Santa Barbara School Days: 1869-1874

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Occasional Papers, No. 3 1964

FR. MAYNARD GEIGER, O.F.M.

NOTICIAS QUARTERLY BULLETIN OF THE SANTA BARBARA HISTORICAL SOCIETY MAILING ADDRESS, OLD MISSION, SANTA BARBARA, CALIFORNIA

Introduction In May of 1938, Old Mission Santa Barbara received a most unusual visitor in the person of Felipe Estolano Larios of Los Banos, California, who was accompanied by his friend and sponsor, Mr. Ralph Milliken, postmaster of the same town. Larios, at the age of eighty-four, had come back to pay his respects to his Alma Mater, the Colegio Franciscano, which was located at the mission during the years 1868-1877. He had not visited Santa Bar bara since 1874—a span of sixty-four years. This writer entertained Larios and his associate for three days and with them visited a schoolmate of Larios, then still living in Santa Barbara, Mr. Alfonso Den. When Larios returned to the mission he brought with him not only memories but a manuscript of 307 typewritten pages which formed the memoirs of his youth as they had been lived in the San Juan Bautista area where he was born and in Santa Barbara where he received his secondary education. Mr. Milliken had sponsored Larios’ work with particular em phasis on the San Juan Bautista area whose basic material he wished to use in a book and which has since appeared in California Dons. It was indeed gracious both on the part of Mr. Milliken and Mr. Larios to leave a copy of this manuscript at the mission for preservation in its archives.

This writer found Larios spry for his age. He climbed the stone caracol staircase in the former west mission tower as he had done many a time when he was a student here. His hearing was unimpaired and he had never worn glasses. His memory was clear and his perceptions distinct. In answering this writer’s many questions, he always qualified his statements according to his knowledge.

The remarkable thing about these memoirs is that Larios, despite his long absence from Santa Barbara and without having done any research in the mission’s archives, had produced a document remarkable for its conform ity with facts concerning persons, places and things. The archives contain what one might call the dry bones of the period, statistics, accounts, cata logues—which while accurate enough hardly scintillate or enthuse. It is these memoirs that clothe the dry bones with living flesh and coursing blood.

These “Santa Barbara School Days” over a five year period between 1869 and 1874, provide for us today after nearly a hundred years a sojourn into the past forming a picture of an era that will never return.

Still there is nothing earth-shaking in this account if one is looking for the unusual. It is simply an honest narrative of interesting, picturesque 1

vignettes of what captured the interest of a ranch boy, a descendant of the Dons, seeking an education. He tells of steamers and stage-coaches and run away horses. He describes a cockfight, a brass band playing in church, an Oak Park picnic. He remembered Jose Lobero, Judge Maguire, Nick Covarrubias and Father O’Keefe. The social life of the time, horseback riding, picnics, fairs, church festivities, games, educational methods and the pre valent forms of discipline all enter into the picture. Whatever Larios de scribes is vitally told. Nor, fortunately, does he omit to relate the pranks and capers of the youngbloods at the school, his own included, things one would expect to hear about vibrant and zestful boys. In this story is revealed the unfolding of early American Santa Barbara still partly Hispanic in its milieu. Larios succeeds in passing on to us the flavor of another day.

Our narrator came from an historic ancestry. His great-grandfather, Engracia Larios, had come from Barcelona, Spain, and settled in Culiacan, Mexico. His two elder sons, Jose Maria and Engracia, were members of the famous Anza expedition that came to California in 1776 to establish the Presidio of San Francisco and the Pueblo of San Jose. Don Manuel Larios, a son of Jose Maria, who in turn became Felipe’s father, was born in San Jose in 1799. Manuel enlisted in the array and served for seven years finally settling on a ranch, Santa Ana, near Hollister in San Benito County in 1839.

There Larios was born in 1855, his mother being Maria del Rosario Armas de Higuera y Larios. She was the third wife of Manuel Larios, his two previous wives having died. Manuel died in 1865.

Thus Larios knew ranch life in the tradition of the Dons of old. He received private tutoring and attended several country schools including a semester at Santa Clara College before coming to Santa Barbara at the age of fourteen. In his long life he spent many years away from his native habitat, particularly in the northwest, Washington and Montana, and some periods in Mexico. He died in Oregon City, March 24, 1941.

A few words are necessary concerning the college at the mission to provide a proper setting for Larios’ story. In 1854 the few remaining Franciscans at the mission formed an apostolic college for the training of future missionaries similar to tliat of San Fernando, Mexico City, which had sent the early missionaries to California. This institution lasted until 1885. At the same time its members, as recruits came in, tried to make themselves useful in other ways. In 1864 at the suggestion of Bishop Thaddeus Amat, C.M., of Los Angeles, they began to prepare for the opening of a boys’ college, a much felt need in Southern California. Buildings had to be repaired and augmented and funds obtained. The college opened its doors early in 1868. In the main it was a combination of high school and junior college. There were in addition some primary grades.

The college lasted only nine years when it had to discontinue because of increasing indebtedness and diminishing enrollment. The college was not a seminary but was for lay students preparing for secular avocations.

Thus it was the Franciscan Fathers of the apostolic college who taught the boys of the Colegio Franciscano or Franciscan (Secular) College aided by a few diocesan priests and some teaching brothers from Brooklyn, N.Y. The courses of instruction consisted of an oldtime solid education with out frills or fads. The courses are described in the extant catalogues as well as in Larios’ memoirs: Religion, Grammar, Geography, History, Com2

position, Rhetoric, Elocution, English, Spanish, French, German, Latin, Greek, Arithmetic, Bookkeeping, Algebra, Plane and Solid Geometry, Plane and Spherical Trigonometry, Mensuration, Astronomy, Mental, Moral and Natural Philosophy, and Music, the instruments being Piano, Violin, Flute and Cornet.

The college opened March 2, 1868, and closed on May 31, 1877. It had been incorporated under the laws of California. Here where Indians once had been taught the simple arts of craftsmanship and civilization, now boys of the conquering races, Hispanic and Anglo-American, mingled on a higher plane of instruction. Between 1868 and 1877 about 300 students attended the institution, most of them from California, significant numbers from the Santa Barbara and the San Francisco areas. Here were found the De la Guerras, Carrillos, Cotas, Orenas, Janssens, Hopes, Dens, Goux, McCafferys and Freemans.

When Larios placed his manuscript in this writer’s hands, there were restrictions on its use until Mr. Milliken should publish his work on the San Juan Bautista area. When this writer late in 1963 asked Mr. Milliken if he could edit that portion of the Larios’ manuscript relating to his Santa Bar bara days, the gentleman replied on Dec. 7: “Go ahead with the Larios ma terial. I think the material reflects credit on Estolano and on his College as well.” Now let the great-grandson of a Spanish Don from Barcelona tell the story of Santa Barbara and its mission as he saw it in his day.

Maynard Geiger, O.F.M.

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Santa Barbara School Days (1869 - 1874)

By Felipe Estolano Larios

(SCHOOL YEAR 1869-1870) I went up to the Franciscan College on a Wednesday afternoon. Later that same day Father Jose^ drove me down in his hack and I got my trunk from the lodging house where I had stopped all night. Father Gonzalez^ was the superior, Father Sheehan,® the President, Fathers Wade^ and O’Keefe,'' the principal teachers. Father Coffey® taught languages and Brothers John Cullinan''^ and John Reid® were prefects and taught the lower grades.

