A Golden Anniversary

Jesse Cabral and Maria Jade Martins met through family friends in Portugal during the mid 1950s. They dated for 2½ years, and were married on December 6, 1959.

The Cabrals, who moved to Newtown in 1988, will celebrate their golden anniversary this month.

Mr Cabral is the owner of JC Construction. He and his family emigrated from Azores, Portugal, to Canada in 1959. They moved to Newtown nearly three decades later.

“I bought my land and built my dream house here,” Mr Cabral said this week. The Cabrals bought 3½ acres on Stone Bridge Trail, and raised two sons, John and Joey.

John Cabral, a police officer in lower Fairfield County, is married to Dianna, and is the father of Joey, Luke, and Adrianna Cabral.

Joey, who is foreman for his father’s construction company, is the husband of Carrie Cabral and father to Jesse and Mike.

Jesse and Maria, who is a homemaker, continue to keep goats, chickens, “and lots of cats and dogs,” said Mr Cabral.

When he moved to the United States, Mr Cabral was a laborer, and then machine operator and truck driver for JM Rosa Construction Company. When that company went out of business in 1980, Mr Cabral opened his own operation. It has been through hard work and perseverance that he has become successful, he says.

“God bless this country,” he said. “We made it here.”