Dolores Gonzalez

Dolores María González Peláez passed away peacefully, surrounded by her family, on July 15, 2018. Dolores was born in Mantua, Cuba, on August 1934, the daughter of Angela Valdez Castro and Manuel Peláez Lopez, who was the sole teacher at the community’s only school. Dolores was the second of five children born to her parents, including her three sisters, Rosaura, Milagros, and Esperanza, and one brother, Manuel.

Raised in a family that valued education, she dreamed of pursuing a career in nursing. In 1958 she met and married Gonzálo Emilio González, from Pinar del Rio, and moved with him to Havana. In 1960 their first child, José Emilio González, was born in that city, and in 1965 their second child, Angela Nieves González, arrived. The family left Cuba for the United States in 1968 in search of freedom, self-determination and a better life for their children. They settled in Ossining, NY, where Dolores completed her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry, NY and began working as a teacher. In 1997 she retired after a 25-year career as an educator, and moved with her husband to Weston, FL.

She is survived by her husband of 60 years, Gonzálo, her brother Manuel and sister-in-law Mari, her son José and daughter Angela, her son-in-law Robert Ritger and daughter-in-law Elizabeth Wiegard, her grandchildren Desmond González, Cary González, Emma González, Roberto Ritger and Rosaura Ritger, her niece Miladys Perez, nephew José Luis Peláez and his wife Olga Zambrana, grandnephew Manuel Peláez and grandnieces Olivia Peláez, Sofía Jimenez and Elyssa Jimenez in the U.S. She is survived by her sister Esperanza and other family in Cuba.

She was a mother to her students, a sister to her friends, and love incarnate to her family. To everyone else who knew her, she was a pure blessing.

In lieu of flowers the Family requests a donation in her name to the Alzheimer’s Association, www.alz.org.