[1] After her husband's death in 1951, and following the takeover of the Island under a Communist regime, she had become an anachronism, and ended her life in poverty, bereft of her wealth due to the U.S. embargo, and granted a tiny pension by the Castro government.
Cueto was in the business of exporting leather goods to South America, but in Cuba he made his fortune making military boots for the United States in the Second World War.
It was filled with Napoleon III furniture and chandeliers, and a Steinway grand piano, becoming a gathering place for visiting artists and singers, such as Frank Sinatra (who had a house behind hers) and Nat King Cole.
Unable to touch her money, things became worse when Castro confiscated her island holdings, and granted her a monthly pension of 200 pesos (about $15).
Despite trips back to St. John's where parties would be held for her, she felt that the weather was too cold, and so she continued to live in Cuba in poverty, a relic from days gone by.
In 2002 she broke her hip and used a wheelchair, but continued to wear a satin dress, silk blouse, chiffon scarf and lipstick to greet her visitors.
She died on Friday, April 3, 2009, just 24 days short of her 109th birthday, and was buried next to her husband in a white marble crypt in the Necropolis Cristóbal Colón, in Havana.