Remedios T. Romualdez - Death

Death

She died on April 7, 1938 in the Singian clinic, also on General Solano and a few yards away from both the Romualdez home and the San Miguel Pro-Cathedral, two days after her birthday, when she was 36. (Strangely, Juanita Acereda (Vicente Orestes' first wife) was still is interred inside the same church).

The diagnosis was that she had severe pneumonia. Many attested that it was not so. Rather, she died with a broken heart.

She left the aparador that she brought with her in her every sojourn, some personal effects and a few pieces of good quality heirloom jewelry for Imelda. No one knows what came about of these stones.

On her burial day, none of her own children were present to see their mother off. They were told to stay in the house. She was interred in the Paco Park cemetery, very near the Asilo from where she came. Lourdes, together with her sisters and brothers, was remorseful. She would later bring up Remedios's six young children as if they were her own.

On her death the Vicente Orestes Romualdez branch's fortunes fizzled out to nothing. The house was nearly foreclosed had it not been purchased for a measly sum by friends of the family, Mr. and Mrs. Antonio Ricafort.

Vicente Orestes and his eleven children from both marriages left Manila for the tranquil shores and less complicated life of Leyte.

Until their teenage years, Imelda, Benjamin, Alita, Alfredo, Armando and Conchita thought that the lady in the photographs (Juanita Acereda) their step siblings showed to them were their mother as well. Only in their mature years did they know more about their true mother, Remedios Trinidad.

During World War II, Paco Park's age old Roman style cemetery was used as foxholes by the Japanese. Remedios Trinidad's bones were disinterred after her husband Señor Orestes's paid encargado was shot to death prior to saving her remains from the chaos. This explains why, in 1965, her daughter the newly installed First Lady laid wreaths to her cousin Speaker Daniel Romualdez y Zialcita's (a son of Miguel Romualdez) but none for her (even after Loreto Romualdez Ramos insisted so every time she met her cousin Imelda); no one could tell where the bones of Remedios went.