Thursdays were recreation days in the afternoon. No recitations in the forenoon but we had to study until the noon meal. Then we went out for a country walk or (engaged) in a baseball or football game. Sundays we had recreation all day long, after attending church services. We had only one hour of study (on Sundays) and that was from seven-thirty to eight-thirty P.M. Then half an hour recess and bed at nine. Reveille was at five-thirty A.M., Mass at six and breakfast at seven. School took up at eight-thirty.

Having arrived on a Wednesday there was no work for me that day.

I had some of my old school books with me. So on Thursday instead of sending me to study hall Father O’Keefe took me to his classrooms and there examined me quite thoroughly. Result: a full new set of books for not a single one of mine was accepted. I had a Wilson’s Sixth Reader and a New York Standard Speaker. He furnished me with a Metropolitan Fifth Reader in their place which I found hard enough. They used no spellers of any kind. Instead after the reading lesson the teacher would select words from our reading lesson which we had to spell and define. A good system I be lieve. My former teacher, Mr. Fallon, used to give Lupe® and me five words out of the school dictionary every day beginning with A, etc., and we had to learn the definition of every word. I think that was even a better system for through the year a person surely would leam a goodly number of words and their meanings.

After Father O’Keefe got through selecting my books and found a seat for me in the study hall we were ready for our walk around the woods back of the Mission grounds. (Mission Canyon) We were supposed to clean up and look decent when leaving the premises. With this in view we all repaired to the wash room and from there to the trunk room to change our clothes if we deemed it necessary. I unlocked my trunk with a view of putting on a clean shirt and tie. Just then Father O’Keefe was by my side.

I lifted the tray off my trunk and he picked up a coat lying on top.

“That’s nice goods,” he remarked. “What did you pay for that?” and he kept right on lifting article after article commenting on their quality and asking the cost and finally he got to the very bottom of the trunk. There he found ten dollars worth of chewing tobacco, two boxes of cigars, 50s, and 150 packages of cigarettes, all told about twenty to twenty-five dollars worth of the stuff.

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I felt pretty cheap all right. He looked astonished and asked if the goods were mine and if I used the stuff myself. I said “Yes, it is all mine and 1 used it.” Then he asked if my mother knew I used tobacco. I said “Yes.” So then he said; “It is strictly against the rules of this institution to use tobacco in any form, shape or manner. I will take charge of all this and when you are leaving here you can call on me for it. You are not to use it while you are here.”*^‘' I came and went for five consecutive years but never called for my property. This was a little set back to the upkeep of my bad habits. But a remedy was soon found.

There were day scholars back and forth every day, trustworthy boys who would bring us cigarettes or tobacco in their boots and were never suspected. There were no shoes in those days. All wore boots. My smoking was kept up. Hardly a boy could afford to buy that did not smoke. Many of them chewed. Father Sheehan would stand at the foot of the stairway when the bell rang for school and if he suspected a boy of using tobacco he would ask him to blow in his eye and in that way he would detect the culprit, who would be punished adequately. Three good hits on the palm of your hand with a hard rubber ruler. I quit chewing but not smoking. Only once or twice did he ask me to blow in his eye and tlien I would inhale hard in place of blowing out. Besides there were lemon trees growing in the yard and the boys tliat were in the know would tear off a leaf or two and chew it hard before marching in. That practice eliminated the tobacco smell.

All the newcomers had to have their try out. When we were returning home after our walk I was walking along with three Spanish boys, Dario u Orena, Osvaldo De la Guerra and Raymundo Olivas, Behind us were three 12 or four other American boys. Among them was Gustavus Coleman, a boy probably fifteen or sixteen years old, heavily built but not so tall as I. They had acorns in their pockets and were pelting us with them. I think the most of them were aimed at me. One acorn hit me on the side of the ear and stung pretty badly. I turned around and said: “Whoever did that better stop it.” Then Olivas said it was the boy with the linen coat on, meaning Gus Coleman. I learned the name, of course, subsequently.

Pretty soon as if in derision of my threat a whole hand full of acorns hit me on the back. I rushed back straight for Coleman. He ran to one side and I overtook and tripped his heel which sent him sprawling. Before he got up I had given him a broad hand slap across the cheek and would have done better but Raymundo at my side said: “Let him get up, there comes the priest.” I looked up and saw Father O’Keefe catching up with us. Then I meekly walked towards the playground. The row was not over.

After supper a young Irish bully named Ignatius Glynn*^ kne^v all about the afternoon racket and started picking on me. I did not need much of this to urge me on and fortunately I could handle my dukes in very fair shape.

A ring was formed, coats peeled and at it we went. After the first round or two the alarm was sounded and the crowd dispersed. I picked up my coat and walked over to a corner of the yard where my former walking friends were. I did not see but the boys said Glynn had to walk over to the wash room and wash up a bloody nose while the next day he showed up in the school room with quite a nice lamp. The balance of the week I was left entirely alone.

Sunday evening after supper there was quite a crowd of boys gathered 14 about the swing and rings. I was on the rings just starting up. Nelson Beck

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about eighteen years old and as big as a horse was passing in front of me and I accidentally bumped him. He turned and grabbed me off the rings. 1 thought he was going to demolish me. In our scuffle I got my forefinger inside his mouth and my thumb under his jaw, my left hand in his coat collar and a heavy kick on the side of his ankle brought Mr. Nelson flat on his back. I did not hit him while down but lifted him by the top knot and gave him a good swift paste on the jaw and sent him sprawling. He limped into the school room and the next morning he did not attend early Mass but sat on the church steps with his foot bandaged up. He wore about number ten shoes but the foot looked about number fourteen. It had been dis located. However, he was man enough not to squeal on me. He told Father O’Keefe he had fallen on it.

Four years later when I accidentally hurt a one-armed Californian, Father O’Keefe, who had become president of the institution, took occasion to upbraid me for it and then mentioned the fact that it was my doings that had hurt Nelson Beck’s foot four years back. I did not deny or admit it. Very few other fights troubled me. The lads soon got on to me and left me entirely alone. the school Only one fight I have to mention and that took place in room study hall. We had long desks and benches. I sat to the left side of Jerry Mullins,^® who was a cripple. Jerry was about eighteen years old but had only one good leg. The other was a baby leg like an eight or ten year old boy. It was caused probably from infantile paralysis when a young boy. He had a contrivance attached to this and could walk pretty well. He could also swim. We were pretty good friends. He used to help me with arithmetic much of the time.

Late one afternoon after returning from a walk we were all in the study hall. I was wearing a long-tailed dress coat. Jerry had his foot up on the bench on top of my tail coat. I gently moved his foot and told him that he was soiling my coat. Again his foot found its way to the top of my coat tail. I then gave his foot a hard shove off. With that he turned and smashed me square on the eye. In self-defense I grabbed him by the collar and pushed him down between the bench and the desk and hit him a punch square in the mouth and end of the nose. Just then Ignatius Glynn that sat behind jumped up and hit me an awful jolt on the back of the head. Then Francisco Noriega,^® a big Spanish boy, took my part and engaged Glynn. Then John O’Keefe,” twenty-two year old young man and brother of Father O’Keefe, tackled Noriega. By that time the prefect, Brother John Cullinan, was around with his rattan and gave O’Keefe a cut across the shoulders. That put a quietus on the whole affair.

The prefect was not supposed to punish the pupils, merely to slate the names of those misbehaving and the offense. Then when before school was dismissed the president, who was then Father Sheehan, would come in and read the slate over and execute the due castigation. In this instance I was the first called on the carpet. Though I truthfully pleaded self-defense I received three rather sharp hits on the palm of my right hand with a two inch hard rubber ruler. I thought it undeserved and through madness .....

