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A Just Tribute

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By DAHLIA ALFONSO, Special to the Tribune

Published: December 4, 2007

RIVERVIEW - This is a story about my father, Justo P. Sosa, who was born in 1886. He and my mother, Amparo, had 10 children. I was their sixth child.

"Mama" was what my siblings and I called our mother. We all called our father "Justo," his first name.

Justo came to the United States as a young boy when he and his family emigrated from Cuba. They sailed to Ellis Island in New York City and then moved to Tampa.

He grew up to have many jobs. He was a farmer, who started farming in Valrico with a mule and a plow. One crop he raised was peanuts. When the cigar factories couldn't get tobacco from Cuba, he grew tobacco. They did not believe he could do it, but he did.

At one time, Justo was a lector in the cigar factories, too. He read newspapers and books to the workers as they made cigars. He became one of the best because he could translate English into Spanish.

Justo also worked as a carpenter and built a house that is still standing in Ybor City.

He got an offer to be a caretaker in the old Sanatorio del Centro Asturiano hospital in exchange for our family being allowed to live there. I was a small child at the time. Justo was asked to watch for vandalism in exchange for the free rent. The old hospital was in bad shape, and a new one was being built. He was told other families without jobs could stay at the hospital, too, as long as they took care of the building.

When I was 6, we moved to north Ybor City to take care of Mr. Lara's property and home. Mr. Lara was a family friend and had to move to New York City to find a job, which many people were doing then to survive.

After President Franklin Roosevelt was elected and started the Works Progress Administration, Justo worked for it. I don't recall what he did but do remember the vegetable garden and chickens he tended after work.

Justo had made a huge incubator and managed to hatch hundreds of chicks. My siblings and I really enjoyed those chickens but weren't allowed to touch them. We had permission, though, to watch through the window. Justo sold chickens throughout our neighborhood; our family ate the eggs.

He did odd jobs for my grandfather Federico Valdes, who was my mother's father and the administrator of the Bien Publico Clinic, a free medical clinic in Ybor City. On Sundays, Justo and my grandfather played chess to relax.

My father believed in education and wanted all of us to attend school. He liked to read our textbooks, and he wrote letters to The Tampa Morning Tribune defending the workers.

His health was not too good - he developed emphysema - but he managed to be a good father to his family. He never abused his children; he talked to us if we misbehaved.

In 1943, we lost my father, when he died at age 57.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dahlia Alfonso, 82, grew up in Ybor City. She enjoys writing poetry and stories. She and her husband, Louis, live in Riverview and have been married for 65 years. They have a daughter, two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Do You Have A Story To Tell?

I Remember It Well is a feature of the Prime Time page. Send entries via e-mail to shemmingway @tampatrib.com or in typewritten form to Susan Hemmingway, The Tampa Tribune, P.O Box 191, Tampa FL 33601. Submissions cannot be returned. Be sure to include a contact phone number.

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