When we were in the elementary grades in the early fifties, a 17-year-old girl from Finland was crowned (by Hollywood actress Piper Laurie) the first Miss Universe at a glittering ceremony in Long Beach, California.
Nobody could have imagined that she would become an adopted daughter of the Philippines when she married a Filipino gentleman. Their love story was immortalized in a movie entitled Now and Forever.
Later in the year, she was invited to crown that year’s Miss Philippines. During her stay she met her future husband in Baguio through a blind date.
Lawmakers discarded their usual "parliamentary sobriety" when she called on then Senate President Eulogio Rodriguez and Speaker Eugenio Perez. Smitten by her beauty, then Rep. Ferdinand E. Marcos (Ilocos Norte) introduced himself as the only eligible bachelor in the House and confessed that his knees gave way after meeting her up close and personal.
She crowned Cristina de Leon Galang (1953 Miss Philippines), with Benigno Aquino Jr. as her escort. Two days before her departure, she danced the rigodon de honor with the winners of the Miss Philippines contest and prominent social figures during the Farewell Ball. Shedding tears, Armi left the country for Hong Kong and Japan with a heavy heart.
Indeed, she won the hearts of the Filipinos particularly the then 25-year-old chap who studied banking, marketing and foreign trade in Columbia University and at the same time worked with the Philippine National Bank in New York. Friends in the know believe that one of the reasons why she was swept off her feet by him was because of his dancing skills. He was an expert in mambo, samba, rumba and other ballroom steps.
He followed her to Tokyo where their romance blossomed until they mutually agreed to get married on her 19th birthday on Aug. 20. He gave her a three-carat diamond engagement ring. But love couldn’t wait. On the wee hours of May 3, he was involved in a scuffle when he defended her from a drunken American newspaperman who tried to harass her inside the Cosmopolitan Nightclub.
Before the incident, she chose to give up her Miss Universe crown and title, her plans to take up physical education and language and make more movies but decided to marry that day instead. He was sporting a black right eye when he exchanged marriage vows with her (who wore a blue nylon lace gown and carried a small bouquet of roses), officiated by Rev. Fr. Bruno Blitter, at the St. Ignatius Church in Yatsuya, Tokyo, with her sister Irma Kyromies as matron of honor and Roberto Villanueva (then VP of Chronicle Publications) as best man, a close friend. She received a brand new 1952 Cadillac as a wedding gift.
After their two-month honeymoon in the US and Europe, the couple settled in the Philippines. They had five children and six grandchildren who now live in different parts of the globe, namely: Arne, Anna-Lisa, Jose/Jussi, Eva-Maria and Miguel/Mikko (the only one based in Manila).
He became the Forbes Park barangay captain and also Honorary Consul of Finland which elated her no end. She became a Camay Girl and she posed with her family for print and commercial ads.
Hilario died of a heart attack on September 7, 1975, and Kuusela married an American diplomat Albert Williams, on June 8, 1978, and they now reside in California.
I recall that my sister Carmen and her friends in Class "55 "stalked" her and got a black and white photo autographed by her.
Do you have any recollections of our long-ago past? (50 years!) Send them in!
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