I did not cry though I suffered intense pain. Jerry was then called and admitted my accusation without prevarication. He too received three hard cuts on the hand with the ruler and although he did not whimper big tears rolled down his cheeks as he returned to his seat. None of the other par6

ticipants in the melee were called. Only a short lecture against fighting followed.

Jerry’s upper lip had been cut by his teeth and it swelled up almost even with his nose. For quite a while the boys teased him by saying “Hello, Jerry, where did you get that mug?” Then they would hail me with “Hello, squint.” It did not take long for Jerry and me to become reconciled and we were good friends ever afterwards.

We were at this time probably hundred and seventy-five students, Of this number there were probably about fifty Spanish Californians. All the boys had gangs. In the crowd I belonged to were three De la Guerra boys, Carlos, Caspar and Osvaldo, all cousins to one another. Then the three Orenas, Leopoldo, Dario and Orestes, all brothers. The two Pacheco brothers, Romualdo and Juan.^® Then there was Francisco Noriega, Raymundo Olivas, Orel Goldaracema and myself, making our crowd just an even dozen. Raymundo Olivas and Caspar De la Guerra were our factotums.

They would get up at a concerted hour through the night, silently leave the dormitory each one taking his pillow case with him then walk a mile through the woods up to the vineyard^® and orange grove and there fill up their cases with a goodly load of nice grapes and oranges, then cache them along the creek where we had our rendezvous. These doings were always on either Saturday or Wednesday nights. The following days being recreation days our gang would repair to this spot and enjoy a feast. We often had nice cookies, cheese, etc., brought up from town by day scholars the day before so we enjoyed a regular picnic.

Often these same two lads would raid Father Joses chicken house and wring the neck off two fat chickens. Father Jose drove the wagon do\vn town and attended to the chickens, cows, and was the outside man.

They milked five or six cows and had about five or six dozen chickens.

We would take these chickens and simply draw them, then roll them in clay about an inch thick, build a good fire and when coals and hot ashes were available, bury the chickens in the hot ashes until the clay would fall apart. Then the feathers and skin would fall away and the barbecued chickens were a luxury to us. Often at these chicken feasts we managed to have a quart or two of good wine. These doings were pretty regular during my five years at the Franciscan College. Yet we were never caught at it. Our crowd often would be separated. Part of us would slip down to the city while others would go to some country picnic with the town folks generally on the west side of the Mission.

One time Charley and Osvaldo De la Guerra, Jesus Rojas,^® my nephew, and I went to town on a Sunday afternoon. We always went to Mrs. Carolina Jimeno Kahn^^ who was a De la Guerra for afternoon tea. She knew all our sweethearts and always managed to have them at her house for the occasion. After tea she would play tlie piano for us and we would dance and otherwise enjoy ourselves. When it began to get late we struck out for the Mission.

The way we would come into town was through a deep gulch on the west side (Mission Creek) running almost straight to within a few hundred yards of the town. In going back this time we took the east side. A large running hill was north and south almost the whole distance between the Mission and the town. (The Riviera.) We did this to keep out of sight of 7

the faculty who generally played the spyglass all over the country to see what they might. Before starting up the trail the boys proposed to buy a bottle of Angelica wine. I had a cloak on so the boys thought I could hide it better and chose me to go back to town and buy it. So I did. The first store on Main Street was Mayorquin’s, a Frenchman, and he handled all sorts of groceries and wine. I went in, bought the wine, put it in my inside coat pocket which my cloak covered nicely and started out. Just as I turned the corner on to De la Guerra Street who should I meet but Father O’Keefe who was now president of the college. Father Sheehan had been transferred.

It was Father O’Keefe the boys must get permission for a visit to town. When he met me he said: “What are you doing here? Who told you you could come to town?” I said: “Father 1 could not find you so I asked Father Gonzalez,” He was the superior of the institution. 1 often sat on the bench in the corridor and talked to him. He had been my father’s friend in the earlier days^^ and liked to talk to me about my father’s family.

Father O’Keefe then said: “All right, but you better get home now.” 1 sure made tracks feeling pretty cheap. 1 don’t think Father O’Keefe ever took the trouble to investigate or surely he would have caught me in a lie.

Anyway when I got back to the boys we celebrated but hurried our steps foreward. We were just hitting the bottle again when we saw three horsemen coming down the trail to meet us. They were Don Pablo, (De la Guerra) Charley’s father, and Don Francisco, (De la Guerra), Osvaldo’s father. With them was Don Guillermo Carrillo, a friend of the old gentlemen. We dropped the bottle in the grass and kept on walking. The men had been to a picnic and were just returning. As they passed us they we had simply said “Hello.” As soon as they had gone by the spot where finished dropped the bottle 1 retraced my steps and retrieved it. Then we it and went on the back way as though just returning from a walk down the creek. We got away with it rather nicely.

Another time my nephew, Jesus, Osvaldo and I stole away to a town picnic on the west side. Most of the town -picnics took place 1 f in1 a grove situated about a mile west of the Mission on the west side of the county road. (The Oak Park area.) We knew the exact spot where the grounds were ; but did not want to go into the woods direct from the Mission. So we went around about and came up from the west side pretending we were cornin'^ from the beach. We did not want the folks to think we had stolen our way from school. To do this we had to go around by the north side.

There was a little farm there with a white board fence at the front and a big gate. We were going to go in through the gate and field.

Just then a good-sized dog saw us and came tearing down the little hill towards us. We stopped short. The dog went through the fence and jumped up on me. I grabbed his snoot. I held on for dear life while he was clawing at me with his front feet. Osvaldo picked up a piece of round wood so heavy that he could hardly lift it. But he approached the dog then let the stick fall on the dog’s back with all the force he could add to it. I turned the dog loose and it quickly turned and crawled through the fence dragging his hind legs. His back had been broken. While we were getting over with our scare the ranch owner was coming down with a loaded gun with blood in his eye towards us. Fortunately, Nick Covarrubias,^^ the Sheriff of Santa 8

Barbara County and a companion had seen the whole performance while strolling out from the picnic grounds. They hurried to our side and when the gunman got there he was simply told to get himself home and put his gun away. He knew the sheriff so he got. We with the sheriff and his friend walked straight over to the picnic ground no more than a hundred yards off. The sheriff immediately got us some wine which surely settled our nerves. Then all the young ladies were told the story by the sheriff and the girls just crowded around us and poured out glass after glass of wine until we hollered enough. Then they gave us some lunch and we had a good time generally. In going home we rode out with some of the folks who let us out at the big gulch (Mission Creek) and along that we sneaked along until safely within the college grounds.

Reveille was at five-thirty. Early Mass was at six and breakfast at seven. At eight-thirty school took up. Recitations started at nine. Half hour recess at ten. Then again at fifteen minutes to twelve. Dinner at twelve. School again at one p.m. Thirty minutes recess at two and out for the day at four. Supper at six. Then thirty minutes study at eight. Bed at nine after prayer in the study hall.

The grub was good, substantial and plentiful. Breakfast consisted of mush, either oats or corn meal with plenty of milk and sugar, coffee and cream with plenty of bread and butter. The dinner was aways good soup, rice, macaroni, pearl barley or vermicelli. Roast beef, potatoes and other vegetables with dried apple or peach pie for dessert. Supper generally beef stew. Now and then we got some nice roast mutton with the general run of vegetables and tea to drink. For dinner our drink was plain water.

The winter months were sort of hard on us for all our desserts were just dried fruits but through the summer when fruit was in season we had fruit twice a day especially grapes and oranges and plenty of musk and watermelons. Fridays, though, throughout the year we had only codfish stew for dinner and codfish balls for supper. Then during the Lenten season we had to abstain from flesh Wednesdays and Fridays and during Holy Week this rule followed every day. However, through Lent we used to have fresh fish quite often.

