Chapter 1
SWIRLING WINDS OF CHANGE
April 1934.
The political climate of Spain was chaotic. In the elections seven months earlier, the
ruling Left had been rejected in favor of the Right. Ignoring the will of the people,
President Alcalá-Zamora bypassed Gil Robles, leader of the Right, and gave the
government to Alejandro Lerroux, a Left-of-Center radical who once had this advice for
his followers, according to Luis Bolín in his book, Spain: Vital Years: “Pillage and sack
this decadent civilization, destroy its churches and its gods; raise the veils worn by nuns
and make mothers of them. Burn all title-deeds to private property and elevate the
proletariat to judicial rank! Do not hesitate before sepulchers and altars! Fight! Kill!
Die!!!”
It was in this turbulent national environment that Roger Fernández was born on a cold but
bright April 26 in the small mountain village of Salas de los Barrios, in the region of El
Bierzo where man and nature coexist in harmony. With a delightful blending of fruitful
valleys, picturesque landscapes of luxuriant growth and numerous hills crowned with
vineyards or mountains of coal, El Bierzo is a zone of spectacular sights, idyllic living
and opportunity to wealth. Its rivers Boeza, Cúa, Burbia, Sil, Valcarce, Selmo and
Valdueza snake through the valleys bringing copious fertility and lush vegetation to an
other-wise-barren land. Its capital, the ancient templar city of Ponferrada, projects hope
with its economic vitality, and life with its festive and alluring customs. Located halfway
between Madrid and La Coruña, the northwestern tip of Spain, El Bierzo became a most
welcome and hospitable place of rest for pilgrims on their way to Santiago de
Compostela during the Middle Ages.
ANCESTRAL BACKGROUND
Being from a tiny, forsaken village was not an obstacle for Roger, but a challenge to
success. He was the only one from Salas de los Barrios who left home and went
thousands of miles away to study in foreign lands. In his adult life, he would live and
work in three continents and would shake hands with some of the world’s notable and
powerful.
On that April of 1934, however, Roger Fernández became the fifth child of a family that
would eventually number eight children, four boys and four girls. Since 1931, the
Fernández family, like the other sixty-or-so families of Salas, had been anguished and
terrorized by national waves of crime, mass imprisonments, ceaseless persecution of the
Church, hunger, hatred, blood and tears.
