Dolores Paterno

Dolores Paterno y de Vera-Ignacio (March 10, 1854 – July 3, 1881) was a Filipina composer known for the song “La Flor de Manila” (also known as “Sampaguita”). Biography Dolores Paterno e Ignacio (anglicized as Dolores Paterno-Ignacio) was born on March 10, 1854, in Santa Cruz, Manila, Philippines. She was one of the thirteen children of Máximo Molo-Agustín-Paterno y Yamzon and Carmen de Vera-Ignacio y Pineda Dolores Paterno came from the wealthy mestizo sangley Paterno family. She was the sister of Lcdo. Dr. Pedro Alejandro Paterno, a Filipino politician, poet, and novelist. Her sisters and stepsisters, Águeda, Jácoba, Paz, Concepcion, and Adelaida, were celebrated painters and jewellers whose works were exhibited at the Exposición Regional de Filipinas in Manila in 1895 and at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904. She was also related to the Asuncion brothers, among them Justiniano Asuncion who painted her portrait in 1870. Musically inclined at a young age, she was sent by her parents to the Santa Isabel College, Manila, an all-girls Catholic school managed by the Daughters of Charity. She devoted much of her time to learning the piano. In 1879, at the age of 25 she composed her on