Father Jose was the factotum. He had half a dozen cows which he milked, a few sheep and lots of chickens. So we had plenty of milk and eggs now and then. The eggs were special on Easter Sunday. If you could eat a dozen you could have that many.

There were two boys dormitories one for the big boys and one for the little fellows. Also a few private rooms about twenty in number. Boys who could afford to pay five dollars a month occupied these rooms. Tuition including board and laundry was a hundred and fifty dollars for the term, ten and a half months. Music lessons, piano, violin, flute or comet were five dollars per month extra. Extra languages like French, German, Spanish, were three and a half per month with two lessons weekly.

I had a private room, took music, French and Spanish. So it cost me just seventeen dollars per month extra. Father O’Keefe taught piano while Brother John Cullinan taught the violin, fl ute and cornet. Father Romo, a Castilian priest^® taught Spanish, while Father Coffey who was Irish, taught French and German. He had received his schooling in the old country and spoke pure Parisian French. Some of his pupils were kept for days at a time on the pronunciation of just two words. One was

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‘^Monsieur’’ and

sucre

which means sugar. He was very particular. The “U” in these words takes a sort of whistling sound and he kept us at it 26 until we got it right. Father Coffey was a short, corpulent Jesuit priest, the only one in the institution. He wore the Jesuit habit in place of the Franciscan. He was rather fastidious and touchy. Few of the boys liked him.

Caspar de la Guerra was one of his pupils. He stole a side of codfish some where in the storeroom and brought it up to the class room and hid it behind the door. So when Father Coffey came in he began to “phew,” “phew,” and the boys all laughed. He made us all clear the room without hearing our lesson.

I sneaked into the room later on and removed the nuisance so the

next time we went to our lesson everything was O.K. But this time, too, he went into bis room which was next to the class room for something and returning to his desk found his glasses missing. We all set up a laughing spell which exhausted his patience and again he dismissed the class. As the boys started to walk out I told him to feel on his head and he found his glasses perched there. He entered into the spirit of the joke, laughed a little himself and called the boys back. Then our lesson pro ceeded without further interruption.

It was the custom of the school on the evening of the last day of every month to appoint two boys who no longer had to read in school to read out loud in the refectory at dinner and supper.^^ The reader had an elevated parapet seat and desk midway the length of the dining room against the south wall. There were four tables along the walls on each side and two tables at each end, twelve in all. Father Wade sat at one end table near the middle of the wall. Brother John sat at the other end.

When either of them saw a boy distracted or talking he would sound the bell for silence. The reader would stop. Then Father Wade would ask the boy whom he thought was not listening to the reader what the reader had last said. If the boy could not tell him his name went down on the list with a black mark and three of these marks would bring about the deserved punishment. This being the case the boys generally behaved well, ate quietly and listened attentively to the reading. Charlie de la Guerra was the best reader we had in the refectory. He had a clear articulation and a stentorian voice. The two readers would change about weekly. One read at noon and the other read at night.

At this time also the acolytes to serve Mass with each priest were named for the month, two to each priest. That meant sixteen boys for there were eight priests who said Mass. There were nine altars in the church.^® The main altar was always occupied by Father Gonzalez, the superior. Then there was one on each side of the confessional below the main altar and three on each side of the walls of the church. All the boys hurrahed when they were to serve either Father Sanchez^® or Father Alvarez.30 The former would always leave half or better of the viaP^ containing wine for consecration, while the latter always left two thirds or three quarters of it. So the boys who served them would regale themselves when returning to the sacristy.

Every Catholic boy had to go to confession and receive Communion regularly on the first of every month. During Lent and Holy Week this was done weekly. Though we were forced to abstain from flesh we were 10

not obliged to fast. That was left up to our will. But I do not remember seeing anyone fast in the five years I was there. Though we had eggs pretty often especially through Lent on Easter we had them till you couldn’t rest.

On Sundays and other Church holidays the church would be full of people principally from the town. Santa Barbara had many pretty girls.

A goodly portion of them would attend services at the Mission and then linger after giving the boys the finest opportunity for a handkerchief flirta tion which was certainly carried on in style. From empty class rooms, open front windows and from both church towers to which some of them had access these flirtations were carried on. There were rims around the belfry of the church tower probably twenty inches wide. Some boys used to play tag up there and run around this rim as if they were on level ground.

The Fathers kept an elderly man who used to be the bell ringer at the tower. The rope broke one time. He fell on to the stone steps below break ing an arm and a leg being crippled for life.®^ This however, did not deter the boys from their sport.

Brother John Cullinan who was the violin music teacher had found an old broken violin used in the early days by the Mission Indian choir.

He patched it up nicely and used it right along declaring it was the best violin he had eved played on. Brother John was an old time violinist having led the orchestra of the California Theater in San Francisco for many years.

Off days when we could not ramble out the bigger boys would gather in the music room, a good sized hall, and Brother John played the violin while Father O’Keefe played the piano while the boys danced. In these square dances the boys with a white handkerchief tied around their right arms represented the ladies. So we had a good time. We had several boys who were good clog and jig dancers and furnished us a good exhibition.

A Santa Barbara man named Jose Lobero, Italian I believe, built a large theater, the first one in Santa Barbara and called it the Lobero. There our school had its annual exercises, examinations and exhibitions, now known as a commencement.^® Lobero was an all-around musician and organized a brass band in the town, thirty or more members. The band became very efficient and played beautifully together. On some great Church holidays Lobero’s band was engaged to play in the choir at the Mission.

It might have been on Corpus Christi though I always thought it was the Mission Centennial until later when I learned the date of the mission’s 34 founding.

At any rate I remember the occasion and will as long as I live for never before nor since have I ever heard of a brass band in a Catholic choir. In the open ground in the front of the church were built a series of brush houses in a circular form each one containing a holy image of some kind placed on a sort of altar. The principal celebrant walked ahead carrying the Holy Eucharist while the assistant friars all in their vestments followed in procession. Then the acolytes and finally the whole congregation.

Ahead of the procession before the Sacrament walked six little girls dressed all in white with crowns of flowers on their heads and baskets filled with flower petals strewing them along the path of the head priest. During all this time the band played appropriate airs and the whole affair was rather thrilling and impressive.

n

On or about the twentieth of June our commencement took place. This consisted of examinations, dialogues, declamations, etc. For three weeks before the set time we were allowed to go down in the creek back of the school and practice our speaking dialogues, etc., to our heart’s content.

Our first exhibition took place at the Carrillo Amphitheater, a rather dilapidated adobe structure at the edge of town at the end of State Street then the main street in Santa Barbara.

The ocean steamers plying between San Francisco and San Diego always touched at Santa Barbara both going and coming. There was a steamer twice a week. Our commencement always took place before the expected steamer going north. On steamer day our equipage was carted down to a warehouse and steamer office on the wharf. Our tickets were purchased. So then all we had to do was to kill time around town and wait for the steamer. I had foresworn stage travel so as to make my first trip back home to Frisco (by ship) thence by rail to Sergeant’s Station and then by stage to old San Juan, my starting point. Before noon on steamer day a dozen of us boys hired livery stable saddle horses and rode all over the town, beaches, etc. The weather was quite warm. So every little while we would ride up to a brewery and quench our thirst with a boot leg of beer. This routine was kept up all day until supper time in the evening.

When we put up our horses and went to supper to old Rafut, a French chef, who had a sort of hostelry on State Street. We had wine with our meal.

