Cebu Philippines: My Aunts, Lourdes and Carmen Cuenco

Lourdes Cuenco

I have been enjoying the family pictures recently shared by my cousin. Some pictures reminded me of my unmarried aunts, Lourdes and Carmen, who were important characters in my childhood.

We used to refer to them as "the Old Maids," not to be unkind but because that was just how things were. This did not mean we called them that in their presence, but it was when we were going to their house, for instance, when we would say, "We're going to the Old Maids' house."

Consuelo and Carmen Cuenco

Lourdes was one of the older children of Mariano Jesus and Filomena Cuenco, having been born around 1909. Carmen was approximately ten years younger and sickly (she had contracted typhus).

L-r: Consuelo, Concepcion, Lourdes, photo taken around 1917

When my grandmother, Filomena Alesna, had a stroke, Lourdes took over as the matriarch of the Cuenco family. It was a role that she had when I knew her. She apparently had taken care of her grandmother (Remedios) and her mother; and she took care of her younger sisters, Consuelo, Carmen, and Teresita.

Lourdes or Tiya Oding as we called her continued family traditions like Christmas and All Saints and All Souls' Day celebrations. She was in charge of the family mausoleum at the Old Cemetery. She made sure it was clean and whitewashed, and she had bones transferred to the top level of the three-tiered burial place when space was needed in the lower tiers. I recall how she and the other grownups did an inventory of the skeletons re-discovered in the top level.  It was black comedy.

Portraits of Lourdes Cuenco

I must explain that after their grandmother and mother died, and their sisters were married  off, Lourdes and Carmen lived together. They were like a team. It was always "Tiya Oding and Tiya Mameng" who hosted the family get-together or organized the "sabwag" (candy and money thrown to the children) during Christmas.

It was Tiya Oding, however, who handed out crisp bills on Christmas day to my siblings, cousins and me, money that we looked forward to receiving and spending at the movie theater and for snacks.

It was Tiya Oding who gave me some old family pictures and information about our ancestors. She had even written me about how Lola Juana (my great-great-grandmother) loved to dance.

Seated l-r: Consuelo, Teresita; standing l-r: Lourdes, Carmen

There were many years, later on, when I did not see her nor Tiya Mameng. I had left for the US to do graduate work; I got married; and then the Philippines was under the Marcos dictatorship. I did not return home during this time. Tiya Oding died while I was away.

When the Marcos dictatorship ended and I visited the Philippines, an aunt gave me a package with my name written on it. It was from Tiya Oding. Inside was a sapphire set of earrings and a ring. She had remembered me.

Read also

Cebu's Cuenco Family in 1932 

The Old Families of Colon Street 

Pictures of my Mother and More

Tags: Cuenco, Cebu, Philippines, politics, society

This is all for now,

Cecilia