large
apartment walking distance from downtown Miami. Bill and family
visited them yearly starting in 1965 during their visits from
Manila and were put up in a nearby apartment. When Bill was
transferred to Caracas in 1969, we saw much more of Bill on his
business trips, as Elsie and the children could only travel
during summer vacation. In early 1974 the Dallas Park Hotel
announced it would closed and that it had to be evacuated in 30
days. It was
demolished in 1974.
Meanwhile Bill had located a one
bedroom apartment in a condominium in Coral Gables purchased
with dad's help and helped furnish and move Harold and Ofelia
into their new quarters during June 1974. They settled right in
and lived there comfortably.
Bill's transfer to Miami in 1978 was fortuitous as mother and
dad needed family close at hand. |