So tliat with all the beer consumed through the day made us feel quite full if not really intoxicated. The steamer came in about midnight. We all went aboard.

(SCHOOL YEAR 1870-1871)

The lime soon passed and by the fifteenth of August I had returned to my school in Santa Barbara. Our vacation was only a month and a half. My return trip to Santa Barbara was by steamer from San Francisco.

I had all the stage travel I wanted on my first trip there. Poor and costly meals on the way, two nights without sleep and bumpty-bump at every chuck hole and rock on the way which surely were plentiful. The coach was a Concord and the leather springs would oft times make a fellow bounce up and hit the ceiling with his head. My head was all lumps hitting the side and top. When I got to Santa Barbara I had a bad case of stomach trouble developed from the poor food on the road.

We arrived in Santa Barbara in the forenoon. I took a room in the lodging house on State Street conducted by Mrs. Indart who was a De la Guerra and an elder sister of Osvaldo who was to be my first college chum.

In the afternoon I took a walk up the street, came across a fruit store and stopped in. Some prickley pears were on display. I had never seen them before. I bought some and the proprietor showed me how to handle them.

They were clean of stickers so all one had to do was to peal and eat them. I thought then and still think they are delicious.

Across the street I noticed a small saloon and a fine looking young man leaning against a post of a small front porch. I approached him and 12

asked him if he knew Jose Espinosa who had been our cowboy at San Juan for many years. He had married a San Juan girl, Refugio Butron, whom I knew very well and who had come to his folks in Santa Barbara.

The young man of whom I made the enquiry was Jose del Carmen Espinosa, a brother of Jose. He said Jose had died but Refugio and three children lived at his home with his mother. He took me out far enough to show me the house and I went there. Refugio was both surprised and delighted to see me. Often after that I visited at this house. A young sister of Espinosa about eighteen or twenty, rather good looking and attractive, could play the harp beautifully and also sing. She always entertained me when calling with her delightful music.

The next morning after my arrival I walked up to the Mission. This time I asked of a private room. Those occupying rooms were not obliged to repair to the study hall to study their lessons. We were not under surveillance and that was one thing I liked. I had a list of the different classes I had as well as the time set for each and was always there on time.

Generally, I had my lessons well learned so I was never reprimanded er bothered m any way m my new quarters.

This term passed on pretty much the same as the first save that to me it was very much more interesting. There was no more fighting to do. We had all sorts of contraptions to practice gymnastics on and recesses were spent joyously and beneficially there. On Thursdays we would go out on the flat west of the school house, choose up sides and have a game of base ball. Father O’Keefe and Father Wade were both good players and were often chosen by the leaders. On Sundays we often played in town with the Santa Barbara College Club, a Protestant institution and then again with the town club. On those occasions the grounds situated on the outskirts of the town were crowded with town people. This fact would pep us up to play our best. I always played short stop, was active and a good runner.3S On one occasion playing with the town club composed of young men in place of young boys we were two tallies ahead after our ninth inning. The striker was a Los Angeles young man named Leslie employed in a black smith shop. This was their last inning. He hit a straight fly, a liner towards me. The ball was coming too high over my head so I turned and ran on a line with it for about twenty yards or so. I saw the ball as it passed over my head, made a jump forward into the air, grabbed the ball up with my hand and held it but fell flat to the ground. Holding the ball up with my hand the striker was called out by the umpire. A little argument followed between the two captains but the umpire decided in our favor and we won the game. This put a feather in my cap and after that as long as I resided in Santa Barbara and played ball my position was always short stop. In those days all balls were pitched underhand and not overhand as today.

The school had made many nice changes from the first year. We had a new study hall at the west end of the building much brighter and more commodious than the old one at the east end which had been turned into the music room and dance hall.®° The faculty had installed a nice large telescope in one of the towers. Once a week or so our astronomy teacher would take us up there to view the heavenly wonders, Ju liter with its many moons and Saturn with its rings were generally our quest, but it was not often that we spied them.

13

A man in Santa Barbara named Lobero who had organized a Santa Barbara brass band was building a nice large theater near the De la Guerra square. When our commencement time came in June the building was sufficiently finished to permit of our holding it there. At this time I was in a play taking the part of a doctor while Caspar de la Guerra took the part of the client. In the play Caspar’s malady was diagnosed as simple laziness.

So the medicine for the disease was administered right there and then with a few hard hits on the fleshy part of the anatomy where he had stulfed a feather pillow in anticipation of the ordeal.

For this purpose I had sent home to my mother for my father’s cane in order that I might appear more like a doctor and also to use as a club to lash my patient. One Sunday afternoon some of us walked out on the flat back of the school. We were sitting against some big rocks alongside the trail coming up from the canyon below. Suddenly we heard trampling of cattle on the trail. Before we could move from our position a half dozen steers were passing us. I was sitting next to the trail and one of the steers made a pass at me. I had my cane and let the steer have it across the face.

I turned him but the stick was shattered beyond repair. It was a sword cane and consequently hollow. So it was easily broken. I took the stick down town to a Mr. Levi’s jewelry store to see if it could be fixed. He said a new stick was the only remedy. The cane had a hunting dog head, solid old Spanish gold, having been brought from Spain by my great grandfather in 1776. Mr. Levi tested it and said it was worth eighty-five dollars. It weighed over four ounces.

Our commencement went though O.K. and once again we took the steamer to San Francisco. This time there was no seasickness. There had not been any beer drinking either.

(SCHOOL YEAR 1871-1872) After another day or so I returned home and started getting ready for my return trip to Santa Barbara to school. I always left home in ample time to enable me to spend a week or ten days in San Francisco. My supply of clothing was bought from C. C. Hastings Co., clothiers on Kearney or Montgomery Street—I am not sure now. Dr. McDougaP^ had opened credit for me with that firm. This time I did not buy a supply of the filthy weed as I did on my first trip. I had many friends in the city and therefore liked it. We splurged around together quite a bit. When the time came I took the steamer back to Santa Barbara.

It was afternoon when I landed. I took a room at the hotel and then walked up the street to Espinosa’s saloon. There was going to be a cock fight in his back yard at four o’clock. He invited me to stay and I did. He had a little game rooster well trained for the match. He had a steel gaff sharp as a razor about two and a half or three inches long, shaped like a rooster’s spur. This was securely fastened to the rooster’s right leg where the spur should be. A judge was chosen and the owner of each rooster would be the coach. The two roosters held by each owner were brought to the center, made to face each other and when they showed fight by the erection of their neck feathers they would say “Ready” and the umpire would give the word “Go.” 14

The roosters were turned loose. They knew their business and like well trained pugilists in the ring would spar around each other for an opening then come together and both strike at the same time. Espinosa’s rooster got a gash six inches long from the breast down. The other rooster got it on the side of the neck but only a small cut. As is customary each coach picked up his rooster and placed them again face to face in the center of the ring.

Immediately the Espinosa rooster erected his neck feathers which in rooster parlance means “I’ll fight. Both roosters were bleeding profusely.

The other rooster showed no fight. Its neck feathers never came up.

Both roosters were almost dead. The umpire gave the decision to Espinosa along with a twenty-five dollar side bet. Both men then cut off the roosters’ heads. Espinosa treated the crowd and then took his rooster home for a forced chicken dinner. This was the first time I had ever seen a genuine cock fight where the cruel sharp steel gaffs are used. In Mexico to the present day this sort of inhuman sport is indulged in along with the bull fights most every Sunday. The poorest peon owns fighting cocks but the well-to-do or rich people import their game roosters from the state of Missouri, paying no less than five dollars apiece and up for them.

