Josefa Aurora Angueyra and Rafael Arciniegas y Tavera

 [her parents]                                                          [his parents]

Josefa Aurora Angueyra (normally referred to as Aurora) was the first of the children of Maria de la Luz Figueredo y Vazquez and Basilio Angueyra to be born in Tunja, Colombia on November 11, 1877.  She was baptized at six months of age in the iglesia parroquial de Santiago by the priest Jesus Marta Uribe.

On July 29, 1899, in la parroquia de San Pablo de Bogotá, iglesia de la Veracruz, Aurora married Rafael Arciniegas y Tavera who was born on October 24, 1857, in Coyaima, Tolima, Colombia, the son of Eladio Arciniegas y Tafur and Julia Tavera y Scarpetta.

Rafael was a prosperous farmer who owned land and cattle.  In Colombia, from 1899 to 1903, the first four years of the marriage of Josefa and Rafael, a civil war, la Guerra de los Mil Días [the War of a Thousand Days] was fought between rebels of the Liberal Party and the government.  German Arciniegas, the oldest son of Josefa and Rafael, later wrote that his father, while taking no active part in the war, supported the Liberal side by hiding escaped prisoners and by storing and transporting weapons from his home on the outskirts of Bogota.  Rafael later bought a house in the neighborhood of Santa Barbara in Bogotá, from which he travelled by train each day to his farm, San Antonio.

In 1917, Rafael fell from a horse on one of his properties, and was partially paralyzed, unable to walk.  In 1920, he became very ill and was advised to travel to Panama for an operation.  At the end of February 1920, he, together with Aurora and German, his oldest son, then 20, set out, leaving the rest of the children, including the youngest, Inés who was only eight months old, in Bogotá.

They went by train from Bogotá to Girardot, by boat to Beltrán, again by train to La Dorado, by steam ship to Barranquilla, and then on a larger ship, to Panama.  In the hospital in Ancon, Panama, on March 25, 1920, Rafael underwent prostate surgery, but died.  Aurora and German returned to Bogotá with the body of Rafael, a trip which took 20 days, and there Rafael was buried, on April 13, 1920, in el Cementerio Central de Bogotá.  To pay for the journey, the hospitalization and for Rafael’s funeral, Aurora had to sell a property called Puente Grande.

After Rafael died, Aurora sold the milk from his properties but German wrote that neither she nor he were good at business, and that she gave away more of the milk than she sold.  Elsewhere, Aurora is said to have owned both an empresa de quesos or cheese business, which she ran out of her home, and a chircal or brick factory.  She died on August 5, 1955, in Bogotá and her obituary appeared in El Tiempo the next day.

In 1977, Aurora’s daughter, Inés, organized a reunion of all of Aurora’s descendants at her home in Chia, Colombia to recognize the anniversary of Aurora’s birth.  Aurora and Rafael had eight children, German, Isabel, Rafael (1), Rafael (2), Hernando, Julia, Lucia, and Inés Arciniegas y Angueyra.

#  Children of Josefa Aurora Angueyra and Rafael Arciniegas y Tavera: