I don’t remember, now, how I used to imagine my family in Cuba. Thoughts about them were hazy. Yet, my mother’s simple stories – rich snapshots from her childhood – helped me create my own visions of people and a place I had never known.
A single photograph prompted the start of my family search online. Why was my grandfather standing by an old Indian motorcycle in race gear? Where was he? Did he win?
In remembering my mother on the anniversary of her passing, I think of the happy memories she shared from her early years in Havana. Surviving photos show that she was trouble: cute, exuberant, and wriggling with charm.
ENGLISH: I keep uncovering amazing details in Cádiz, Spain, and there’s even more to find. But I must stop researching and finish the grand summary of this era that I’ve been promising my cousins for years.
EN ESPAÑOL: Sigo descubriendo detalles asombrosos en Cádiz, España, y aún hay más por encontrar. Pero ya debo dejar de investigar y terminar el gran resumen de esta época que llevo años prometiendo a mis primos.
It wasn’t easy to discover what my grandfather was doing on that Indian Motorcycle, 1915.
But this story was important to me. I’d barely met my grandfather, and I needed to know what he was doing in that moto race in Cuba.
It was my parent’s first adventure as a newly engaged couple, invited by my grandparents to experience a historic city and travel by air.
The “Casa De Zaldo y Valiente” still exists in Cádiz.
It’s located in the highest area of the city and across from the Palace of the Marqueses de Recaño, which includes the tallest tower of Cádiz, the Torre Tavira.
This neighborhood, like many in Cádiz, is a labyrinth of narrow streets with buildings that are taller than those of other old towns in Andalusia.
It’s easy to get a bit disoriented while walking around the city.
But being that Cádiz is almost an island, a beautiful waterfront is only a few blocks away in any direction.
In its time, María Ignacia and Cecilio’s house was a one-family home and, I believe, was larger (before the urban changes in Cádiz of the mid 1800s).
It would have had three floors of living space (with the top floor for the servants), and offices and storage areas at street level.
In the center of the building is a brilliant patio, with balconies on the upper levels, in a space rising up four stories to the open sky.
(I got to see that patio, in a magical moment, when the front door opened just as I was walking by the house for the very first time.)
In this house their three sons were born: José María (1790); Pedro (circa 1795); and Ramón de Zaldo y Valiente (1806).
The address for this house appears in the commercial directories of Cádiz (Guía de Forasteros de Cádiz) that I’ve found between 1808 and 1842. Cecilio is listed as having his business at this location. It was traditional for well-to-do merchants to have their offices and residence in the same building.
I believe that this was the home of Cecilio y María Ignacia until about 1840.
In the “Guía de Cádiz” of 1842 there is already another name listed at no. 168 of Calle Sacramento.