THE STRUGGLE OF LIFE AS TRUE LOVE PREVAILS

AuthorHouse

Contents

About the Author........................................................................s xiiiAbout the Book..........................................................................xvIntroduction............................................................................xviiChapter #1 – "The Beginning"......................................................1Picture of Abe's Grand Father as Chief of the Fire Department...........................18Picture of Abe's Grandma and Grandpa Carmen and Armando Ramirez.........................19Picture of Abe's Dad and Mom Libertad and Beatrice Usera................................20Picture of Libertad as a Merchant Marine Band Member....................................21Chapter #2 – "Life in New Orleans"................................................23Picture of Libertad, Sergio and Bobby in New Orleans....................................38Picture of Beatrice, Carmen, John, Abe and Luis.........................................39Picture of Luis, Carmen, Abe, and John in New Orleans...................................40Picture of Pop with Baby Roland in New Orleans..........................................41Chapter #3 – "Life in New York City"..............................................43Chapter #4 – "Living in Brooklyn".................................................57Chapter #5 – "Pat's Story"........................................................73Picture of Pat's Grandma and Grandpa Mary and Albert Henry..............................92Pictures of Henry Children..............................................................93Picture of Sergeant Albert Henry........................................................94Picture of Grandma Vingenza and Grandpa Stephen.........................................95Picture of Grandpa Stephen and Grandma Vingenza Bile' with Children.....................96Picture of Pat's Dad and Uncle Thomas in 1924 First Holy Communion......................97Picture of Pat's Dad and Mom Frank and Helen Bile'......................................98Pictures of Pat age 2 with her Mother and Pat age 6.....................................99Picture of Pat with her sister Geri, First Holy Communion...............................100Picture of Pat with sisters Virginia and Geri...........................................101Picture of Virginia as a child..........................................................102Picture of Dad, Virginia and Mom in Brooklyn............................................103Pictures of Pat as a Tom Boy and Cool Cat...............................................104Picture of Steve as a child with Dad....................................................105Picture of Steve at Halsey Jr. High School..............................................106Chapter #6 – "Our Lives Together Continue"........................................109Picture of Abe and Pat as Native Americans..............................................136Abe's kid brothers on Halsey Street in Brooklyn.........................................137Picture of our trip to Coney Island-1960 with Friends...................................138Picture of Abe's Kid Brothers in Halsey Street Apartment................................139Picture of Carmen as a Senior...........................................................140Picture of Roland as a Teenager.........................................................141Copy of Poster of Fourteen Holy Martyrs Dance...........................................142Picture of Abe and Pat on Halsey Street.................................................143Chapter #7 – "Our Early Years of Marriage"........................................145Picture of Abe and Pat's Honeymoon......................................................165Picture of Abe with YA Tittle...........................................................166Pictures of Antoinette's Baptism........................................................167Picture of Christopher's Baptism........................................................168Picture of Teresa's Wedding Day.........................................................169Picture of Pat with best friend Pat D...................................................170Picture of Abe and Pat with children 1968...............................................171Chapter #8 – "Our Move to South Dakota"...........................................173Picture of Luis and Teresa with children 1969...........................................181Picture of Cherrie Ann's Baptism........................................................182Picture of the first Grandchildren in South Dakota in 1969..............................183Picture of Abe's first year as a Rapid City Police Officer..............................184Chapter #9 – "The Conclusion".....................................................187Picture of Abe with Conway Twitty.......................................................211Picture of Abe with Red Skelton.........................................................212Picture of Final Farewell to Pop........................................................213Picture of Libertad and Beatrice Ten Children...........................................214Picture-Last photo taken with Abe, Pat, and Children....................................215Picture of our Grandchildren............................................................216Epilogue................................................................................217

Chapter One

It was a cold winter day in the month of November 1944 that I was born in a building at 3140 Broadway in New York City. I was born to my parents, Beatrice and Libertad Usera. I was also the fourth child born to my parents. The other siblings were John, Luis and my sister Carmen. It wasn't too long after I was baptized on February 18, 1945 at the Our Lady of Esperanza Roman Catholic Church, our family moved to New Orleans, Louisiana. You see my dad was a professional Musician playing all kinds of drums. There was an offer for him to play Music in New Orleans at the time.

