Hunnewell, M. Luisa B. of Wellesley died peacefully at home on January 31, 2025 at the age of 97. Although her last years were challenging, Luisa had a wonderful, interesting, and happy life. She was born in Mexico City on July 22, 1927 to Jose de la Borbolla Monterubio and Rosa Maria Espinosa Casanova de la Borbolla. She grew up in that beautiful city with four sisters and a brother. While playing tennis in the fall of 1951 she met Walter Hunnewell (1917-1999), a World War II Navy veteran from Boston and Wellesley who had been sent to Mexico by The Gillette Company in 1948 to establish operations in that country. They were married in September 1952 at her parents’ home in Mexico City as she was not permitted a church wedding to a person of a different faith. She and Walter were devoted to each other until his death in 1999. From a different culture and speaking little English, in September 1954 she moved with Walter and their young daughter to the Boston area, where Gillette is headquartered. She lived the rest of her life in Wellesley, but always loved Mexico, and we travelled often to see her parents, siblings, and 19 nieces and nephews in that country.
Luisa was elegant, outgoing, determined, adventurous, patient, a good listener, a lot of fun, and a kind and gentle person who was interested in everybody she met. She put everyone at ease. She enthusiastically embraced her new life in the United States - raising four children, making so many friends, setting thermostats at 45 degrees during the energy crisis, working outside, and vegetable gardening, even growing thousands of onions in the 1970’s for the French onion soup at Walter’s La Crepe restaurant in Boston. She loved our tiny chalet in Franconia and relished the excitement of winter ski weekends. She was extremely curious and read voraciously with interests in world history, political figures, religion, and the arts. Luisa was hugely supportive of Walter’s career at Gillette, constantly hosting visiting executives and government officials from Latin America and around the world. In 1979 she and Walter accompanied the Boston Symphony Orchestra on its historic tour to Beijing and Shanghai, the first tour to China by an American orchestra after China opened. They travelled the world together on business and for pleasure. She was active in the Pan American Society, the Vincent Club, the Noanett Garden Club, Save Venice, and many other organizations. Though always proud of her Mexican heritage, she loved Boston and the United States and was so excited to vote when she became a US citizen in 1992. Growing up at a time when it was not customary for women in Mexico to go to college, she was determined to get her degree later in life and graduated from Wellesley College in 1994 as a Davis Scholar. Walter’s extended family loved her.
After Walter’s death she remained unbelievably active, while also devoting herself to the care of their place in Wellesley and continuing its horticultural, agricultural, and historical legacies. For decades she served as an interpreter for Spanish-speaking patients at the Massachusetts General Hospital. She was a fierce competitor on the tennis court through her mid 80’s. Among her many gifts to us are a love of Mexico and the Spanish language and cultures, and our extended family of Mexican relatives. Walter would be the first to say that his marriage to Luisa was the best thing that ever happened to him.
Luisa lived through her advanced age and physical challenges with characteristic determination and grace, and we will miss her enormously. She leaves her four children Maria Luisa Hunnewell Newman and her husband Larry, Walter Hunnewell Jr. and his wife Lila (Colburn), Francis Welles Hunnewell and his wife Emily (Nash), and Jane Peele Hunnewell Kaplan and her husband Harold, all of Wellesley. She also leaves eight grandchildren, four great-grandchildren, and many nieces and nephews in the US and Mexico.
A Celebration of her Life will be held at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, 79 Denton Road, Wellesley at 10:30AM on February 28. Burial at Mount Auburn Cemetery will be private. In lieu of flowers, please consider a small donation in Luisa’s memory to El Hogar of Honduras, c/o The Parish of Christ Church, 25 Central Street, Andover, MA 01810 or The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, Isabella Welles Hunnewell Internship Program, 125 Arborway, Boston, MA 02130.