We four children of don David Cásseres and doña Lena Hastings Cásseres grew up together in Cartago, Costa Rica, and entered the school system.  William and Dorothy finished their secondary education in Newark, New Jersey, at Barringer High School.  Sarita and I received our Bachiller (high school diploma) from the Colegio San Luis Gonzaga in Cartago. 

Dorothy followed our mother’s footsteps and entered Maryville College, in Maryville, Tennessee.  After graduating, she took further courses to prepare herself to be a missionary.  She returned to Costa Rica to be employed by the Instituto Biblico as a teacher.  She met don Ricardo Glahn, from Uruguay, who was one of her students.  They shared mutual interests, fell in love, and married, in San José.  They were to be sent by the  Instituto Biblico to Colombia, to work as evangelical missionaries.

When our mother, doña Lena, learned a year later that Dorothy would give birth in Colombia (since her request for Dorothy to return to Costa Rica for the birth had been refused), she decided to travel to Colombia.  Dorothy gave birth to a precious little girl, but perhaps due to the lack of medical facilities, her heaviness, and, I think, tropical diseases, her heart failed, and she died, to everyone’s great sorrow.

Mamá, with admirable courage and effort, brought the baby girl in arms to Costa Rica.  She was raised meticulously by the Instituto Biblico in its children’s home, Roble Alto, near Santa Barbara de Heredia.

In 1940, when I was studying at a university in the U.S., I had the opportunity to return to Costa Rica in the summer.  Mamá invited me and my brother William, who was back in Costa Rica and working as a chemist at the Public Health Ministry Laboratory for Analysis of Food and Beverages, to go to Roble Alto to welcome our niece Dita.  Appropriately, I considered her my sister.  When I crouched down next to the fence in front of the building where the children were taught and cared for, Dita saw me, and without ever having seen me before, ran towards me.  I embraced her, and it was as if  magnetic waves of family love had told her, “It’s your uncle.  He is here with your other uncle and your grandmother.”  We have loved each other intensely ever since.

Dita attended primary and secondary school in Cartago.  Afterwards she went to Columbia Bible College in Columbia, South Carolina.  She graduated, having met there Mr. Robert Byers, a classmate.  They got along very well, and decided to marry and devote themselves to missionary work.  They were hired by the Central American Mission, and worked first in Honduras and then several years in Costa Rica.

At the end of his contract, Robert was called to be Pastor at a church in Columbia, South Carolina, and they moved there.  Dita does excellent work with the ladies of the Church, helping with their projects.  We continue to be very close to the rest of the Cásseres family, including cousins and friends.

See Photos:  25, 26, 27