The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
When your ship comes in...
Zully and Jose Tey maintain a love over fifty years strong
Zully was a high schooler in her native Venezuela when she accompanied her sister to purchase a pair of blue jeans in 1966.
At the same time, Cuban immigrant Jose Tey was serving on cruise ship, the S. S. San Andre, as an electrician.
Neither knew it at the time, but in a matter of hours the two would fall into a love that would continue for over half a century.
The sisters learned of an American ocean cruiser that was making port in her country for the weekend. It was rumored to have a number of American goods that the crew might be willing to sell.
It was there that Jose first saw Zully and immediately tried winning her favor, doing whatever he could to prolong their first encounter. He took the sisters on an elaborate tour of the entire ship and made them lunch, but Zully kept a cold shoulder in his direction.
Jose laughs, looking back.
“Keep a smile on your face. Never go to bed angry.” — Jose Tey
“At the time, she didn’t even want to get close to me,” he said.
“I took a while because it wasn’t in my mind to meet anybody,” Zully admits while sitting next to her husband in the Painesville house they’ve shared since 1973. “I just went because I had to go with my sister.”
When she refused the sandwich he made her, he teased that she was far too skinny to refuse. Zully had enough of Jose’s playful teasing and was about to lay into this brash but playful stranger.
“That’s when I looked at him and saw the most beautiful blue eyes I had ever seen,” she recalled.
The two fell for each other in short order but would only be able to see each other once every other weekend when his ship came to port. The space between was filled with letters penned from a sudden, profound love.
“I was crazy about that woman,” Jose says.
When the cruise ship’s contract with Venezuela ended, Jose lost his means to Zully’s doorstep. He found work in New York for a parts manufacturer, and the two kept in contact as best they could but the year apart proved too much to bear.
With her uncle serving as Jose’s representative while he was in America, Zully wed Jose in Venezuela’s American embassy on April 17, 1968. Now a lawful American citizen, Zully was able to reunite with her love.
This would prove only half the battle.
“It was very scary,” Zully recalls the profound culture shock upon first leaving her native country.
“I didn’t understand anything,” she said. “I wanted to get married, but I didn’t know how to speak the language, or know how long I was going to be there or when I would see my mother again.
“I cried every night wondering should I stay here or go to him but I wanted so much to be with him,” she added. “It was a hard decision for me, but I cannot live without him. I had to come here.”
It was no easier for Jose who was then working seven days a week.
“It was hard for me knowing she was alone in an apartment,” he said. “When I was working, I would think ‘how’s she doing now?’ I keep that in my mind and didn’t even know what to do with myself.”
The pair spent the next six years growing as a married couple and acclimating to New York before Jose’s plant closed. He was offered work in Ohio and made the 16hour commute back to New York every weekend until they were able to finalize their move to Painesville in 1973.
Zully remembers her first impressions of Ohio.
“Everything was different,” she said. “There were no noises around like in New York. Everything was quiet, I liked that. There was vegetation, trees, animals everywhere.”
Mindful to the alienating effect immigration held, Zully made friends with any other immigrants she found.
She recounts befriending a woman from Jerusalem who was just as new to America. While neither spoke the other’s native tongue, they shared enough rudimentary English to trade recipes, learn about each other’s cultures, and become friends.
Their daughter Vanessa is one of the couple’s five children. She remembers the time fondly.
“As a little kid, I remember coming home with the house full of these smells from all over the world,” the daughter said.
To this day, they are driven to offer aid to immigrants however possible — from teaching English as a second language to providing transportation to immigration offices.
“My parents taught us a lot about loyalty, that your family comes first,” Vanessa said. “When they open their home to other people and try to help other people get acclimated it was always in the context of helping other families, too. It’s always been family first.”
The couple just celebrated 50 years of marriage this past April. The event was recognized by the City of Painesville which presented an official proclamation in their honor. Because Jose wasn’t able to actually be with own bride on their original wedding day, their children turned the day into a celebration of their years together.
Their love is a testament to the pair’s simple philosophy on the matter.
“Keep a smile on your face. Never go to bed angry,” Jose said.
Zully cups her husband’s hand as they finish their story and adds with a smile, “If you are in love, really in love, then that will last forever. Not because it’s convenient, but because when you are in love, you don’t need anything else.”