Rafael Cruz

In 1969 at age 30, during his employment at his new oil company job, he met Wilmington, Delaware, native and divorcée, Eleanor Elizabeth Wilson (born November 23, 1934, as Eleanor Darragh).

Rafael Bienvenido Cruz y Díaz (born March 22, 1939) is a Cuban-American evangelical preacher and father of Texas U.S. Senator Ted Cruz.

He has served as a surrogate in his son's political campaigns.

Cruz was born in Matanzas, Cuba, in 1939.

His father, also named Rafael Cruz, was a salesman for RCA, originally from the Canary Islands, Spain.

His mother, Emilia Laudelina Díaz, was a teacher.

Cruz attended Arturo Echemendia primary school in Matanzas.

He said he joined the Cuban Revolution as a teenager and "suffered beatings and imprisonment for protesting the oppressive regime," of dictator Fulgencio Batista, although an extensive search by the New York Times found no evidence for his claims.

In September 1956 at age 17, Cruz enrolled at the University of Santiago.

According to Cruz, as a teenager, he "didn't know Castro was a Communist".

Eleanor's first marriage, at age 21, was to Alan Wilson, a mathematician, in 1956.

Cruz has stated in interviews that he was jailed by Batista for several days in June or July 1957 and after he was released he applied to and was accepted by the University of Texas (UT) in August 1957.

He obtained a student visa after an attorney for the family bribed a Batista official to grant him an exit permit.

Cruz said he left with $100 sewn into his underwear, taking a two-day bus ride from Florida, arriving with little or no English to enroll at the University of Texas.

The couple moved to London, England, for career opportunities in 1960.

He graduated from UT with a degree in mathematics and chemical engineering in 1961.

Cruz states he worked his way through college as a dishwasher, making 50 cents an hour and learned English by going to movies.

Upon returning he revisited the same groups to give lectures opposing Castro and the Revolution.

Cruz recounts that his younger sister fought against the new regime in the counter-revolution and was consequently tortured.

He remained regretful for his early support of Castro and expressed his remorse to his son on numerous occasions.

After Cruz graduated, he was granted political asylum in the United States following the expiration of his student visa.

In his late twenties, Cruz moved to New Orleans.

They divorced in 1963.

The then 31-year-old computer programmer returned to the United States in 1966.

Cruz and Wilson were married in 1969, and shortly after were sent to Calgary, Canada, where their only child, Rafael Edward "Ted" Cruz, was born on December 22, 1970.

While in Calgary, the couple owned a seismic-data processing firm called R.B. Cruz and Associates that provided services for oil drillers.

The firm later became Veritas and ultimately part of CGG.

Cruz earned Canadian citizenship in 1973.

The family of three then moved to Houston, Texas.

Cruz left the Catholic Church in 1975 and became an Evangelical Protestant after attending a Bible study with a colleague and having a born again experience.

Explaining his leaving the Catholic church, Cruz stated in an interview with National Review, "The people at the Bible study had a peace that I could not understand, this peace in the midst of trouble. I knew I needed to find that peace by finding Jesus Christ."

Following his conversion, his son and wife also became born-again Protestants.

In the Cruz home, talk at dinner time was frequently about the Bible.

About his political involvements in the 1980s, Cruz reflected, "I was on the state board of the Religious Roundtable, a Christian and Jewish religious organization that worked to elect Ronald Reagan."

At the time, he told his son, "God has destined you for greatness."

Eleanor and Rafael Cruz divorced in 1997.

He was ordained as a pastor in 2004.

In a 2014 Associated Press story, Cruz was quoted as saying, "I have a burden for this country and I feel that we cannot sit silent."

He went on to say that he feels "It's time we stop being politically correct and start being biblically correct."

Cruz works from his home in Carrollton, a suburb of Dallas, as a traveling preacher and public speaker, campaigning as a surrogate for his son during the 2016 presidential campaign season.