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.
He was a mechanical engineer who later worked for consulting companies, the newspaper said.
The couple owned several properties together, including a cosmetics store in Miami, his daughter told the Daily Beast. He had a son and a daughter, while Beatriz Guerra, known as Betty, had two sons, the story said.
Betty Guerra spent much of her life working for the Avon cosmetics company. She had also been a math teacher at G. Holmes Braddock Senior High in western Miami-Dade County.
A Facebook group for alumni posted a yearbook entry for Betty Guerra, who was then known as Ms. Anton, in which she spoke of how much she liked teaching math.
As death toll climbs to 94 in Surfside collapse, identifying victims becomes harder msn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from msn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Death toll in Surfside, Florida condo tower collapse rises to 94
The number of confirmed dead from the Champlain Towers South building collapse in Surfside, Florida, increased to 94 on Monday as officials said that the remains of four more people were recovered from the debris. The list of unaccounted-for individuals now stands at 22.
A woman walks past a makeshift memorial for the victims of the Champlain Towers South building collapse, on Monday, July 12, 2021, in Surfside, Fla. [Credit: AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell]
In a morning press briefing, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said 83 of these victims had been identified and, of those, 80 families have been notified. Levine Cava also said that the grim task of identifying those who were crushed to death on June 24, when the mostly concrete 12-story seaside condominium pancaked in the early morning hours as residents lay in bed, is growing more difficult the deeper the crews dig into the rubble.
Mary Beatriz Guerra, 54, of Hudson County, worked at Andover Subacute and Rehab Center in Sussex County before she became ill with coronavirus and died last year, according to a lawsuit.