Tony Andrews of Falmouth age 101, died Thanksgiving Day, November 23, 2006 peacefully at his home. He was the beloved husband of Marina (Fortes) Andrews of 71 years.
Antonio deAndrade (Tony) was born on the island of Fogo in the Cape Verde Islands on November 7, 1905. Tony was the first of four children born to his parents Sylvester and Maria followed by his sisters Tata and Virginia and his youngest brother Emanuel.
After living on the Cape Verde Islands until he was 21, Tony sailed on The Charles L. Jeffrey, a three-mast schooner for three years (approximately from 1923-1926). He traveled among the ten Cape Verde islands, Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, and Brazil delivering raw materials and other commercial goods such as coffee, maize, and oranges. Tony’s inexperience as a sailor led to his being a mess boy, washing dishes in the kitchen. Over time he became a more skilled seaman through an informal apprenticeship and he learned how to work the sails, work the ropes, read a compass, mop the deck, perform ship maintenance and so on, or as Tony described it: “my job was a sailor, do everything.”
In 1926, the schooner’s captain found a business venture that would bring Tony to the United States. In need of strong and dependable sailors to man the ship during the trek across the Atlantic, he requested that Tony be part of the crew. The economic opportunities that the United States offered were common knowledge among Cape Verdeans. Tony did not know if he was going to be able to stay in the United States when he arrived but he hoped to meet with his father’s brother, Peter, who was already living there.
In June of 1926, Tony said goodbye to his home, his family, and his country to start a new life in the United States. He would not return to the Cape Verde Islands for seventy years. Sailing day and night, anchoring only for bad weather, Tony’s voyage to the United States took approximately thirty days. Upon arrival Tony discovered that the ship was going to be auctioned off leaving him no way to return to Cape Verde. Tony’s initial excitement was quickly overtaken by the harsh realities of being an illegal immigrant who spoke no English. He had no shoes, no passport, and most importantly no visa. The skipper informed Tony that unless he knew somebody with whom he could stay, he would have to find a ship going back to Cape Verde.
Determined to persevere and with the assistance of another Cape Verdean, Tony hitch-hiked his way from Providence, Rhode Island to Dartmouth, Massachusetts where, he had learned, his uncle Peter lived in a one room shack working as a grounds-keeper. Peter had left Cape Verde to settle in the United States before Tony was born. This encounter was the first time they had met, but Peter took Tony in with no questions asked. It was soon after their meeting that Peter recommended Tony change his name from Antonio deAndrad to Tony Andrews because the Portuguese name would only slow his social and economic assimilation in the United States.
Peter had a dream of owning land and using it to start a farming business. He was not a rich man in the least. However, from his frugality and rather sparse lifestyle, he had saved over 13,000 dollars while in the United States. The arrival of Tony, a young energetic man with a strong work ethic, was the final piece falling into place to make Peter’s dream a reality. In 1928, Peter purchased seventeen acres of land in East Falmouth for twenty-five dollars an acre. When Peter and Tony moved onto their new land, all seventeen acres were covered with forest which they cleared with an axe, a shovel, and dynamite. As Tony recalls: “I don’t care what’s the size of the tree. Good axe, good shovel, I’ll tackle it. Might take all day, but I’ll get it.”
Tony and Peter had to maintain one and sometimes two other jobs to make ends meet before they could reach the point where they could live off the farms’ profits. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Tony and Peter worked at a cranberry bog in Osterville, Massachusetts wheeling sand up a wooden plank out of the bog. By the early 1930s Tony and Peter had cleared enough land to farm and began planting strawberries and turnips for profit. They primarily shipped their harvest to Boston where they were sold wholesale to markets and restaurants.
By the mid-1930’s, the farm was becoming somewhat lucrative allowing Tony to think about establishing a family. In 1935, Tony met and married Marina Fortes. Marina, a Cape Verdean American whose family originally came from the island of Brava, was born in Taunton, Massachusetts on her family’s farm.