Before we go on about me, here is a little about my parents. My father, Libertad was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico in 1906, to his parents Hipolito Hernandez Usera and Rosa Candida Vives Usera. Hipolito was Chief of the Fire Department in Ponce. The same year my father was born, my grandfather was having a drink, when someone had placed an unknown substance in his drink causing his death. The story goes that it was because of political reasons he was poisoned.

At that time my father had five brothers. They were Luis, Ramon "Moncho," Elpitio, Remigio and Hipolito Jr. My grand mother Rosa later married a Francisco Alverez. They had a son name Horatio. My mother had told me my grandmother Rosa had some Indian Blood. She was not sure if she was from the Tainos Tribe on the Island or the Aztecs.

Most of my uncles were musically talented. Uncle Hipolito Jr. was an outstanding musician and director of the city of Ponce's Orchestra. He taught music to Moncho and his other brothers. Moncho later in life became an orchestra leader. He was considered the best music arranger ever from Puerto Rico. He played clarinet, flute, saxophone and piano and was member of the Noble Sissle Jazz Orchestra from the late 1920's up to the mid 1930's. They played in Paris France in 1929. He had about 2,000 arrangements, compositions and repertoire, before his death in 1972. A Street was named after him in Ponce, Puerto Rico. I have been in contact with his daughter Bessie my cousin, who has blonde hair and blue eyes and lives in Florida these days. Her brother Raymond Jr. had died in the year 1995.

We know our generation goes back to the Country of Spain. One of the Usera's that we know of is now becoming a Saint with the Roman Catholic Church. Here is some history about Father Jeronimo Mariano Usera y Alarcon. He and his twin sister Maria Nicomedes were born in Madrid, Spain on September 15, 1810. Maria died in infancy, and later in his priestly life Mariano took the name Jeronimo. His father, Marcelo Fulgencio Usera y Perez was the director of the Greco-Latin Academy and Professor of Latin in Madrid. Jeronimo Mariano was one of fourteen children.

He was born into turbulent times following the French Revolution and he saw the dawn of the so-called modern era. His family was deeply religious and socially prominent.

His brother Gabriel was the Royal Surgeon, and his sister Eugenia married Tomas de Corral y Ona, the Queen's doctor who delivered Alfonso XII and who received the title Marquis of San Gregorio.

Very early in Mariano's life he felt that God was calling. When he informed his parents that he wanted to be a priest, his father wanted to make sure that it was a true calling and took young Mariano on a trip to Italy. Upon his return to Spain, his vocation remained unaltered. In 1824 he joined a convent at the age of 14, and a Cistercian one to boot! There he lived the words ora et labora. He donned the white habit of St. Bernard at age 15. It was at that time he changed his name to Jeronimo, in honor of St. Jerome, translator and interpreter of the Bible which he loved to read.

Jeronimo studied philosophy in the Monastery of Merra in the providence of Lugo (Spain); theology in Alcala' de Henares, and in San Martin de Castaneda, Sanabria (Spain). He had outstanding grades. In December of 1833 he became a deacon in the Convent of the Hyeronimites in Madrid, and celebrated his first Mass in the parish of St. Gines in Madrid in 1834. It had taken 10 years from the time he entered the convent until his ordination. His initial commission was a preacher and rural missionary in Sanabria (Spain).

Spain underwent a wave of anticlericalism in the third decade of the last century, which included suppression of the Inquisition, expulsion of the Jesuits, the closing and confiscation of religious property, banishment of several Bishops and killing many priests. Around 900 convents were closed and goods confiscated. In 1837, the anticlericalism interrupted Jeronimo's rural mission in Sanabria. The priests were violently ejected, their goods were confiscated, and they were forced to live in the open outside of the convent walls. Traveling by donkey to far away villages, he would minister to remote communities.

In 1840, when his order was suppressed in Spain, he returned to Madrid. He took the opportunity to teach Latin and Greek at the Universidad Central de Madrid. In those days he used to say that "(religious) commitment and fervor are neither tired nor pessimistic." He dedicated time to the youth, preaching with a special devotion. He became chaplain to the Casa de Campo and preacher.