I spent the balance of the evening visiting friends in town and early next morning I walked up to the Mission. Many changes had been made in and around the school premises. A large, new study hall and a new dormitory for the older boys and a row of simple rooms which were available to any boy paying five dollars per month extra. All these improvements were in the upper story. Below we had a new trunk room and a wash room with a line of wash bowls on the four sides and water faucets.

The year before poor old Brother David^” with a Chinese yolk and a five gallon can on either end had to haul the water from the reservoir fully a quarter of a mile distant. There were several barrels placed along the side walls of the inside long corridor and these had to be kept full all the time so it kept poor old Brother David on the go constantly. You could see him going back and forth all the time with bowed head and forever counting his Rosary beads. He seldom looked up or spoke to anyone.

This term I took a room for myself, scantily furnished, but a big im provement over the dormitory and had the advantage over the dormitory of not obliging me to go to the study hall to prepare my lessons. You were left strictly alone provided you attended class rooms regularly and did not fail in your recitation. I made a list in rotation of all my studies setting the time opposite each and when to attend. So that helped me to be prompt at all my classes.

My studies were numerous. No reading except in the refectory. But I had a number of new ones that kept me pretty busy, such as rhetoric, natural philosophy, astronomy, commercial arithmetic and bookkeeping be sides Spanish and French and music. The last three however were only two lessons a week and cost three and a half extra per month for languages and five dollars for music. So I took piano first, Father O’Keefe being the teacher.

The piano was at the end of the long hallway leading from the study hall in a large room at the entrance of the church choir. The pupils all had access to the piano anytime they wanted to practice during recreation hour.

I would go there quite frequently but in place of practicing my lesson I would 15

try to pick out some tune I knew by heart using only one finger for it. Fa ther O’Keefe caught me at it several times and reprimanded me. Finally, one day when he heard me still persisting in the same one finger practice he came up and summarily discharged me advising me to go to Brother John, the violin master, and take violin instead of piano.

I went but I thought I would rather learn the flute. Brother John taught flute also. He produced the instrument and gave me the first lesson. That was fixing my lips over the aperture, blowing against it and producing a sound. I took three lessons but did not succeed in extricating a single sound from the reed. So I quit the flute, bought a violin and started in with that.

I surely got some sounds out of that, pretty discordant it is true, but I finally became interested in it and by degrees I learned the notes. Though I prac ticed more by ear than I did by notes it was not very long ere I could mete out the “Wearing of the Green,” “Yankee Doodle” and other popular airs of the time.

The term passed pretty much the same as the first although not quite so slow. We had a Brother named Reed^'' who used to be the janitor and who made up all the beds in the dormitory. Boys who had rooms were their own chambermaids. This Brother Reed was about six feet-four and very spare just like a reed. He had a nervous affliction and if he happened not to see you or hear you come into the room where he was working and you should hail him with “Hi, Brother Reed,” he would jump heavenward and nearly hit the ceiling. Some boys enjoyed teasing him and would watch when he wasn’t noticin D’ then yell at him just to see him jump.

One young man was ordained there after wearing the Franciscan habit for a year or so. I never knew any other name for him than Brother Marion.'“' After his ordination he was called Father Marion. In 1882 while on my way to Frisco from Tres Pinos I met him at Gilroy. He had been transferred to Watsonville and was in charge of the parish church there.

This year there came to the Mission a middle aged Spanish Californian who wanted to become a Franciscan brother. The faculty took him on proba tion. The superior, Father Gonzalez, had known his father. So the fellow was allowed to stay there with board and lodging free. He was a little off his cabeza. Sometimes evenings after supper he would come over to our corner to talk to us and tell us of his exploits and adventures. I can’t remember his full name but we used to call him by his Christian name, Don Jose. He 41 wore no habit.

Come our commencement time w'e were all set free once more. This time instead of taking the steamer to San Francisco I arranged to go with my chum, Osvaldo de la Guerra, to the Tapo Ranch, part of the Simi grant be longing to the De la Guerra family. Osvaldo’s brother, Santiago, was the ranch foreman and we were going with him in his springy wagon the fol lowing week. After our exercises I went over to Mr. Cohen’s store where I used ?o do my buying. There I met his wife. I told her Osvaldo and I were going with his brother to the Tapo Ranch for our vacation. She then said she and her sister, Hanna, who was Osvaldo’s sweetheart, were going the next day to visit their uncle at Saticoy, a little village about ten miles beyond San Buenaventura. She said she was going on the stage. Why couldn’t we go that far with them and wait for Santiago at Ventura?

16

I liked the arrangement for Mrs. Cohen was a good friend of mine.

When she knew I was coming to see her which was almost every Sunday afternoon she always had Marie Dornaleche from the Sisters School‘d close by to meet me there. Marie was a very pretty girl and very nice and we had taken quite a shine to each other. She was a little Basque girl. So for this reason I thought a lot of Mrs. Cohen and promised her that I would go and also try to persuade Osvaldo to go along with them. It did not take me long to do that.

At nine A.M. the next day we all took the stage on our journey to Ven tura, thirty miles distant. We drove along the beach till we came to Rock Point. There when the tide is low the stage could go along the beach between the cliffs and the ocean thus avoiding the hill and cutting off quite a stretch.

The tide was coming in. Still there was room along the beach for the stage to go through without danger. There was about a mile or so to travel before getting out on to the stage road again. As we went along big waves began to roll out. The stage driver whipped his horses but before we were safe a big roller hit the stage and the water splashed us all good and plenty. We all had a laugh and thought it was fun though we were almost wet through.

The weather was quite hot so we suffered no inconvenience and by the time we got to Ventura we were dry. We stopped at the Santa Clara Hotel and had our lunch. After lunch at Mrs. Cohen’s request I went to a livery stable and hired a hack and a span of horses. Then we drove the women to Saticoy. Mrs. Cohen had two children, Abie, about six years old, and Flora, about four. Their uncle ran a general merchandise store at Saticoy. Only a few straggling houses were there. We remained about an hour or so and after a little snack with a glass of beer we returned to Ventura. This was on a Friday, the day after our commencement, the twenty-first of July, seventytwo.

(SCHOOL YEAR 1872-1873) In two or three days after that our school was opened and Osvaldo and I went up there to start our fourth term. All our old crowd began to drop in one after the other: the three Orehas from the town, Charlie and Caspar De la Guerra, Jose Elisalde, two Ortega boys"*^ two Maguires and Freemans, all from town. Also the two Den boys^‘ from La Patera, the two Pachecos from Piedra Blanca and the two De la Cuesta boys^® from Santa Ines. Their father was a doctor. And Fred Branch'"^ from Arroyo Grande. All the boys were part of our crowd.

We were soon organized into classes and work began the same as be fore. No other teachers had been added to the faculty and but very few new scholars. Among the few were Robert Clements^'^ from up near Sacramento, a Joe Majors^® of Santa Cruz, Solomon Aguilar and Teofilo Sepulveda^’* of Los Angeles and Dominic Maguire®" from Salt Lake City. All these men tioned were young men past the twenty year mark paying their own way, schooling themselves and none of them beyond the third grade. There were quite a number of young boys, Fred McDougal®' my guardian’s son, and Willie and Eugene Carlyle®^ stepsons of Dr. McDougal. The two Arnaz boys and a few San Francisco and northern California lads.

