She was ‘my Oprah’ — Filipino woman and her Chilean husband killed in condo collapse
Whenever the Obias family had a reason to celebrate, Maricoy Obias-Bonnefoy was ready to put on an unforgettable event.
She was the family’s chief organizer, planning everything from weddings to graduation parties and baby showers. Most importantly, she planned reunions of her huge family from San Jose, in the Philippines, often bringing dozens of people together.
“She planned my wedding; she gave me my wedding dress,” said Irene Obias-Sanchez, Obias-Bonnefoy’s niece, her voice cracking with emotion. “She is the most energetic, the most generous person I know; my Tita Coy is my Oprah and I will always look up to her,” she said, affectionately calling her aunt by the Filipino term “tita” for “auntie.”
Obias-Bonnefoy, 69, was born in the Philippines and moved in the 1970s to the Washington, D.C., area. That’s where she met her husband, Claudio Bonnefoy, 85, a native of Chile. They lived on the 10th floor in unit 1001 of the Champlain Towers South condominium.
On Friday, Miami-Dade police said the couple had been killed after the building’s partial collapse on June 24.
They bought the oceanfront apartment 15 years ago after moving from Washington, where she had worked in finance at the International Monetary Fund since the 1980s and where Bonnefoy, a lawyer and second uncle of former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, had worked at satellite services provider Intelsat. They recently celebrated their 30-year anniversary.
Obias-Sanchez said her aunt dedicated just as much energy and love to people she didn’t know through several philanthropic endeavors in her native Philippines and in the U.S. When deadly typhoons and tropical storms hit the islands last year, destroying a school near her hometown of San Jose, Obias-Bonnefoy not only raised funds but also planned a reconstruction effort. She supported medical missions to the area for years and also helped build a library, her niece said.
Just weeks from turning 70, Obias-Bonnefoy, who was also known as Maria to her friends, was making plans to keep traveling the world with her husband. They loved their oceanfront condo, but in recent years it had become more of a base to spend time in between trips.
Her love of adventure was palpable on her Facebook profile: Torres del Paine in Chile, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Piazza San Marco in Venice, Machu Picchu in Peru, Luang Prabang in Laos and the Inari shrine in Japan are just some of her travel photos, always beautifully framed.
She was also an artist who liked to gift paintings she made to her friends. One of them shows three lotus flowers on a lake, which she painted for her yoga teacher, Bonnie Quiceno, a few years ago.
“That painting is on my piano,” said Quiceno, who had known Obias-Bonnefoy since she moved from D.C. to Surfside and started practicing yoga at Florida International University’s fitness center about 15 years ago. They became close friends who often cooked dinner together at Quiceno’s house. “I can’t be anywhere in my house where I don’t see Maria. Her paintings, the jugs she would bring juices in, the passion fruit vine in my backyard that she loved,” she said.
Quiceno asked for a miracle last week after hearing about the collapse. “I am asking you to pray, light a candle, meditate, hop backwards on one leg, whatever you believe will work for her, and her husband, to make it through this alive and well. Many of you in my large, extended FIU Yoga family know and love her too. She practiced alongside many of you for years,” Quiceno posted on her Facebook page.
Obias-Bonnefoy had clearly embraced her husband Claudio’s Chilean family and heritage, traveling several times to Chile in the past few years and posting commentary about a French documentary on the history of the Bachelet family, “from their origins in Chassagne-Montrachet, a small village in southeast France, to Santiago, Chile, where Louis-Joseph Bachelet emigrated after he lost his vineyard to bankruptcy,” she wrote.
Bonnefoy was writing his family’s history, according to his daughters Pascale and Anne-Marie, who arrived in Miami over the weekend from Santiago, according to El Pais.
During the pandemic, the Bonnefoys were strict about following lockdown restrictions and only left for walks on the beach and to buy groceries. But Tita Coy was very close to her family and kept in touch with her many relatives through daily chats on the family’s WhatsApp group, Obias-Sanchez said. Many of them flew to Miami after news of the collapse, including two sisters who live in Washington and a brother from the Philippines.
This story was originally published June 29, 2021 at 10:16 AM.
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