Patrick de Koenigswarter: The Baron who loved us
Patrick de Koenigswarter belonged to nobility with noble hearts. His father was a French diplomat and consultant to Charles de Gaulle. His mother, a Rothschild heiress, was a patroness of jazz artists. Both parents were aviators who joined the Free French
The high society of Manila has seen royalty come and go in the Philippines, but there is only one who visited the Philippines and chose to stay forever: Baron Patrick Rothschild de Koenigswarter.
After more than four decades in Manila, Patrick, 81, finally left us, leaving a trail of broken hearts and lovely memories.
The broken hearts include not really those of women who have come and gone in his life, but more of the artists/ intellectuals he loved and whose company he enjoyed — and who respected him for his intelligence, creativity and genteel Old World manners. They were legion: Ben Cabrera and Annie Sarthou, Arturo Luz and Tessie Luz, Claude Tayag, Impy Pilapil, Don Jaime Zobel and Bea Zobel, Tiny Nuyda, Wig Tysmans, Silvana Diaz, Gemma Cruz-Araneta, Marivic Rufino, Manuel Baldemor, Jessica Zafra, Ricky Soler, Peachy Prieto, Peter Jentes and Tetta Agustin-Baverey. There, too, were the late Letty JimenezMagsanoc and Ed Castrillo.
From a corporate background — a Columbia University graduate, assigned by his London company to set up office in Asia, particularly in Manila — Patrick rose to become a photographer, bonding with Manila’s culturati.
Most touching of these true friendships was perhaps that of National Artist Bencab, who offered his condominium to Patrick during his last years, as a warm, comforting gesture from a longtime artist-friend.
Among those he truly loved, the tears fell most from his former wife Eva Abesamis, one of Manila’s lovely women who came from the elite Anover clan of Leyte, and their intelligent and handsome 27-year-old son David, now a pilot.
Eva rushed to Patrick’s side when the maid called her last Tuesday morning to say he had died in his sleep. “I saw him lying down, facing the window. I stroked his hair, held his hand and whispered: ‘Rest now, Patrick, it’s been hard. Don’t worry, David is ready.’”
When Patrick had a quadruple bypass after a stroke in 2008, David prayed that his father would stay longer to fully nurture him towards independence. And he did, no matter if his life had been confined to a hospital bed for months and he was subsequently disabled after a bad fall two years ago.
Now a First Officer at AirAsia, operating both domestic and international flights, as well as a member of the jazz-blues band called Brat Pack, David says: “My dad saw
how hard I worked, and he was just waiting to see when I would be ready to live my life without him. He is a part of who I am physically, mentally and emotionally. We were buddies, we shared so many similar thoughts, laughs and we loved each other so much that we didn’t even have to say the words ‘I love you.’ His humor, wit, sincere kindness, his high intelligence I will never forget. With his resilience, endurance and modesty, he overcame his pains and illness. He was a perfect gentleman even when things got tough.”
Eva says she will miss intellectual and lively conversations with Patrick on art, culture, history, literature and politics — with Patrick’s inimitable brand of humor. When they agreed to separate, they continued to be such good friends, being united still as parents for David who would divide his time between Eva’s Twin Towers condo, and Patrick’s San Lorenzo Village home. Together they instilled in David traits like humility, honesty and the value of hard work.
“I will never disappear from you. I will take care of you till the end,” Eva promised Patrick. And she followed Patrick’s wish to be cremated after two days. But instead of scattering his ashes in his favorite El Nido waters, both Eva and David agreed to enshrine his memory at the Santuario de San Antonio crypt.
In fact, Eva and her partner, businessman Citoy Lopez, both took care of Patrick in and out of the hospital. “We would have dinners together and exchange gifts. I delivered food to him twice weekly, for Patrick would often get bored of meals in his house.”
It was photographer Wig Tysmans who played Cupid between Patrick and Eva, unaware that the two had met years earlier during a lunch hosted by Greg Licaros, who was then “madly in love with Eva,” according to Patrick, who later confessed that he had a mad crush on Eva then, but kept a respectful distance.
When Eva chanced to meet Patrick’s father in Paris years earlier, the father told her: “Please convince my son to get married. I just want to have a grandchild.” Little did he know that serendipitous events would later bind Patrick and Eva in marriage in Hong Kong. “He was 50 when we got married — his first,” says Eva.
When news of their marriage broke, Manila’s cynical and the envious asked: “Is he true blue royalty?” Little did they know that nobility ran in the blood of not just one, but both parents.
Patrick’s father was mining engineer and banker Baron Jules de Koenigswarter, who became an adviser to Charles de Gaulle and was appointed to French diplomatic posts in Norway and Mexico.
Patrick’s mother was Kathleen Annie Pannonica Rothschild, daughter of Charles Rothschild and Hungarian Baroness Rozsika Edle von Wertheimstein. With patriotism and courage in their hearts, both joined the Free French army to fight against Nazis during World War II. “Both were aviators who flew their own planes,” explains Eva.
According to a New York Times story, Pannonica (or “Nica”) was named after a butterfly species that her father had discovered. Later, it was verified that the source of the name is a rare kind of moth, Eublemma pannonica.
After his parents’ divorce, Nica became known in the US as the Baroness of Jazz as this Rothschild heiress became a generous benefactor to jazzmen, opening her home to them, paying for their bills and chauffeuring them to gigs around New York. In 1955, legendary jazz musician Charles Parker Jr. died on a sofa in her Fifth Avenue home. Another jazz great, Thelonious Monk, died after secluding himself for years in her New Jersey home.
Patrick’s mother wrote a book, Three
Wishes: An Intimate Look at Jazz Greats, featuring photographs taken by the baroness. Tributes, exhibits and musical compositions have been produced in her honor.
Having married Baron Patrick de Koenigswarter, Eva has no regrets and would do it all over again. “Patrick gave me a nice life, a beautiful son, a title, yes. But I told our son David: ‘Do not use the title Baron (which is conferred upon him in the family genealogy), because there is too much expectation that goes with it. The Philippines is not a monarchy.’”
Eva adds: “It is just a title. What is more important is what you accomplish.”
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