Corazon Atencio Maen, 79

CORAZON Atencio Maen, a retired high school teacher in her birth town Moncada, Tarlac, died at the Kaiser Vallejo Hospital in California at past noon Wednesday (Thursday in the Philippines). She was 79.

Maen was the oldest of four daughters of Feliciano M. Atencio, mayor of Moncada for nearly 16 years, and the former Zenaida Alegre of Paoay, Ilocos Norte.

She left behind her husband Isidro, a US Navy veteran of the Vietnam and Middle East Wars; sons Orville, a US Marine Corps squad leader; Michael; as well as two grandsons and a granddaughter.

She also left her three sisters: Carmen in California (wife of US Air Force Major Ernest Jay Maske+); Maria Rosa in the Philippines (wife of Manila-based journalist Honor Blanco Cabie); and Gertrudes, also in California.

Maen taught at the Plebeian Academy in Moncada after earning her elementary education and education degrees from Paniqui town, also in Tarlac, before she relocated to California where her Paniqui-born husband was based.

She worked at the Silverado Resorts in Napa Valley in California as a supervisor before she donned her retirement coat.

Friends and relatives who met her described her with a sharp tongue and a good sense of humor, a good cook, with stamina, agility and passion when she was not dishing out stories that always evoked laughter.

“In more ways than one, she has stood as a pillar of strength and a beacon of hope for all of us who have entered the doors of the home that she has built with (her husband). Their home has always been a place of family reunions and gatherings, always a place of welcome, and a place of happy memories,” one said.

Funeral arrangements have not been arranged. Honor Blanco Cabie