In Honor of Auntie Ces

Cecile M. Caguicla

Cecile M. Caguicla emigrated to the United States from the Philippines in 1975, when she was twenty-nine years old.   In September 2001, twenty-six years later, she lived in Boonton, New Jersey with her friend and housemate, Maria Luciano, and worked in Lower Manhattan at the World Trade Center.  She was a Vice-President in the Corporate Accounting Department at Marsh McLennan.   She was fifty-five years old when she was killed on September 11, 2001 at the World Trade Center. 

Maria Luciano saw her great friend and housemate for what neither could have known would be the final time at or about 8:10 that morning as Ms. Caguicla stopped to buy a blueberry muffin.  The two women went their separate ways.  

In addition to Maria Luciano, Ms. Caguicla was survived by five sisters and one brother, all but one of whom lived in Manila, the Philippines at the time of her death.  She was, according to Ms. Luciano, an extremely private person.  So private in fact that Ms. Luciano confessed that, "I didn't know her age until now. I didn't know her salary. I didn't know she was an assistant vice president.  I only knew when she was named employee of the year."

-AK