In 1778 Portugal had ceded to Spain several African colonies; Fernando Poo, Annobon and Corisco in the Gulf of Guinea. In 1843 a returning expedition brought to Spain two Africans, Quir and Yegue, and Queen Isabella II directed Father Usera, then her chaplain, to instruct them in the Catholic faith. As Father Usera taught the two Africans Spanish, he also learned their native tongue. He also taught them religion and the two were baptized in 1844. By royal order, Quir and Yegue were baptized in the Royal Chapel, with the Queen and her mother, Maria Cristina, being the godmothers, represented by the Count of Santa Coloma and the Duque de la Roca. The Patriarch of the Indies, Antonio de Posada poured the baptismal waters. The two were eventually returned to their native land and from that humble beginning Christianity was spread to the Spanish colonies in Africa.

On July 18, 1845, Jeronimo is on board the vessel Venus, en route to (Equatorial) Guinea and arrived in Fernando Poo on Christmas of that year. His facility with languages led Father Usera in a short period of time to write a catechism, vocabulary and grammar in the bubi language spoken locally. He also drew a map of the island. He devoted his time to educating and instructing the natives in the Catholic faith. Just when he was making headway, he became deathly ill and was ordered to return to Spain. He left for Spain on March 25, 1846. The trip home took 83 days and the doctors who examined him back in Madrid declared that had he not returned he would have died.

During his recovery period, he wrote Memory of Fernando Poo, and finished his thesis in theology. He was named preacher to her Majesty, Isabella II. He never returned to Africa, though he would always hold a special place in his heart for the African race. He asked and received an ecclesiastical appointment in the Indies. After chartering his own vessel out of his personal funds, he took charge of the Cathedral in Santiago, Cuba in 1848. He immediately began to study the religious condition of the country, its culture, its needs and was appalled by the ignorance of the masses and even of the middle classes.

He began designing a response to what he found. He would write: "Many had no news of the existence of God." They are born, live and die without having known the sweetness of family or the consolation of religion, of faith." Father Usera was spread thin beyond measure. He was penitenciario, professor in the seminary and ecclesiastical governor until the arrival of the new Archbishop, [Saint] Antonio Maria Claret on February 15, 1851. His greatest challenge was and still is again in a deplorable state.

The partnership he forged with Father Claret would last for many years. Both shared royal connections, yet both were totally devoted to the love of God and to spreading his word. Both received the Order of Isabella the Catholic and both were humbled by the honor but they put the medals away. Both would go on to found religious orders, Father Claret the sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (Claretians) and Father Usera the Sisters of the Love of God. Many years later, Father Claret, by then the Royal Confessor, would accompany Queen Isabella II into exile. So would father Usera's sister Eugenia and her husband Tomas de Corral, the queen's doctor. Father Claret, as Archbishop of Santiago, fully agreed with Father Usera's assessment as to the need for rehabilitation of the church in Cuba, and named him head of the seminary in Santiago. As Father Usera would say, "with out well formed priests, it is impossible to think about the [spiritual] regeneration of the island."

Both men had an incredible respect for papal infallibility. Father Usera dared to address a public letter to Napoleon III, severely criticizing his conduct toward the Holy See. In his writing, Father Usera established, which is the true Catholic doctrine, once a doctrine is the Vicar of Christ, the great teacher of the evangelical sciences has spoken on matters of faith and custom, condemning a doctrine or an act as reprehensible and worthy of condemnation, there is no Catholic conscience which can resist the authorized and divine voice of the visible head of church, Shepherd of Shepherds and successor of Peter.

He was named Vicar General and Governor of the Archdiocese, and by Royal Decree of December 29, 1849 was appointed Penitentiary of the Holy Metropolitan Church of Santiago, Cuba. Both Father Claret and Father Usera devised a plan by which Father Usera would make a trip to Spain and press for funds for reforming the church and the Clergy, at which time he had succeeded. He organized the catechism program and personally taught catechism to the slaves. He also ministered to them physically as well, tending to their sores. He organized or revamped religious brotherhoods including one to St. Peter and another to the patroness of Cuba, the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre. He visited prisoners, finding that only one in a hundred fulfilled the duty of receiving communion at least once a year. Father Usera spoke out against slavery, and it was among those in that unfortunate state that his heart was especially touched. He was concerned that some would die even without the benefit of baptism.

By Royal Decree of June 2, 1853, Queen Isabella II named Father Usera Dean of the Cathedral of San Juan, Puerto Rico, and he took charge on December 3, 1853. He quickly traveled throughout the Island, organizing rural missions which became very popular among slave population. In 1855 there was an epidemic of Yellow Fever and Typhoid. Father Usera caught Yellow Fever and was ordered back to Spain to recover. There he enlisted six Jesuits for his seminary in Puerto Rico and to organize an elementary and secondary school.