Eventually, the Fortes family settled in Providence, Rhode Island, where Marina lived until 1935.
During Cape Cod’s annual strawberry harvest, Marina and two of her sisters came to Tony and Peter’s farm in search of work. Tony remembers how he and his uncle liked Marina so they gave her a special job passing out tickets to the pickers. While in Falmouth the Fortes sisters were invited to a social gathering at Peter and Tony’s house. At the party, while Marina roamed from groups of people singing, dancing, and storytelling, she entered into a room of people sitting around talking. She sat down to join the conversation. One man was telling story after story and Marina was very attracted to his voice but there were no lanterns so she could not see his face. The next day she returned to the farm to pick more berries and it was here that she met Tony, and realized that he was the mystery man she had listened to so indulgently the previous evening. Both Tony and Marina recall thinking to themselves when they met that this was the person they were going to marry.
The house that Marina moved into in 1935 was the exact house and land that they own and live on today (notwithstanding some renovations and additions). Marina remembered moving into a house consisting of a living room, a dinning room, one bedroom, and a kitchen in the basement with a cast iron stove that is still standing.
Marina had also moved onto a rapidly developing produce farm. They were growing and selling strawberries and turnips, but they had expanded their produce array to include vegetables such as green beans, peas, corn, broccoli, squash, and asparagus. Upon her arrival, Marina could not help but notice that Tony and Peter were only selling the strawberries and turnips and everything else they consumed or gave away to their friends and neighbors. Marina, who was gifted with an understanding of business, marketing and maximizing profits, realized that Tony and Peter were not growing nearly as many beans, peas, corn, and asparagus as strawberries and turnips, but thought that to put the work into growing them and then give it all away was not an advantageous practice for two poor farmers, or as Marina bluntly put it, “I said, well that’s stupid.” So she broached the possibility of selling all of their produce regardless of the amount. Whatever was grown in amounts that were inappropriate for wholesale in Boston or New Bedford they would sell locally to restaurants or produce markets. This innovative practice created an overall increase in their profits. Thus, as Marina settled onto the farm, she quickly established herself as indispensable or as Tony put it, “She was the boss, when she says no, she means no.”
Over the years the Tony Andrews Farm became a prosperous family owned business and a popular tourist attraction in Falmouth. Similarly, Tony and Marina became beloved and respected members of the Falmouth community through their involvement in town government, and countless professional and community organizations. Against odds and expectations, Tony achieved the American dream that is generally associated with white immigrants, but rarely with black immigrants – a testament to his stalwart and unyielding spirit.
In 1936 the first of seven sons, Anthony Andrews, was born at home. Anthony was followed by Ronald (1938), Eugene (1939), Kenneth (1943), Kevin (1951), Joseph (1955) and finally Geoffrey (1960). These boys were Tony and Marina’s highest priority. Accordingly, they worked tirelessly to create a successful farm that would provide the means to create as many opportunities for their children to dream dreams uninhibited by the social realities of the era in which they grew up, achieve their goals and become leaders in their own right. One thing that was certainly inherited by all his children was the importance of family. Today Tony and Marina have six sons, nine grand children (Toni Lynn, Dennis, PJ, Christopher, Lena, Jacob, Michael, Neil and Timothy) and four great grandchildren (Myles, Isabelle, Sydney and Olivia). By the grace of God, love is the common denominator for the Andrews family and the force that binds them.
Today, after 101 years of life in this world, we honor Tony’s passage into the next, the world of the spirit, the World of God. Dad, Papa, Tony; call him as you would when you felt closest to him and pray for him and his progress in the next world and know that he is praying for you too – his smile now the warmth of the sun on your face.
Besides his wife he is survived by six children, Anthony J. of Wellfleet, Eugene S. of Fairfield, Kenneth P. of Falmouth, Kevin T. of Newton, Joseph A. of Bedford and Geoffrey of Falmouth. He was predeceased by one son, Ronald C. Andrews. He is also survived by 9 grandchildren and 4 great grandchildren.
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