Consuelo Almonte: A lifetime of frogs and fond memories
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A life story with a feel-good ending.
If a book were to be written about Consuelo Almonte’s life, it would read a little bit Tom Clancy and a little bit Danielle Steele. There is romance, betrayal, some international intrigue, second chances, and a feel-good ending.
An inventory of her 81 years reveals a redemption in mid-life and a realization by this tireless community leader and founder of the Philippine Community Center Services for the Aging (PCCSA) that everything happens for a reason.
If she did not get married after college to a man her family disapproved of, she wouldn’t find herself in New York where her father sent her to “get my life straightened out.” She found work at the Pakistani Mission to the United Nations while also running a French-style steak house as co-owner and night manager. She met a Jewish biology teacher at a divorce party in Downtown Manhattan, who turned out to be an affectionate husband and a caring stepfather to her daughter. Mark Shaffer passed away last year from cardiac arrest.
Connie is all alone but surrounds herself with family and caring friends who make her happy. Her life is filled with community gatherings, meetings, visits to her daughter’s family in Poughkeepsie, and parties. She goes home to her apartment filled with photographs, paintings, and fond memories of Mark.
Kermit’s kingdom
“Toots, the frog population in this house is getting out of hand,” Mark used to tease her. Toots is his pet name for her.
Connie’s frog collection is all over her house – on top of the fridge, on bathroom shelves, on the dresser, and on every table where there is an empty spot. They’re mostly ceramic in many different sizes but there are also pillows and snow globes. Kermit’s kingdom is a two-bedroom apartment in Richmond Hill.
Connie and Mark in earlier days.
“I liked frogs for the fun of it, but then I had more fun when I told Mark I kissed a lot of frogs, and that he was the frog that turned into a prince, therefore these are his relics,” she said laughing in her recollection.
Connie loves to relive the happy times with Mark because once upon a time, she was almost trapped in a misguided marriage to a handsome jock in the Philippines.
Her father, a top official at the Bureau of Land, tried to deter her from marrying too young. Instead of listening, Connie decided to elope with her boyfriend. A daughter was born of that marriage. Until Connie found out this man was having another relationship. She decided to leave him and went back to her family with her daughter. However, he tracked her down at her work place and, with a gun to her head, asked her to return home and for them to start all over.
Her father, with the cooperation of her company, devised a plan to send her to the U.S. She came to New York in 1968 to pursue her master’s degree in Education at Hunter College. She was enrolled for a year when she found work at the Pakistani Mission as Secretary to the Press Counselor. She retired in 2011 after 43 years of service with the title of Assistant to the Press Minister.
Dunhill
Her personal life no longer in disarray, Connie returned to the Philippines for a visit, the first time since she departed to escape from her failed marriage. Her father welcomed her at the airport. He never said anything, just pleased to see her established in her career and healed.
“I got him a Dunhill Cigar,” she recalled.
That night, as she was sleeping in her room beside her daughter whom she missed, she heard a commotion. Her father had a heart attack and was taken to the hospital where Connie was able to spend a night before he passed away. And with that, she felt relieved that she was able to come to terms with him. “The book of my life with my father is closed in peace.”
“He was a very proud man,” she said, “For five years, I was his disobedient daughter.”
© The FilAm 2018
With grandchildren Cheyenne and Sebastian Clites
