The children attended public and parochial schools on the Main Line. They became classic American teenagers and, eventually, U.S. citizens.
But while he has come to feel fully American, Juan Jr. said, he has wondered over the years about what might have been.
The Pedro Pans "represent the starkest choice and the greatest sacrifice" of the Cuban exiles, said Fernand Amandi, of Amandi & Bendixen, a Florida opinion research firm focusing on Cuban American issues.
"They were young enough to grow to success in this country," Amandi said. But "the one issue they carry with them is 'what if?' Not only what if they stayed behind, but also what if they could have gone back?"
Tony Guerra faced that question last month when he returned to Cuba for the first time, to scatter Lourdes' ashes at a beach she loved. He traveled with his brother-in-law on a special visa for Cuban Americans. Apart from a few people he trusted, he kept his past as a Pedro Pan to himself.
He met cousins who drove a 1951 Chevy. He visited his childhood home. It had been subdivided into four rundown apartments, but when a tenant let him in for a look, he recognized the terrazzo floor and flashed back to the time he fell and chipped a tooth.
His nostalgia was quickly overwhelmed by the realities of present-day Cuba - from restaurants unable to stock what their menus offered to a sadly pervasive acceptance of deprivation.
"I realized then," he said, "that I'm very American, very happily American."
Contact staff writer Michael Matza at 215-854-2541 or mmatza@phillynews.com.
