María Antonia Astengo de Barrutia, born in the early 1900s, belonged to a high bourgeois family of her time. Daughter of Enrique Juan Astengo and Antonia Saint Marie, along with her 6 brothers she lived her entire existence in Rosario, a city that she learned to love from her earliest age. Member of a family group that gave their city everything they harvested in life, as witnessed by the Astengo de Alvear Foundation Home, Santa Fe province, the Astengo Foundation theater in Rosario, generous contributions to the development of the El Circulo theater , the unfortunately lost Colón theater, the remodeling of the Spanish Hospital, a great contribution to the Argentine Library, as well as numerous foundations and charitable works in the city, and a collection of European paintings that increased the cultural heritage of the Castagnino Museum. His last wish was for the Centennial Hospital, where, through the management of the Rosario Medical Sciences Foundation, he built, developed and equipped the Day Hospital of that institution, today the city's relevant public assistance service.

In his handwritten words he expressed for this last donation that ... "this work that I offer is in memory of my father, in tribute to the people of Rosario, I have thought of them when I made the decision to offer them this Service ..."