Mary McCarthy Gomez Cueto; Globe and Mail obit
Hyfler/Rosner
PHILANTHROPIST
Castro taking her fortune she understood, the U.S. embargo
of Cuba was tougher
After the revolution, Newfoundland-born woman stayed in her
Havana mansion as it decayed around her
J.M. SULLIVAN
Special to The Globe and Mail
April 16, 2009
ST. JOHN'S -- She was elegant, refined, cultured - a perfect
society hostess and an implacable symbol of protest against
the U.S. embargo of Cuba.
Mary McCarthy Gomez Cueto, the Newfoundland-born widow of a
wealthy Cuban businessman, had one fortune confiscated in
the 1959 Cuban revolution and a second cache impounded by
the 1962 U.S. trade ban on Cuba.
She forgave the former but never the latter, and her
one-woman plight became an international campaign that
finally, in 2007, caused the American stand to soften just
enough for her to withdraw $96 (U.S.) every month from a
First National Bank account in Boston. The money was
released for medical reasons.
Although Ms. McCarthy was a remarkably alert and sprightly
centenarian, she suffered a broken hip in 2002 and was in a
wheelchair. She remained a delicate yet resilient living
page of multinational political history.
She was one of two daughters born to Thomas J. McCarthy and
Ann Burke. Mr. McCarthy was a grocer with a store on Water
Street, in close proximity to the fishing fleets docked in
the harbour, a major clientele.
Ms. McCarthy's sister died very young. Left an only child,
she attended Mercy Convent, where the Sisters of Mercy ran a
strong and celebrated music program, and later attended
Littledale College. After graduating, she continued her
musical studies in Boston, studying at the Boston
Conservatory of Music and staying at St. Joseph's Convent.
In that city, she met the debonair and rich Pedro Gomez
Cueto, a Spanish entrepreneur who made his fortune
manufacturing and exporting leather goods from the U.S. to
South America, and was 15 years her senior.
"The first night I was at the opera, a very charming
gentleman came and sat next to me," Ms. McCarthy recalled in
Witness to the Revolution, a radio documentary by the CBC's
Marie Wadden. Their two-year courtship, which was often
accompanied by musical concerts, was closely supervised by
St. Joseph's Mother Superior. Then, her suitor asked to
marry her.
He father insisted that they delay the nuptials for a year,
saying: "I want her to make her mind up well. She will be
leaving us, so I want her to be sure," Ms. McCarthy said.
She returned to St. John's and taught music at Littledale
College for that year. But the romance endured; it was meant
to be. Ms. McCarthy and Mr. Gomez Cueto were married in
1923.
Their tentative plans to reside in Boston were superseded by
Mr. Gomez Cueto's lucrative business interests in Cuba,
supplying military boots to the American forces, and they
settled there.
Their marriage was romantic, harmonious and affluent. Mr.
Gomez Cueto built a white mansion for his wife, and
outfitted it with chandeliers, Napoleon III furniture, a
Steinway grand piano and peacocks. Cuba was a playground;
Frank Sinatra was a neighbour. The Tropicana was the best
nightclub in the world, and Ms. McCarthy could vividly
recall performances there with great delight decades later.
She also fulfilled the responsibilities of a prosperous,
cultivated society woman - entertaining, hosting musical
evenings and founding a musical society that brought in such
luminaries as conductor Sir Thomas Beecham. She helped to
establish both the Havana Philharmonic Orchestra and an
orphanage called Boys Town.
In St. John's, her philanthropy included building an outdoor
swimming pool for the Belvedere Orphanage.
In 1950, Mr. Gomez Cueto was diagnosed with leukemia and
died. They had no children, and she inherited his fortune,
about $4-million. Some was invested in Cuba and some banked
in Boston. Mr. Gomez Cueto appeared to be a far-seeing
businessman who wanted to maximize his wife's financial
options. Her comfortable life continued in Havana; she gave
no thought to returning to St. John's or remarrying.
On New Year's Day, 1959, president Fulgencio Batista was
informed that Fidel Castro was in Havana, and fled. The
Cuban revolution was at hand.
Ms. McCarthy's Cuban assets were seized, and she was
allotted a monthly pension of 200 pesos - about $12.
It was a time of upheaval and flight, but Ms. McCarthy never
considered leaving her adopted home. "I wasn't a bit
frightened," she said. Castro had promised the Cuban people
that they would not lose their homes, and she believed him.
She remained in her mansion, which decayed around her.
She could see that the revolution had drained much of the
fun, and certainly all the frivolity, from Havana. Yet she
admired Mr. Castro and was resigned to her vanished riches.
"He's a great friend of the poor, you know," she said.
"Everything I lost was properly used. There was better
education, more housing, and no more children in the street
begging or anything like that."
(Mr. Castro himself used to greet her at the annual Canadian
embassy party by saying: "I know your face, I know your
face - but I don't remember who you are.")
The American freeze on her assets in Boston was another
story as far as Ms. McCarthy was concerned. The U.S.
government was wrong to take what was hers, she felt,
because it did it only as part of an over-emotional response
to Mr. Castro. To the end of her life, she hoped to see the
embargo lifted. "That way we'd get on our feet."
Ms. McCarthy continued to visit St. John's, where she had
many friends and her beloved former teachers though no
family. In earlier years, she gave performances, still
remembered for her style and talent; more recently, a
special 100th birthday party was held for her at Memorial
University of Newfoundland (and she outlasted younger
partygoers).
But she wouldn't consider moving back to St. John's,
exchanging Havana's climate for the North Atlantic winters.
Besides, she said, "nobody [in Havana] has ever been
unpleasant to me. Everyone has been kind to me."
In Havana, she lived frugally and taught music until she was
100. She remained an engaged and polished figure, always
described as wearing a satin dress, chiffon scarf, lipstick
and pearls. A devout Catholic, she said a rosary to the
Virgin of Charity, Cuba's patron saint, after tea every
afternoon.
She did say once that it took some time to reconcile herself
to the drastic change in her life wrought by the Cuban
revolution; that it was, perhaps, a defining spiritual
struggle. Possibly this was why she sometimes said she hoped
to outlive Mr. Castro.
Mary Gomez Cueto
Mary McCarthy Gomez Cueto was born on April 27, 1900, in St.
John's, and died on April 3, 2009, in Havana. She was 108.
She was predeceased by her husband, Pedro Gomez Cueto, who
died in 1950.