Upon his return to Puerto Rico from Spain, Father Usera resigned to his post as Dean, and devoted his time to ministering his flock. In 1859, a pirate ship was apprehended by the Spanish authorities and found to contain hundreds of Congolese slaves. Many were feverish, had scurvy, or were lepers. Father Usera asked and received permission to establish a camp, one league from the city, where he could minister physically and spiritually to the human cargo. The local feared an epidemic, and allowed Father Usera to personally tend to the Congolese. He learned their language and healed their body and soul. Many were baptized before dying.

In 1857 he founded the Casa de Caridad y Oficios de San Ildefonso, an institute in San Juan to provide religious instruction, reading, writing and arithmetic to poor children of both sexes, vocational education to them. [In 1992 a plaque was unveiled on the walls of this building in Old San Juan. A bust of Father Usera had been suggested for San Juan Bay, but the plan was discarded due to fears of vandalism, a reflection of society we live in.]

In 1860 he met with Pope Pius IX who gave him his personal blessing for himself and for his projects. A royal decree of October 1861 authorized him to return to Spain, where he would remain until October 30, 1864. He was called again into service in Cuba. This time, by Royal Decree he was made Dean of the Catholic Church in Havana and was installed as Dean on Christmas, 1864. His indefatigable work led to his being appointed head of the Sociedad Protectora de los Ninos, which was aimed at protecting children of all races, class and social status against ignorance, abandonment, misery, disease and abuse via a solid religious formation. One of his last legacies was the founding of an academy to teach typing and book-binding, thereby providing a career for disadvantaged women. He started to design the foundations for a religious order for men, the Brothers of the Christian Doctrine. It was not to be.

There were many vignettes about father Usera's daily life in Cuba. His scant ration of food was shared with whoever came to the door. Many days he would go hungry because he gave all of the food on his plate. Meanwhile, the order which he had founded prospered and expanded, first in Spain, then in Cuba and the Indies. Even on his deathbed, he planned works, wrote down projects, and gave advisce to his spiritual daughters. He died on May 17, 1891. The newspapers reported that "he died poor, very poor, because never was there a need which knocked at his door that was not immediately succored" (Diario dela Marina, Havana, May 18, 1891.

Today Father Usera's work continues through his daughters (nuns) who live in Europe (Spain, France, Italy, and Germany),in Africa (Cape Verde, Angola and Mozambique), in North America (California and Mexico), in South America (Peru, Bolivia, Chile) and in the Indies (Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic).

On April 27, 1981, the cause for Father Usera's beatification was introduced by Bishop Eduardo Poveda Rodriquez of Zamora, Spain. In April of 1991 Father Usera's remains were order in Toro, Providence of Zamora, Spain. On May 19, 1991, a centennial mass was held on Pentecost Sunday, offered by the Papal Nuncio to Spain, Monsignor Mario Tagliaferri and dozens of concelebrants. Present were dozens of Father Usera's relatives, including many from the United States. At present, Father Usera's cause is before the proper authorities in the Vatican, who must review the record, including that of a Cuban miracle attributed to Father Usera's intercession. With that recognition, he will join the ranks of his friends and colleagues, Antonio Maria Claret and Sor Micaela Del Santisimo Sacramneto whose declaration of Sainthood has already materialized. I do know Father Mariano had to deal with the struggle in life and with his love for God, he had prevailed.

It is my sister and brothers understanding there are many Usera's living in Spain, France and Puerto Rico. We have not had the opportunity to meet or even talk with some of them. I am sure the main reason is because the distance between us.

Before I continue on about my family, here is some information about Puerto Rico. You see Puerto Rico began with the settlement of the Archipelago of Puerto Rico by the Ortoiroid people between 3000 and 2000 BC. Other tribes such as the Saladoid and Arawak indians, populated the island between 430 BC and 1000 AD. At the time Christopher Columbus arrival in the new world in 1492, the dominant indigenous culture was that of the Tainos. The Tainos culture died out during the later half of the 16th century because of the exploitation by the Spanish settlers, the war they waged on the Tainos, and diseases introduced by the invaders.

(Continues...)

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