Political Wife and First Lady
Within the first seventeen years of the marriage, Manuel Quezón emerged as a dominant figure in Philippine politics. His career reached its apex in 1935, when he was elected President of the Commonwealth of the Philippines. During her husband's political life, Aurora Quezón stayed in the background, involving herself with women's organizations such as the National Federation of Women's Clubs, of which she was the honorary chairperson.
Time Magazine described Quezón as "dignified and portly". The Quezons were the first presidential couple to reside in Malacañan Palace, but she spent as little time as possible there, preferring to stay in a "nipa house" in Malacañang Park or in her farm, Kaleidan, in Arayat, Pampanga. She nevertheless was an active First Lady, engaging herself in the campaign to give Filipino women the right of suffrage, which was achieved in 1937. She was particularly involved in managing the family's Arayat farm to demonstrate how social justice could be applied to landlord-tenant relationships in an agrarian setting. Quezón was involved in the Girl Scouts of the Philippines and the Associación de Damas Filipinas, a noted orphanage in Manila. She was also the honorary president of another orphanage, the White Cross, located in San Juan.
President Quezón was re-elected in November 1941, but his presidency was immediately beset with crisis when Japan invaded the Philippines in the following month. Aurora accompanied her husband to Corregidor in December, 1941, where the President was sworn in by Chief Justice José Abad Santos for his second term on December 30, 1941. For the next two months, the Quezón family remained in Corregidor where, despite the difficult living conditions, Quezón was said to have maintained her poise and kept up with a daily mass. In February 1942, they began their long journey via Australia to escape the Japanese, finally reaching the United States in June 1942.
While in exile, Quezón devoted her time to the care of her ailing husband, who died in Saranac, New York from tuberculosis on August 1, 1944. She then moved to California to await their return to the Philippines. She and her daughters volunteered as nurses for the Red Cross.
Read more about this topic: Aurora Quezon
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