17

Robert Clements and Dominic Maguire crawled up from the new classes during the term to all but the highest classes in the school. Most of the young men did well but not like Clements and Maguire. The Aguilar boy had his right arm off above the elbow and had to learn to write with his left hand. Instead of going out for recreation at recess he would stay in the study hall and practice penmanship. He became so proficient during that first term that his name was placed on the honorable list for penmanship in our prospectus®^. Tom Finnegan®^ got first premium. His writing was Spen cerian and almost like copy plate. Santos Lorenzana®® of Watsonville, second premium, Osvaldo de la Guerra, third with Dario Orena and Jerry Mullins’’® as exequos. I never even got honorable mention in the writing line during all my five years there though I tried very hard to write clearly.®^ Before the middle of the term Clements and Maguire had so advanced that they were chosen as loud readers in the refectory. Before the end of the term Maguire wrote a play and the faculty gave it a place on our program for commencement. It took well.

During the holidays the Sisters of Charity put on a fair. They had many booths filled with fancy articles in embroidery work, etc. One or two of the school girls were placed in charge of the booths. Venturita and Carrie Penry had charge of one of these. My chum, Osvaldo, was rather sweet on Carrie. So he and I frequented the booth pretty often and spent a great deal of time there as well as a few dimes. Then too we steered other school boys to their stand which kept the girls busy and they appreciated our efforts in pulling for them.

When April came picnicing began. The De la Guerras were giving a picnic at the big vine near Carpinteria. The Big Vine was well named. It was only one vine that measured at least ten or twelve inches in diameter and was trimmed straight up for about eight or ten feet. A trellis had been built on the top and sides forming a perfect arbor about twenty or twentyfour feet in diameter and a good dancing floor with seats all around except !>8 the entrance and exit completed this pleasure resort.

I had no trouble at the Sisters School to get the three Arnaz girls to go with me as I had the two boys, their brothers from our school, to go with me to the convent. I hired a good livery rig with plenty of room for the six of us. At the picnic we had a jolly good time with plenty of good eats.

Before leaving the feasting grounds, Miss Dominga Olivas of Los Angeles who was music teacher at the Sisters’ School favored us with a few songs.

She sang ‘La Golondrina’ a popular air to this day. It was the first time I had ever heard it. She also sang ‘Atala’ a beautiful love ditty full of ardent passion and pathos and then followed ‘La Paloma’ rather ancient but also very popular. Miss Olivas was a soprano and hard to beat. She taught piano and singing at the convent and also played the guitar with which in strument she accompanied herself in her songs.

After the singing the young people amused themselves playing such games as ‘Dropping the Handkerchief,’ ‘Ring Around the Rosy,’ etc. Of course these were all kissing games and lots of fun for the young. We were soon called upon to quit our games and go up to the Big Vine. At that time it was kno^vn as La Parra.®® A harp and bass guitar comprised the music furnished there. No charge for the dancing floor music but the men had to treat their partners to soft drinks or fruit or candy after each dance taking 18

just twenty-five cents for each dance. This place was run by a Frenchman and his Spanish wife. I think they were the owners. Some of the young men there kept the dance up pretty well but the younger set were not so flush so we just set out and visited with the girls not engaged in dancing.

After the folks had all the dancing they wanted we returned to town and our respective schools. The grape vine was close to the Hot Springs°° and possessed fine picnic grounds and on May Day almost the same crowd pic nicked there again.

We had at the Mission a lad fifteen or sixteen years old named Mike Callahan,®^ a little Irish boy from San Francisco. He sang in the church choir at High Mass every Sunday. He possessed a rich mellow voice and sang just like a lady soprano. His singing was that good that we used to get him in our corner of the playground some evenings after supper when we had our long recess and get him to sing for us. He had quite a repertoire.

Among many others one song he had called ‘Manchester’. The air as well as the words were very sweet. They seemed somehow to inspire me and I com posed two little verses for Venturita that would go with the tune of his song.

Here they are: In Ventura, that city Of gaiety, joy and leisure Lived the pretty Venturita The sweet cause of all my pleasure.

To a fancy ball I took her In eighteen seventy-two Oh, I never can forget her For she said; ‘I love you true.’

I had a passable voice when I was young and my first opportunity when alone I sang it for her. She was pleased and my efforts did not go unrewarded. I took extra pains in writing it down for her.

One day in June just before our commencement three of us schoolboys were standing in front of the post office on the east side of the street. We noticed three young women galloping up the street from the beach on horse back. Suddenly one of the horses spurted ahead and the rider (was seen) with her head down on one side of the horse, her foot held by the stirrup.

She was in danger of falling to the ground at any moment. I saw the trouble and made a fast run across the street as the horse was near me. I made a jump for the horse’s head as it passed and got the rein. The horse was so badly scared I could not check him at once. He pulled me around in a circle two or three times before other men got around to help me.

One man got on the opposite side of the horse from me and another fellow took the girl’s foot out of the stirrup and pulled her off none the \vorse for the scare. However, she realized that it meant death to her had the horse not been stopped and she considered me her hero. She gave me her name, Sallie Sparks. She had wealthy parents who were rather aristocratic. She urged me to come to see her at her home and I promised that I would. She was about twenty-five years of age, tall and quite good looking as well as very popular.

19

Riding with her was her cousin, Mary Packard, whom I had met at dances more than once with Mary’s younger sister, named Paquita. Sparks and Packard married sisters, two Spanish Californians. Packard had a nice acre tract and beautiful home on the west side of town and made it a business to raise silk worms. Mary and I became fast friends meeting often at her cousin’s house in town. Her cousin Sallie could not do enough for me. She praised me to the skies to all her friends. I visited at Packard’s often to know how the worms made the silk and incidentally to talk to Mary.

In those days women rode side saddles and also wore bustles. Sallie was full of the “Old Nick” and would often tell it on herself how the only accident worth the while that befell her in the horse episode was losing her bustle. She wore newspapers for a bustle and with the horse twisting and turning she scattered most of them on the street and even on to the sidewalk but she did not care. She made fun of it. Often times when her friends would meet her on the street they would ask her: “Well what is the news?” she told on herself that friends meeting her would often accost her with “Hello, Miss Sallie, what’s the news?” or “How is the newspaper business?” To all of which she would answer with a smile that everything was old and she was out of the paper business. This was true to some extent for she actually confessed that she had bought a patent wire bustle such as were then in the market.

About a week before commencement I was down town, met Anatolio and Lupe Anzar at the express office. They said my brother, Patrocinio was with them and that they were all on their way to Los Angeles. Stepping out again I saw Patrocinio half a block away talking to a man and I went up to greet him. Lupe was now of age and had started in business for himself running a livery stable on the principal street of Los Angeles. I do not remembei whether it was Spring or Main Street but it was on the same street where the Pico House was built and on the south end of the same block. There was a large basement the whole length of the stable building and all the livery horses were kept down there. Only the vehicles were kept on the upper floor, the main entrance fronting the principal street. Patrocinio and Anatolio were going to Los Angeles to see Dr. McDougal on business. I think it was to obtain money from him with which to open a livery business in partnership on Market Street in San Francisco. This they subsequently did.

The boys asked me to go along with them but of course this was out of the question for I had plenty to do in the execution of our program at commencement. The year before Osvaldo had written a play in verse called the ‘Two Rivals’. This was in Spanish and had gone over well. This year it was followed by another dialogue also in verse by Osvaldo entitled ‘The Death of the Two Rivals.’ Only he and I took part.®^ Osvaldo had great powers of imagination. All these evenings at our evening recess after supper eight or ten of us boys would gather round him and he would tell us stories just made up by him, all of Spanish knights and their adventures. He could carry half a dozen characters in his story and always bring them in at the right time and place. His stories were surely more interesting and thrilling than many novels I have since read. He never smoked but he chewed to bacco and had to have a little wad of it on the side of his jaw before he could tell us the story. We saw to it that he always was well supplied for we all liked to listen to his stories.

