The night of the disaster, the elder Elena was keeping her daughter company while her husband traveled in Central America. It was the kind of thing the two did all the time, as heads of a tight-knit brood.
Love characterized the two Elenas: love of education (both had been teachers); love of travel (both were world travelers); and above all, love of family.
“That was everything to them,” Rodriguez said. “They were best friends.”
The women fled their native Cuba for New York, then moved to Puerto Rico, where Chavez taught school during much of Blasser’s childhood.
In the 1970s, the family moved to Miami, where Blasser took her turn in front of the class at Miami-Dade elementary and middle schools, then becoming assistant principal at Zora Neale Hurston, Beckford/Richmond and Vineland elementary schools.