VOLUME TWENTY FOUR, NUMBER SEVEN
JULY 2010
Beginning a new life Michelle Osborn, a Haverford resident expected to move to Beaumont shortly, cuts the ribbon at a Marketing staff ceremony celebrating closing on her new apartment last month. Ribbon and champagne are part of Beaumont’s red-carpet treatment for increasing numbers of new arrivals. More about Mrs. Osborn in our next (October) issue, when we welcome residents who have bought or moved in over the last few months. Photo by Louise Hughes
Cuba: So well remembered, so sadly changed By Giuliana Calabi As a young child and through my high-school years, I lived in Cuba with my parents and older brother. We arrived in Havana after a difficult trip by train from Italy through France and Spain, then by passenger ship, the last one to leave from Bilbao in August of 1941, during the beginning years of World War II. I could feel my parents’ relief upon arrival in Havana. They would be able to send me to school with other children, and my father could find a job. A permanently blue sky, luscious gardens and beautiful architecture would be ours to enjoy. We settled in Havana, where the local population was, at the time, a mixture of the descendants of the indigenous people with later arrivals, Spanish, British and French, explorers and pirates. The good weather and relaxed atmosphere, the riches of the island plus
the addition of European immigrants so eager to provide for their families, all created a thriving and rich economy. The United States helped sugar cane and other agricultural industries prosper, and offered the island, a strategic port, some protection. All of us spent the years of WWII in relative peace. Unfortunately, beginning with the time of Columbus, a series of conquistadors of all nationalities, attracted by Cuba’s riches, succeeded in almost exterminating the native population, both by massacre and by the continued on page 7
INSIDE: Introducing 3 new committee chairmen, Page 2 Find out what’s growing in Nalle Gardens, Page 3 Casino Night photo page, Page 8