Much beloved by Filipinos, Quezon was known for involvement with humanitarian activities and served as the first chairperson of the Philippine National Red Cross.

Five years after her husband's death, she and her daughter María Aurora ("Baby") were assassinated while they were on a route to Baler to open a hospital dedicated to President Quezon.

After her father's imprisonment, she was taken in by her aunt María Dolores and uncle Lucio, and she lived for a time under the same roof as her future spouse.

[7] After Pedro Aragón's death, his survivors, including daughter Aurora, had been cast into extreme poverty, surviving on subsistence farming.

[8] This experience was said to have shaped young Aurora's lifelong attitude of according equal treatment to everybody, no matter their status in life.

[9] Aurora, who had wanted to become a school teacher, enrolled at the Philippine Normal College in Manila at the expense of her future husband,[9] but had to stop her studies after two years due to her poor health.

[13] The Quezons were the first presidential couple to reside in Malacañan Palace, but she spent as little time as possible there, preferring to stay in a "nipa house" in Malacañang Park or in her farm, Kaleidan, in Arayat, Pampanga.

She was particularly involved in managing the family's Arayat farm to demonstrate how social justice could be applied to landlord-tenant relationships in an agrarian setting.

For the next two months, the Quezon family remained in Corregidor where, despite the difficult living conditions, Aurora was said to have maintained her poise and kept up with a daily mass.

[14] In February 1942, they began their long journey via Australia to escape the Japanese and establish the Government in exile of the Commonwealth of the Philippines, finally reaching the United States in June 1942.

While in exile, Aurora devoted her time to the care of her ailing husband, who died in Saranac, New York, from tuberculosis on August 1, 1944.

She, however, endorsed the presidential candidacy of Manuel Roxas,[16] who defeated her husband's vice-president and successor, Sergio Osmeña, to win the presidency.

She was likewise bestowed the Ozanam Award from the Ateneo de Manila University, and the Pro Ecclessia et Pontifice Cross from Pope Pius XII.

She had been cautioned about this trip beforehand due to the frequent insurgency activities in Central Luzon of the Hukbalahap, the military arm of the Communist Party of the Philippines.

"[17] Nonetheless, a convoy of thirteen vehicles, including two military jeeps full of armed soldiers, accompanied Quezon.

[18] Together with Quezon in her Buick sedan were her daughter "Baby", then a law student at the University of Santo Tomas, her son-in-law Felipe "Philip" Buencamino (husband of "Nini"), Quezon City mayor Ponciano Bernardo and retired Armed Forces Chief of Staff Major General Rafael Jalandoni.

[20] The men ignored the protestations from General Jalandoni and Mayor Bernardo that Quezon was in the vehicle, and machine-gun fire erupted from the side of the road and from the mountain slopes.

[17] While General Jalandoni, who survived the attack, tagged the Huks as responsible, the chief of the Philippine Constabulary laid blame instead on bandits.

[28] The re-interment rites were attended by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and the Quezons' sole surviving child, Zenaida "Nini" Quezon-Avanceña.

[28] In 1951, Elpidio Quirino created the Aurora sub-province, named in her honor, comprising Baler and surrounding areas in the adjacent Quezon Province.

A road that connects Manila and Quezon City via San Juan (then part of Rizal Province) was renamed Aurora Boulevard in her honor in 1963.