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Ramón Segundo Rafael Vidal 1888-1975
Rafael Vidal y Vélez was born on May 18, 1887 -"el año terrible del 87" (the terrible year of 87] in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico. He was the son of José Vidal Lacomba and Emma Vélez y de Vialis. The name his parents had chosen for him was Ramón Segundo, but on the babtismal fountain his god-mother, Carmen Cámara, refused to christen him with such name. She chose as his third name Rafael. He was known as Rafael all his life.
Rafael had unusual opportunities in education. When Eugenio María de Hostos came to Puerto Rico in 1898 he began the first kindergarten along with his brother Bayoán de Hostos. My grandfather was one of the lucky children to attend such an institution. De Hostos was imbued with the ideas of Gregor Friederich Kraus, a German Philosopher, whose basic philosophy of communion with nature greatly influenced the education of Spain, firs to Francisco Giner de los Rios and the with the Instituto de Libre Enseñanza. Hostos had been a disciple of Giner and he believed that learning had to be closely associated with the observation of nature and rigorous hiking and exercise. The small kindergarten in Mayagüez could offer only calisthenics and hikes, but the last was one of the things that my grandfather kept throughout his life. Hiking, camping and observing nature were pivotal in the way my grandfather looked at life.
For prep-school he attended one of the second tier New England prep-schools, Willberham Academy, and spent three years studying chemical engeneering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. He never finished the degree, but the most likely reason was that the family finally lost everything.
This story requires some explanation. Rafael and his siter María became the sole heirs of the considerable fortune of Juan de Vialis. He had disinherited Rafael's grandmother Julia, but eventually, due to the fact that Don Juan's heirs died childless, the money and many of the things, came to the grandchildren of Julia. So, my grandfather at age ten went from poverty to incredible wealth. His guardians were doña Barbarita Vélez and her husband Pepe Martínez. Pepe was also a friend of the Vidal family because he came from Hatillo. They proceeded to invest the money of their nephew and niece and their own in all sort of get rich schemes, while they dotted on the children: sending them away to fancy prepshools and ordering for María clothing from Paris. In less than ten years the money was gone along with La Palmira and Las Termopilas, two large sugar cane plantations.
Luis Lassise
Luis Lassies was left an orphan at the age of 14. He supported himself, an elderly aunt (Amelie) and his younger brother Alfredo by giving French lessons. Eventually, he opened a store with a member of the Filippi family, who absconded with the funds and returned to Germany, Later on he opened another store. It was located in front of the main square in Mayagüez. The warehouse of this store was in the street right behind, that later became Gonzalez Padín. He owned both buildings and there were still there the last time I went to the central part of the town in 1993. It was in the building that housed his ware house that the family spent the night when the coming of the American troops was imminent. He was pro-American and was one of the founders in Mayagüez of the Republican Party. He served as a member of one of the earliest school boards of the town. Luis Lassise was the secretary and his youngest daughter Maria Antonieta used to serve as his scribe and copy over, in a very neat and readable hand writing the copies of the minutes.
An interesting thing about Luis was the fact that he knew a variety of languages that allowed him to shop for his goods in Europe himself, thus avoiding the middle man. He used to make regular trips to France and Spain (I believe England too) to supply his store. He died in 1911 as a result of a fall from a horse. He had send his regular horse to be shoed and borrowed a horse from the blacksmith to do some errands in the section of Mayagüez, known as "La Playa." He fell and hit his head against the trolley rails in that used to go up and down Calle Mendez Vigo. The exact location was in front of the house of the Falbe family, in whose house he died.