1955-2025
Jose Echaverria Gonzales of Dumas, Arkansas, died early on the morning of December 31, 2025. He was 70 years old.
What he lacked in stature, he more than made up for with his infectious personality and the larger-than-life stories of his exploits around the country. He never met a stranger and will always be remembered for his positive outlook and ability to laugh no matter what life threw at him.
Jose was born in Camaguey, Cuba on June 5, 1955, to Venedo Echevarria and Ada G. Gonzales. He would tell me often that his father was a farmer and that he and his brothers and sisters would often hold a lamp for him when he worked in the fields after dark. When Jose was young, Fidel Castro led a coup to overthrow the government in Cuba, which lead to a turn of events that would change his life forever. Jose told me many stories of Castro’s secret police conducting raids upon apartments where he lived, stealing anything of value and killing those that resisted. The injustice he endured would eventually lead him and many others to resist the Castro regime with force and find themselves held as prisoners under a sentence of death. By 1980, tensions had grown to the point Castro could no longer resist and Jose would join 125,000 Cubans seeking asylum in the United States. Jose spent the next two years being held at Fort Chaffee before finally being released. From there, Jose would tell me many stories of the places he traveled and worked, but the first he would say was in Atlanta, Georgia working for President Jimmy Carter in his “peanut factory”. He said after working there for 90 days, that Carter “set them free” and told them they could go find jobs wherever they wanted.
Jose spent his entire life working with his hands, which were always rough and calloused from days spent doing jobs nobody else would do. He told me once that he got a job working at the Talladega Race Car track and cleared 80 acres of trees with his bare hands to make way for a bigger track. After working beside him for 20 years, I can say unequivocally that he is the hardest working man I’ve ever known. Jose later worked as a horse jockey, a carpenter, stone mason, and concrete finisher, the latter of which took him to New Orleans, Louisiana working on an airport expansion. It was on this job he would tell me that while returning home to Arkansas before Christmas, he was stopped by police officers and questioned for money he’d been paid that he had hidden in his boot. After an argument, Jose was hit in the mouth with a baton and then he knocked the officer to the ground, who then pulled a gun and shot Jose in his right leg. According to the story, he was released from the hospital the next day and no charges were filed because of what he described as “an accident”.
Jose worked for many years tending to watering rice crops and brushing duck blinds in the winter. Once while staying at deer camp on Big Island, he cut and stacked two 18 wheeler trailer loads of firewood in one day by himself. I wasn’t there for that one but he assured me it only took one day. In all the years I had with him, I never saw him shirk a task and I never saw him when he wasn’t smiling but it wasn’t because he didn’t have fears. Jose spent his entire life here in America, paying taxes into a system he would never benefit from. Not being able to read and write in his native language and not being able to understand English or where he stood as a refugee were roadblocks to him completing his paperwork to become an American citizen. And because of America’s mess of an immigration system, I was unable to help him receive the benefits I feel he deserved. But even as his health started to fade from years of hard work, and he was denied social security benefits and Medicare, he never gave up. I can’t imagine what that must have felt like to be faced with the end of life and have no social support system. Jose loved Jesus and professed his faith to me many times although he didn’t attend a regular church. We spent many Sundays' working together and he was never shy to remind me of all the gifts God had given him and where he would spend eternity. I hope he finally gets to enjoy some much-needed time off.
Jose leaves behind one brother, Benny, his wife Bonnie, and lots of friends like me that will miss him. His legacy will be one of love and loyalty that I intend to not let fade until I can see him again.
Memorial service will be Friday, January 9, 2026, at 11:00am Griffin Funeral Home Chapel, Dumas, AR.
Jason Smith
SMS Planting Company
Cypress Creek Drainage District
5238 Hwy 1 W
Watson, AR 71674
(870)-866-3177
[email protected]
