Rolando Hernandez July 24, 1937 - May 4, 2024
Melbourne, Florida Rolando Simon Hernandez passed away on May 4, 2024 at the age of 86, with his three sons and family and friends by his side. He was a man of immense spirit and character who used every bit of his God-given strength at six foot four and two hundred and twenty pounds to survive and triumph over a lifetime of toil, hardship, and sacrifice. He gave all to his family, which was the center of his life, and fulfilled his dying wish, expressed when he nearly died forty years ago from kidney cancer, to live long enough to see his three sons mature into adulthood.
He was born on July 24, 1937 in Limonar, Cuba, the second of three sons to Pedro Hernandez Suarez from the Canary Islands, Spain and Juana Padron Amador from Limonar. Throughout his childhood, he endured abject poverty, and following his parent’s divorce, he spent the majority of his youth “imprisoned” in the draconian Casa de Beneficencia de Matanzas, an asylum for poor and orphaned children. After a carefully-planned, clandestine escape from the asylum, he enlisted in the Cuban army the following year at age 16.
His joy in the stability of military service was short lived. Civil war erupted, and he was sent to the Sierra Maestra mountains to fight a war of attrition against the guerrilla forces of Fidel Castro. Witnessing the deaths of companions and facing countless dangers, he managed to survive the Cuban Revolution and, after the dissolution of the army in 1959, he simply returned home. Blacklisted and earmarked for exile after the war, he was unable to gain employment. In 1961, during the Bay of Pigs invasion, he was arrested by the Communist regime and placed first in a stadium and then in a chicken-coup in the countryside to be executed, in the event of an American victory. Packed like sardines for several days, they were released when the guards opened the enclosure after the rout, and he walked home again.
It was during these difficult years after the war that he met and fell in love with Daisy Susana Herrero Sanchez, who would become his wife of 48 years. They married on December 14, 1963 and had their first son, Rolando Eloy Hernandez, on December 1, 1965. They were granted political asylum in the United States and, forced to leave their belongings behind, departed the island in 1968 in the “Freedom Flights” that brought Cubans to Miami. He described a feeling of complete elation at the moment the aircraft left the tarmac, as if he “escaped a great conflagration,” in view of the Communist hysteria pervading the country.
Upon arriving in Miami, the young family was met by the Catholic Church which offered assistance. With the support of his sister-in-law, Bertha and her husband Miguel Mederos, they moved to Los Angeles, California. Shortly thereafter, he began working at the Ben Franklin Company as a stockman. His second son, William Hernandez, was born on August 21, 1969 and his third son, David Ray Hernandez, on August 20, 1974. Though these years were a hard grind, as he found his footing in a foreign land, they were productive and blissful beyond his wildest expectations.
Purchasing their first home in Maywood, California, Rolando and Daisy toiled ceaselessly to provide a better life for their three sons, including covering the expense of private Catholic school tuition since elementary school. In 1977, he received the devastating report from his doctor that he had a malignant tumor in his kidney, which had to be removed. Losing his job and bedridden for months after the surgery, against all odds, he survived and miraculously made a complete recovery. He then worked the nightshift at a factory of Kerns, a company which produced canned beverages. For years, after arriving home from a long night of hard work, he would duly prepare Cuban sandwiches and wait outside the chain-linked fence of St. Rose of Lima Elementary School at noon to deliver warm lunches to his two youngest sons, William and David.
Moving to Miami in 1988, he worked at Discount Auto Parts until his retirement in 2002. A lifelong smoker, he survived prostate cancer in the 1990s and Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2017. Throughout all these years, one would find him continuously working, usually outdoors, on the house, cars, and other handson projects. He was never idle.
The last years of his life were extremely difficult, as he faced various ailments including diabetes and a debilitating stroke in 2022. Due to declining health, he moved to Melbourne, Florida, in 2020 to be under the care of his son William, who selflessly devoted the greater part of his life to his father’s care. Every step of the way, William was there for his father when he needed him most. Among Rolando’s greatest joys was witnessing his son Rolando become a successful executive in labor relations, his son William attain the rank of Captain at Southwest Airlines, and his son David become a tenured professor of Classical Archaeology at the University of Notre Dame.
Rolando is deeply missed by his family, friends, and all who were fortunate to know him. Tenaciously opposed to Communism and totalitarianism, he was a man of deep moral convictions who believed in political freedom and the founding principles of the United States, a country to which he is eternally grateful for saving him from oppression and providing the opportunity for a better life for himself, his children, and his family. Toward the end of his life, he found solace in the motto la libertad avanza (freedom advances).
He is survived by his three sons, their mother and their families: Rolando Eloy Hernandez of Juno Beach, Florida, son Rolando Gabriel Hernandez of Irvine, California, William and Nerelis Hernandez of Melbourne, Florida, and David and Julie Hernandez, daughters Odessa Ruby and Viosa Havana Hernandez of Granger, Indiana, Daisy Hernandez of Miami, Florida, and his younger brother Armando Hernandez of Miami, Florida, in addition to nieces and nephews.
A memorial will be held at Caballero Rivero Woodlawn South Cemetery (11655 sw 117th Ave. Miami, Fl. 33186; phone: 305-2383672) on May 14, 2024 from 4 pm to midnight, with a prayer service at 7:30 pm, followed by burial on May 15 at 10:30 am.