As a young adult, he worked as a bricklayer, before later beginning a career as an operator in the Ministry of Public Works, which involved him personally delivering telegrams to then-Costa Rican President Ricardo Jiménez Oreamuno. In 1926, he married Amanda Corrales, and the pair would go on to have eleven children together. The couple would remain together for 77 years until Amanda’s death in 2003. In 1960, he retired from his career at the Ministry of Public Works, and moved with his family to the province of San José, settling in Tibás.