‘They were soul mates’ who fled Cuba and died in Surfside
He was a Cuban engineering student and she was a Slovak-Czech geology student. They met while studying at the Technical University of Kosiče in the former Czechoslovakia during the 1960s. Their connection was immediate.
“They were soul mates,” their daughter, Marixa Fusco, told the Miami
Herald. Simple as that. Within six months, they were married.
Gonzalo, 81, and Maria Torre, 76, were among the 98 people who died in the partial collapse of the Champlain Towers South condo tower in Surfside on June 24. Gonzalo’s body was recovered July 2 and Maria’s was recovered July 8.
The couple had big dreams for their future, Fusco said. But Gonzalo and Maria had even bigger dreams for their young family. They wanted to give their children every opportunity that they’d never had growing up.
“My parents were optimists,” she said. “They asked for nothing but they gave everything.”
After college, the couple moved to Cuba with their infant son, Eman. There, they welcomed a baby girl, Dariana. But Fusco said her father was not happy living under Cuba’s Communist regime.
So in 1968 — with two babies and despite not knowing any English — the couple moved their young family to Halifax, a city in Nova Scotia, Canada. There, they were granted asylum as Czech citizens. Their third child, Marixa, was born a couple of years after their arrival.
With only $100 in their pockets, two small mouths to feed and no safety net, the couple embarked on a mission to build a future for their growing family. Maria worked as a librarian, while Gonzalo earned his master’s degree in metallurgical engineering. To make ends meet, he worked as a janitor at the university where he studied.
“They believed in working hard and not expecting anything to be given to them,” Fusco told the Herald. Everything they built for their family, she said, they achieved through sacrifice and perseverance.
But in spite of their schedules, they never lost their kind, generous nature, nor their love for each other, she said.
“My father would say my mom was the most honorable and honest person he ever knew,” Fusco said. “And my mother would always say that my dad had the Midas touch. All he touched turned to gold.”
For several years, the Torre family lived happily in Canada. But in 1974, Gonzalo’s job took the family to Venezuela.
Bilingual engineers were in high demand, and — spurred by the country’s booming economy at the time — Gonzalo was able to get a lucrative, highpaying job as an engineer while Maria worked as a schoolteacher. Thanks to cheap petroleum and mineral prices, Fusco said, her father’s work prospered.
With their new income, Maria and Gonzalo would eventually buy their ninthfloor condo in Champlain Towers South in the early 1980s. In 1984, they permanently relocated the family to South Florida.
“They were absolutely a dynamic duo,” Fusco told the Herald — a nickname that her children came up with for their grandparents. They started from nothing but managed to make a very good living for themselves and their family, she said. In life and in everything else, they were a team.
“Fifty six-plus years together. They were my parents, my best friends, my everything,” Fusco said. “They will always be missed, but I know that they are with us every day.”