Dolores Salvador de Lafuente

Dolores Salvador de Lafuente was a Cuban educator, the daughter of Marcelina Méndez Correoso and Federico Salvador Arias. Her father, remarkably ahead of his time, firmly believed that both women and men deserved an outstanding education and that the study of foreign languages should be an essential part of that education. With this conviction, he sent his older sons to study in French-speaking Canada, where they received an excellent education while becoming fluent in both French and English. For his daughters, he chose the school in Havana directed by María Luisa Dolz, one of Cuba's most distinguished educators, a progressive pioneer who championed equal educational opportunities for women and men, with a curriculum that gave equal importance to the sciences and to modern languages.

Dolores, affectionately known as Lola or Lolita, entered the school at an academic disadvantage compared with many of her classmates. Through intelligence, perseverance, and extraordinary dedication, however, she soon earned the admiration and affection of María Luisa Dolz, who personally devoted time to her until she not only caught up with her classmates but graduated as the top student in her class. Years later, when María Luisa Dolz decided to retire, she invited Lola to succeed her as director of the school. It was a profoundly difficult decision. Accepting the position would have opened the door to a rich intellectual and artistic life in Havana alongside her husband, Medardo Lafuente—poet, journalist, and educator. Instead, Dolores chose to return to Quinta Simoni, the family estate she had inherited from her father in Camagüey, convinced that it offered an exceptional environment in which to raise her children. She willingly set aside a brilliant professional opportunity in favor of family life. Years later, when María Luisa Dolz passed away, Lola honored her beloved teacher and mentor by writing a moving eulogy in tribute to her life and influence.

Dolores's deep commitment to social justice led her to recognize that the new Normal School for Teachers in Camagüey should include future teachers who reflected the social backgrounds of the children they would eventually serve in the public schools. To help make that vision possible, she organized a public evening school for working women. She designed an integrated curriculum that would provide them with a solid education and prepare them for the demanding public oral examination required for admission to the Normal School, and she personally became their teacher. As the examination approached, the students organized activities to raise the necessary funds and sewed their own uniforms so they would be received with greater dignity in what was then a highly class-conscious setting. Dolores and Medardo's eldest daughter, Virginia Lafuente—who would later become a professor at the Camagüey Normal School and subsequently at Havana's Normal School No. 1—chose to take the examination wearing a uniform identical to that of the other candidates, as a gesture of solidarity and respect. During much of this period, Dolores herself had been confined to bed because of a high-risk pregnancy following the loss of twins in her previous pregnancy. Even so, she never interrupted her teaching. From her bed in the spacious bedroom of Quinta Simoni, she continued conducting classes, transforming that family room into a classroom where her vocation as an educator overcame even the limitations imposed by illness.