Carlos Conde

Carlos Conde Andujar was born August 2, 1920 in Adjuntas, Puerto Rico. His mother was Juana Andujar Cordero and his father, Antonio Conde. As a young man, Carlos grew to love participating in boxing, baking, swimming and gymnastics. He worked as a book binder in New York and New Jersey with popular publishing houses from which he retired at 62 years of age. He was a hard worker and dedicated to providing for his family. It was at this job that he taught himself how to sight read in English. He kept the inventory of the place memorized knowing where each book was and how big the order was and where it was housed in the warehouse. His greatest legacy was to see his daughters become educated. Graduations made him very proud.

Carlos was an usher at Iglesia Bautista Central where he met the Lord, and later his wife and where he raised his daughters. He volunteered for plays and even as Santa Claus at Christmas or “el Año Viejo” for New Year’s. His years of service included cooking, fund raising, personal witness and moving people’s refrigerators strapped to his back from one apartment to another and up the stairs in old tenement housing in New York. He used his physical body to serve the Lord.

Carlos was a very generous man. If he saw someone in need, he would try to meet their need in any way he could. His early years had helped him to understand hunger and poverty. He was a big time joker and loved to pass the time playing briscas or dominoes when the grand kids came around. He made his own rules about things like inventing a long pole with a basket attached to the end to go across to the neighbor’s yard and fetch a grapefruit that the neighbor never picked. He made that grapefruit his breakfast. “God gave us all the fruit and if he doesn’t like them I do.” So, chuculun, into his basket and onto his table.

In his later years, Carlos succumbed to health issues that affected his ability to take care of himself and therefore spent some years in assisted living memory care in DeLand and Ormond Beach. He always found a way to make others laugh with his jokes and pranks to the end.

Carlos’ faith survived the realities of his life and proved a sustainer of peace. In the end, he prophetically blessed his children and his grandchildren and the generations. Clarity would come to him when he wanted to pray and talk with God.

Carlos was married for 25 years to Evangelina Figueroa, who passed away in January of 1976. He is survived by his daughters, Elizabeth Conde-Frazier and Evangeline Mendoza, and his four grandchildren, Evangelina Morales, Amaris Mendoza, Timothy Frazier and Isaac Elias Mendoza.