Under the dictatorial regime of Juan Vicente Gomez lives Teresa Torres Bello, a single mom. Her own mother Dionisia Bello had arranged for her lover’s (Don Juancho) murder, he was stabbed to death in the year 1935, considering he had gained too much power, and she feared that he would overthrow his brother, Juan Vicente himself who happeneed to also be Dionisia’s lover. So, Teresa was left alone and betrayed with her young son Gustavo Gomez Torres of merely eight years of age; alone is how she moved far away from her home and all this mess in Caracas to a town in the mountains of Tachira, Rubio. There she was hit with the dreadful news: her beloved aunt Trina Bello who was a great part of most of her few good childhood memories had died due to sickness.
Trina lived in the island of Margarita as she was rescued by General Pedro Alcantara from a tormenting episode with Teresa’s brother, her nephew Luis Felipe Torres Bello, of which her first child Edilia was born.
Even thought Teresa had never met her uncle before, and moved by the love she had for Trina, she decides to write him a letter offering her condolences. The letter turns out so alluringly beautiful that he rapidly falls in love and writes back. The letters go back and forth for a year as their love flourishes sentence by sentence. With every letter he is hocked by her charm; that is how Teresa finally chanced upon her soul mate: through mail. Among the lasts letters was a marriage certificate that they both signed.
As a result she moves to Margarita Island, with her now ten year old son, to meet her husband for the first time and to raise Edilia and her half sister Elda who was the fruit of Pedro's marriage to Trina. Then they go on to have six lovely kids together (Maria, Guillermo, Pedro, Alice, Alberto, and Homero). Pedro was a military man; he ran his house as he did his troops. With an overflow of order and propriety, he demanded that his kids were well dressed at all times and discouraged any time of conversation at the table. While Teresa was immensely kind, she dedicated the rest of her life to help the sick in her new home town, and in more than one occasion when her daughters Alice and Maria were missing some of their favorite clothes, Teresa had donated it to the poor insisting that they already had too much and others needed it more than they did.
I was introduced to this story by: Maria Margarita Leal Protzel
Married to Harry Michael
Born in Fort Benning, Georgia March 27, 51
Lives in Weston, Florida
Common ancestor: Teresa Torres Bello
Alberto Jose, one of the six Leal Torres kids became a military man as his father, and posted to Peru, married a local girl named Lita, and had a daughter named Margarita Leal; and Teresa's eldest son (the one she had before her marriage) is my great-grandfather.
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