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<a href="https://cdn.kahimyang.com/resources/leonora_rivera_at_15.webp" rel="lightbox">
<img loading="lazy" src="https://cdn.kahimyang.com/resources/leonora_rivera_at_15_t.webp" class="image_200 ui-corner-all" alt="Leonora Rivera at 15" />
</a>
<div>
(Leonora Rivera at 15)
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<p>
Leonor was the daughter of Rizal's landlord-uncle of the Casa Tomasina in Intramuros where he lived during his junior year at the University of Santo Tomas.  Leonor at that time was a student of <a href="https://kahimyang.com/articles/3004/may-3-1868-la-concordia-college-was-established-in-manila" class="news_link">La Concordia College</a> where <a href="https://kahimyang.com/articles/2999/soledad-rizal-the-heros-controversial-sister" class="news_link">Soledad</a> (Rizal's youngest sister) was then studying.
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<p>
Just before Jose went abroad to study, he was engaged to her but his thoughts of an early marriage were overruled because his unmarried sisters did not desire to have a sister-in-law in their home who would add to the household care but was not trained to bear her share of them.  Even <a href="https://kahimyang.com/kauswagan/articles/2697/the-little-known-but-equally-patriotic-general-paciano-rizal" class="news_link">Paciano</a>, who was in favor, thought that his younger brother would damage his career by marrying early.
</p>
<p>
So with high hopes, Rizal had sailed away to make the fortune which would allow him to marry her.  She was constantly in his thoughts and his long letters were mailed with regular frequency during all his first years in Europe but only few of the earliest ever reached her.  Few replies came into his hands, though she was equally faithful as a correspondent.
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<p>
Leonor's mother had been told that it was for the good of her daughter's soul and interest of her happiness that she would not become the wife of a man like Rizal, who was obnoxious to the Church and in disfavor with the government.  So Mrs. Rivera gradually withheld more and more correspondence upon both sides, until it finally ceased, constantly  suggested to the unhappy girl that her lover had forgotten her amid the distractions of Europe.
</p>
<p>
Then came a person whom her mother and others joined in urging upon her as a husband - an English engineer Henry Kipping.  Their marriage took place and when Rizal returned from Europe she learned how she had been deceived.  She asked for the letters that had been withheld, and when told that as a wife she might not keep love letters from any but her husband, she pleaded that they be burned and the ashes be given her.  
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<h4>
Source:
</h4>
<ol class="article-sources">
<li>
Philippine News Agency archives
</li>
<li>
Lineage, life and labors of Jose Rizal, Austin Craig, World Book Company 1914
</li>
</ol>




April 11, 1867: Leonor Rivera was born in Camiling, Tarlac