Aurora Aragon Quezon
Aurora Aragon Quezon, First Lady and head of the Philippine National Red Cross. Aurora Aragon Quezon, wife of the Philippine Commonwealth President, Manuel L. Quezon, was affectionately called the "Grand Lady of the Philippines." She was born in Baler, Tayabas on February 19, 1888, to Pedro Aragon and Zenaida Molina. Her first teacher was her aunt, Maria Dolores Molina, mother of President Quezon, and when the aunt died, she was tutored by Emilia, an elder sister and public school teacher. She then attended the Franciscan convent school of Baler but her studies were interrupted by the outbreak of the Revolution. During the uprising, her father was brought to Manila where he was incarcerated and died in 1901. The family properties, having been confiscated by the Spanish government, the widow and her children lived in poverty in Lucena where they had moved three years after her husband''s death. Quezon was then the provincial fiscal of Tayabas. In 1904, Aurora went to Manila to study at the Philippine Normal School. She was helped financially by her cousin Manuel but after three years, she went back to Lucena because of failing health. Nevertheless, she managed to put up a small library in their town and taught English to some friends. Eleven years later, on December 14, 1918, she married her cousin in Hongkong. Mrs. Quezon, a moving spirit in many civic and charitable activities and once president of the Board of Directors and of the central executive committee of the Philippine National Red Cross, survived her husband who died on August 1, 1944. Five years later, on April 28, 1949, she was shot dead by the Huks in an ambuscade while enroute to Baler to inaugurate a hospital. Killed with her was her eldest daughter, Maria Aurora, Col. Primitivo and Antonio San Agustin; Gen. Rafael Jalandoni, her aide, escaped unhurt by pretending to be dead.
With prints
Reproduction: Photoengraving
Keywords: Presidents and kin