From the age of eleven, Dr. Secundino Rubio knew that he wanted to become a physician.  Industrious from the age of six years, he allowed nothing to stand in the way of his dreams.  He succeeded, and his life with his wife and young children on the beautiful island of Cuba was all any man could desire…until Fidel Castro and his band of guerilla soldiers took control.

With sheer determination, Dr. Rubio managed to follow his wife and four small children, one only a baby, from Cuba to Florida.  Like many other Cubans, he gave up every thing he had worked for to obtain safety and freedom. Dr. Rubio is a man who has always lived according to what he purposes in his heart.  “I have never been one to look back,” he says.  “I have always set my mind to a course and then followed it to the best of my ability.”

The memoirs of Dr. Secundino Rubio chronicle his life in Cuba, where he lived during the first thirty-nine years of his life.  It continues to South Central Illinois, his home for most of the years since he fled Communist Cuba.  His is a story of hard work and courage, of extended family devotion, of love and laughter, interrupted by violence, imprisonment and terror.  The pages of WITHOUT A QUARTER IN MY POCKET are filled with stories and photographs of real people, some dating back to the nineteenth century.  It is a testimony to one man’s spirit, faith and belief that he could do what needed to be done, and do it well.

For fifteen years Barbara Elliott Carpenter was a member of the Cedarhurst Writer's Roundtable, an affiliate of the Cedarhurst Museum in Mt. Vernon IL.  She has taken numerous college composition and writing classes, and her works appear in national magazines and anthologies, such as the Chicken Soup For the Soul books. Her stories and poems have received monetary and literary awards. In 2007 she completed the final book of the Starlight Trilogy, a family saga that stretches from post World War II to present day.  Her latest book, Without a Quarter in My Pocket, The Memoirs of Dr. Secundino Rubio, was released in September, 2008.  Carpenter is currently working on a mainstream novel, Winterkill; and she has three other novels in progress.

There is nothing unusual about being born. The process of birth is ordinary, a culmination of conception and gestation for a preordained period of time.  What makes each birth unique is the result: a miraculous combination of cells, chromosomes, genes, DNA, a mish-mash of genetic material that forms a complex creature called a human being.

            By whatever ordination or design, I was the first of this wonderful process born to my parents, Emilio Antonio Rubio Zarabozo and María Luisa Garcés Peña, on January 23, 1922.  Their second child was my sister, Guillermina, followed by my brothers, Emilio and Luis.

            For every unforeseen turn of events, joyful or tragic, humorous or sad, dangerous or benign, I am grateful for where and when my life began.  My paths have been many, and sometimes they became convoluted.  There were months, even years, when uncertainties could have caused me to despair; and perhaps I did at moments.  During the busy, rewarding first half of my life, it was impossible to imagine the twists and turns that awaited my family and me in the second half.

An old song, popular in America during the mid-twentieth century, could be applied to my life. “Look For the Silver Lining,” says the song.   The clouds of dread, uncertainty and violent death that overshadowed the island of Cuba became progressively worse than any named or unnamed hurricane.  It seemed impossible, then, to see anything of hope or a promise of better times to come.  However, when the luminous linings behind those black clouds appeared, I discovered that the silver was sterling, shiny and alive with reflections of wondrous things. 

My name is Secundino Eduardo Rubio Garcés, and this is my story.