Piedad Luisa Figueredo and Amado Parra

[her parents]                         [his parents]

Piedad Luisa Figueredo was born on July 31, 1895.¹  Her parents had moved to Havana some time after they married in Key West in 1881, and, while there, Piedad fell in love with a French Canadian from a prominent family with business interests in Cuba. ⁵  They planned to marry and Piedad converted to Catholicism. ⁵  The marriage was never realized, but Piedad remained a devout Catholic for the rest of her life.⁵

On July 7, 1922,⁵ in Key West,⁵ she married Amado Parra,⁵ who was born on August 6, 1898,² in Tampa, FL,² one of 12 children of Juan Parra and Marcelina Cárdenas.⁵  Amado’s parents came from Cuba to the US, between April 1888, and December 1891, ^? and moved from Tampa to Key West in about 1900,³,⁵ where, in the family tradition, Amado became an excellent judge of tobacco leaf and a skilled cigar maker.⁵  As a young man, he lived and worked in many of the larger cities of the United States, rolling and selling his hand-made cigars.⁵  At one time he had, in Key West, his own brand of cigar and Albert Parra clearly recalls the sign which read “A. Parra & Son.” ⁵

In the 1920s and 30s the shift to cheaper, machine made, cigars all but destroyed the hand-rolled cigar business and, following the stock market crash in 1929, and the depression that followed, life in the Florida Keys became very difficult.⁵  The governor of Florida ordered the inhabitants of the Keys to evacuate since the State of Florida could no longer provide basic services such as police and fire protection, schools, and hospitals.⁵  Amado and Piedad decided to stay and Piedad, a superior seamstress, found work at the Sewing Factory, a WPA [Work Projects Administration] facility, where she supervised perhaps a hundred women engaged in making clothing.⁵  In 1939, Amado began working at the US Navy Yard until he retired in the early 1960s.⁵

Albert Parra wrote of his father: “Also he loved marbles and kites.⁵  Over the years he accumulated a notable collection of marbles, some of which were quite old and rare.⁵  As for kites, he gained a measure of local fame for the color, design, and variety of the thousands of kites he made, a number of newspaper and Sunday magazine articles featuring him, the Kite King of Key West.⁵  Growing up, I don’t know how many times I’d answer a knock at the door, some child (black or white, small or big, speaking Spanish or English, coin in hand) come to buy a kite.⁵  Amado made special kites that represented flags of various nations, kites that he could claim were the smallest or largest, box kites, spider kites, snake kites, etc.; but the constant they all had in common was that they must fly well.⁵  One of his favorite pastimes was to take several of his kites to the beach where there’d be a good breeze off the ocean and fly them for his pleasure and the delight of tourists and sunbathers.”⁵

Amado died on November 14, 1975,⁴,⁵ in Key West,⁵ after being taken ill in the family home at 1103 Olivia Street,⁵,⁶ and is buried in the Figueredo family plot in Key West Cemetery.⁵  Piedad died on April 12, 1989,⁵ in Ocala, FL where she spent her last years in the home of her son, Albert.⁵

#  Child of Piedad Figueredo and Amado Parra:

i               Albert Parra    [private]

____________________

¹  Footnote: The SSDI says that Piedad was born on July 31, 1893.  Albert Parra’s chart says 1897.

²  Source: Amado’s Social Security application dated Dec 27, 1939.  The 1900 US Census gives his date of birth as August 1896.

³  Footnote: They were in Key West early enough to be counted in the US census of 1900.

⁴  Footnote: Roberto Giraldo wrote that Amado’s headstone said that he died on November 13, 1975

⁵  Source: letter - Albert Parra - June 19, 2000

⁶  Footnote: Amado’s Social Security application gives his address, as of Dec 27, 1939, as 1103 Angela Street.