When Archie Garces arrived in Southern Illinois, he wasn't expecting the heat.

His family had just left Miami, where tropical temperatures were a fact of daily life. Surely Illinois would be cooler. Instead, when the train pulled into Centralia, the thermometer hovered near 100 degrees. "We didn't expect that," Garces said with a laugh.

The surprise was fitting. Very little about his family's journey to Southern Illinois had been predictable.

Born in Cuba in 1957, Garces was only three years old when his father made the decision to leave. There had been too much shooting, too many soldiers, too many unsafe situations. His father traveled ahead to Miami, where he found work at the Fontainebleau and Deauville hotels — the storied venues where the Rat Pack performed and stayed. He waited tables, saved money, and worked toward the day he could bring his family over.

That day came with complications. Cuban authorities wanted young boys to remain in the country, so Garces and his younger brother could not simply board a plane with their mother. Instead, arrangements were made for two men — strangers — to each carry one of the boys onto the aircraft while their mother boarded separately. Archie was three. His brother was two. Once they were all safely in the air, the family reunited.

"It's just a weird situation," Garces said. "I can't remember anything."

His father had left behind a hardware store and a familiar life. What he was building toward, in Miami and eventually in Southern Illinois, was something harder to name and more important to keep.

After several years in Miami, the family relocated to Illinois — first settling in Kinmundy before eventually moving to Salem, where Garces entered eighth grade. For a boy who had already experienced dramatic change, Salem became something far more important than a place to live. It became home.

A 1975 graduate of Salem Community High School, Garces found a community that welcomed his family without reservation. His father spoke English with an accent. His mother preferred not to speak it at all. None of that mattered. "They accepted us," he said. "We felt part of the community."

He remembers the teachers who helped shape that experience. Mrs. Stouffer, a petite English teacher whose cane could bring even the largest student to immediate attention. Lester Deason, whose anatomy and physiology classes sparked a curiosity that would define his life's work. Mr. Hawley, whose history lessons made the past feel alive and consequential. These educators helped nurture a dream that had taken shape early: he wanted to become a doctor.

After graduation, Garces enrolled at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, earned a degree in general biology, and was accepted into the University of Illinois College of Medicine. Eight years after arriving as an undergraduate, he emerged as a physician.

Along the way, another story was unfolding. Amy Tilford — a Salem girl he had known through high school — became his partner in all of it. They attended the University of Illinois together, married in 1979, and navigated the demanding years of medical school and residency while their family grew. Amy studied music education, taught school in Rockford during their years there, and went on to perform with the St. Louis Symphony — a remarkable arc of her own.

Following residency training through the SIU Family Medicine Residency Program in Belleville, Garces built a career rooted in the same values Salem had instilled. Family medicine appealed to him because of the relationships — caring for patients across generations, watching children grow up, building trust over years and sometimes decades. In 2014, he returned to Salem professionally, practicing with the local healthcare system before retiring from full-time medicine in 2023.

Retirement, however, proved to be a flexible concept. Today, he continues as a community preceptor, mentoring young physicians through the very residency program from which he graduated. It is, in its way, a complete circle — back to where his career began, helping shape the doctors who will follow.

The Garces family now spans both coasts. Their oldest daughter lives in New York, where her husband serves as a military trumpeter at West Point. Their youngest daughter followed her father's footsteps into family medicine and practices in the Seattle area. Between them are four grandchildren. To visit them all, Archie and Amy prefer to drive — moving through the landscapes that stretch across America, taking in the country that took them in.

A child arrives from Cuba. A community welcomes his family. Teachers encourage him. A small-town high school prepares him. A physician spends decades caring for others. A mentor shapes those who come next.

"I always say I'm from Salem," Garces said.

For someone who crossed oceans and cultures to get there, that says everything.