The Mirabal-Reyes family was a prosperous family from a town in Salcedo called Ojo de Agua. In 1923, Enrique Mirabal Fernandez married Mercedes Reyes Camilo, better known as Chea. A year later their eldest daughter Patria was born. Don Enrique was a farmer and merchant born in a town of Santiago called Tamboril. He owned his own farm, shop, coffee mill, meat market, and rice factory. Doña Chea was herself from a middle-class family in Ojo de Agua. As is customary in Dominican society, the four Mirabal sisters — Patria Mercedes, Bélgica Adela (known as Dedé), Minerva Argentina, and Maria Teresa — were raised not only in their nuclear family, but in the extended family as well.

Don Enrique and Doña Chea Mirabal. Photo © Mirabal Sisters Foundation.