Honolulu Record, August 19, 1948, vol. 1 no. 3, p. 6
New York —Story of a 1,500-mile manhunt of mercy that led after a year to a tiny village in Puerto Rico was revealed here by a New York union, which had been searching for two poverty-stricken children to pay them a $1,000 life insurance policy.
The two boys—Francisco, 14, and Dionisio Cabrera, 16—were located by Local 65, Wholesale & Warehouse Workers Union (CIO) in the village of Buena Vista following a persistent search that included inquiries by mail, personal investigations, newspaper announcements and radio broadcasts.
The hunt began in August 1947, when the union was notified of the death of Francisco Cabrera, a Puerto Rican who had joined Local 65 several years earlier while employed at a New York corrugated paper plant.
Under the union's security plan —an insurance system providing sick benefits, hospitalization, surgical care and death benefits to members — Cabrera's beneficiaries were entitled to a $1,000 death benefit. Cabrera had specified that death benefits would be payable to his two sons, whom he had left in Puerto Rico in the care of their godmother, Mrs. Soto.
Letters sent to the address of Mrs. Soto revealed she had moved and her whereabouts were unknown. Efforts to locate friends or other relatives of the family proved fruitless.
Then a former Local 65 member, Leonard Schaefer, now living in Puerto Rico, was rung in on the hunt. An extensive publicity campaign was launched with the help of Schlafer's union, Construction Workers Local 1, A radio program carried repeated announcements of the search for the two Cabrera boys. Newspapers featured the story under arrangements made by Puerto Rican union officials.
The widespread publicity finally resulted in the appearance of the two boys and their godmother at a local newspaper office in Puerto Rico. Legal arrangements are now being made for the formal adoption of the two children by Mrs. Soto, following which the $1,000 benefit check will be paid to her, to be held in trust until the children come of age.
A year-long manhunt of mercy for Dionisio and Francisco Cabrera by Local 65, Wholesale & Warehouse Workers Union (CIO) came to an end in a tiny Puerto Rican village where the two boys were finally located. Object of the quest was to pay the boys, sons of a deceased member of the union, $1,000 death benefits to which they were entitled under the union's security plan.