The bells of Our Lady of Solitude ring very early, announcing the union of Amalia Simoni and Ignacio Agramonte, we go back to August 1st, 1868, there are 2 months left before the start of the Ten Years’ War. With the blessing of marriage, one of the most inspiring love stories is sealed for Camagüeyans of all time.

Dreams of love materialize, the refined principeña lady, like something out of a romantic novel, advances in a relationship that was marked by distance and shocks, with indelible hugs.

The idyllic love grew between long separations and ephemeral encounters, sustained over time by their beautiful correspondence.

The inspiration

A few years ago, Amalia Simoni country house created a project that celebrates the wedding of two Camagüeyans with special requirements every August, to commemorate that eternal alliance between El Mayor and his beloved.

The Revolution Square, since 1999 joined the ceremony and after the wedding, in the magical roundabout of the country house, they are transferred in a carriage to the Nicolas Guillén room, where accompanied by family and friends, the bride and groom receive a dossier that will unite them in marriage marked by the values ​​and the beautiful love story of these beloved figures from Camagüey.

When love endures

Looking through documents and images of the square, we found the union in 2004 of Liban Ramentol and Dané Ramos, a beautiful and solid couple, who remain linked to the love story that inspired their own and every August 1st, attend to the ceremony, to share their experiences with the newlyweds and show their three children where their common life began 18 years ago.

The institution’s specialists gladly comment on that marriage, on how much they enjoy being linked to the celebrations, because from a very young age they admired Ignacio Agramonte and the brave woman to whom he gave his heart, they also feel that, given the difficulties of the daily life, they protect them from eternity, to overcome obstacles and for love to endure.

Reminiscing

Today, returning to the correspondence that united Ignacio and Amalia during the war and their married life, we sadly see that their explicit dreams of living together happily in their free homeland did not materialize.

Amalia continued to love him forever. She told her daughter Herminia, who, in a moment of confidence, had asked her mother why she had not accepted that another man enter her life, “because I cannot love anymore” was her resounding answer.

The boundless love that El Mayor and his eternal lover professed to each other is one of the most beautiful and real love stories I know, that of Liban and Dané, inspired by them, gives continuity to the sublime feeling, which, paraphrasing the master, can be understood :

“Love is that two spirits meet, caress each other, confuse each other, help each other rise from the earth in one and only being…” is an alliance for eternity.

Translated by: Aileen Álvarez García