Even unto Death

Senora Maria Unzue de Alvear was one of the few women listed in Argentina's Who's Who. A plump, little old lady who lived out her declining years in piety and good works, she gave an estimated 1,000,000 pesos ($112,000) a year to charity. She could well afford it; her family, which had given Argentina one of its most distinguished Presidents (Marcelo Torcuato de Alvear, 1922-28), owned a good million acres of rich grazing land.

In the pre-Peron era, Dona Maria was a perennial president of Argentina's Sociedad de Beneficencia, a sort of community chest which supported most of the nation's hospitals, homes for the aged and orphan asylums. But when the Perons came to power, Argentine charity became a political matter and a virtual monopoly of the First Lady. The high-born oligarcas of the Beneficencia pointedly refrained from inviting Evita to become their honorary president; Evita retaliated by virtually running them out of business.

Three weeks ago, Dona Maria died, aged 88. Her family and friends gathered for the funeral at the handsome, Byzantine-style church of Santa Rosa de Lima, which Dona Maria had built, and where her husband is entombed. Her body was to be placed beside his. Just before the ceremony, a messenger arrived from City Hall to remind church authorities that an old sanitary ordinance forbade burial except in cemeteries. The priests protested that they had long since gotten a special dispensation from the municipality to put Dona Maria in a crypt in the church, just as they had for her husband 8 years before. That dispensation, they were brusquely told, was no longer effective.

For all their wealth, Dona Maria's family owned no suitable cemetery plot in Buenos Aires, and were forced to borrow a vault temporarily. Last week they were still looking for a permanent resting place for Dona Maria.

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