20

64

Lupe and I had quite a talk about old times at Pajaro Valley school and he made me promise that I would go straight to Los Angeles and stay two or three weeks with him. When our commencement was over I stayed two or three days with my chum, Osvaldo, and then took the stage to Los Angeles. The stage left Santa Barbara about two or three P.M. and we were at Ventura for supper at the Santa Clara Hotel. We changed horses only once between Santa Barbara and Ventura. Here another change of horses was made and we left Ventura at 8 P.M. Of course, it was a sleepless night but the roads were not half so rough as they were from San Juan Bautista to Santa Barbara on my first trip to school in 1869. About 5 A.M. we got to the foot of the San Marcos Grade®® across the Simi Valley. This was a stage station as well as an eating place. The eating was very fair and we even had hot cakes and honey. I have always been very fond of honey but this honey was very black and had a peculiar taste. Upon inquiry I found out it was all made from sunflowers. This man had about two hundred stands. There were only two passengers besides myself on the stage. One was Dr. Freeman of Santa Barbara who often acted as medical attendant to the college and whose son Charlie was day scholar at the Franciscan Col lege. I don’t know who the other man was. After changing horses three times we arrived in Los Angeles just a little before noon.

(SCHOOL YEAR 1873-1874)

The next day I went to Frisco and in a couple more days took the steamer to Santa Barbara. I had a nice trip. Seasickness never bothered me any more after ray first trip to San Francisco from Santa Barbara in 1870.

Probably this can be attributed to the fact that I obtained sense enough after my first experience to refrain from indulging unduly in beer. I was glad to get back to old Santa Barbara and meet my many friends there. It was the twenty-eighth day of August when I arrived at the Franciscan Col lege. I did not wait for Father Jose to come down and get me. I hired a hack at the livery stable that took me up along with my little equipage. Most all the same boys were there who had been there the previous year and a large number of them had been there a year or two longer than I. Only a dozen or so who had graduated were missing. Among them were Charles De la Guerra, Jerry Mullins, James Finnegan and others whom I do not now remember.

New pupils however, more than made up for the loss of our graduates.

The same old routine continued in our premises even to the purloining of grapes and oranges from the orchard and vineyards up the creek over a mile distant. Caspar de la Guerra and Raymundo Olivas were still the factotums of our gang and they were by now experts at the business.

There was an orchard in front of the mission buildings which consisted principally of olives, lemons and limes. But there were also a few good pear trees. Young Gerardo de la Cuesta bartered me one dark evening after supper to go out of the yard and around the back way through some tumble down adobe buildings to get some limes and pears. I agreed to keep him company but he should do the stealing while I kept watch. There was a six 21

inch board fence easy enough to climb over and Gerardo jumped over it and up the first tree he came to. He was hardly half way up when a shot rang out in the air. I stood on the outside of the fence. Gerardo dropped down like shot but picked himself up and speeded toward the fence some twenty-five or thirty feet distant. As he was climbing the fence in a hurry to get out another shot rang out and some of the small bird shot hit the board fence maybe ten or fifteen feet to the right of us.

Gerardo was small and of light build. He was so badly scared he almost fainted then and there. I pulled him off the fence and half carried and half dragged him to the first adobe wall about twenty yards off. There we sat in the corner of the walls to wait further results. Probably four or five min utes passed and he recovered his animation. We listened for footsteps and hearing none we made a detour around the old ruins to where our secret entrance was into the yard. The yard was made of fourteen inch boards and we had sawed one of these across about three feet from the ground and it was fitted so snugly that I believe discovery by the priests was never made.

Not at least while I was there. We were both pretty glad to be in the yard again. It was our first experience in an adventure of this kind and it proved to be our last for we never tried it again.

I do not know who fired the gun but as other boys had been at stealing fruit from the orchard I have an idea that it was Father Jose who had his suspicions and merely aimed to give the kids a scare. It worked for all the school soon knew of our experience and I do not believe many boys tried it after this.

Unlike the first year in school fighting was no more. It was only rarely that a set-to would occur and that generally was among the young lads twelve to fifteen years of age. A better understanding prevailed among students so that we all fraternized and were not only peaceful but amicable. The only rivalry that existed was in athletics. There was one boy about my age and size who was my good friend and also my rival in a broad jump. His name was John O’Brien,°° called ‘Tex” as a nickname. He was a son of Mr. O’Brien of the firm of Ward and O’Brien, realtors then doing business on Montgomery Street in San Francisco.

Mr. Ward’s son was also a student there.®^ He was also about my age but he was quite tall and fat, weighed at least fififteen or twenty pounds more than either ‘Tex” or I. His name was also John. He seldom joined in games of any kind. He was very quiet and taciturn while ‘Tex” was the very opposite, full of pep and full of play, but with an excellent disposition, and very friendly with everybody, so that all the boys liked him. He and I were quite chummy though rivals in athletics and we were also competing at the different set-ups in the yard. “Tex” could beat me on the broad jump on the level ground by about two inches. He could jump eleven feet while mine was only ten. However, with weights from a six inch elevation 1 could jump twelve feet four inches while he never could pass the twelve foot mark.

One Thursday afternoon we had all gone to the big reservoir®® for a swim. Back of the reservoir there had been some kind of a mill run by water power.®® The roof of the old mill was no more but the walls of stone fourteen feet high and two feet thick were still standing. The square brick floor was still ^ere almost intact with only a few spears of grass growing 22

between the crevices. The front of the upper part of the mill still remained standing and faced the reservoir. Back of this a half dozen of us boys had repaired in hopes of being able to steal a smoke. “Tex” was in the crowd.

We managed a few puffs all right enough.

In the meantime I got up on the wall which from the outside was only about eighteen inches from the ground the distance to the bottom being fully fourteen feet. I challenged “Tex” to see who could jump the fartherest from the wall. He said “I’ll go you and stood on the wall himself. “Go ahead and jump” he said. I started swinging my arms as though in the act of jumping but I was just pretending for it was a foolish and dangerous trick to perform. “Tex” was up on the wall waiting and watching. I did not have the least intention of jumping, a height of fourteen feet on to a solid brick floor.

But suddenly I felt myself going and at that discovery I just stretched myself forward all I could at a tangent to avoid a straight perpendicular drop. I landed square on my heels quite a distance from the wall. I wore the customary high heel boots and I felt as though the heels had gone clear through my feet up to my knees. My feet just hurt awfully. I had barely moved myself out of my tracks when I saw “Tex” coming down stretched out for all that he was worth to beat me. He fell a little short of my mark and then we each took turns in calling each other all the blankety fools we could think of. We laughed but not very heartily. We walked home pretty sore footed and for over a week neither one of us could participate in any athletic exercises. We had to soak our feet in hot water morning, noon and night. “Tex” swore he would never accept any more challenges from me and I agreed never to challenge him for any such fool thing again. If the truth is known neither one of us intended to jump. My jump was a mere accident. “Tex” swore he just went down before he thought as he too had no intention to jump.

This term of school was rather tame for me in so far as cutting capers was concerned. No more stealing off to town and the likes. I was very much interested in my studies and was determined to learn. Besides some of the higher branches of mathematics I had Natural Philosophy, Astronomy, Rhe toric and Latin, also French, Spanish and German. The short intermediate recesses I spent in my room studying. Only the long ones after dinner and after supper I was out in the yard taking exercises in the various gymnastic arrangements.

Through the summer months we were taken to the beaches for a swim.

Sometimes to the town beach, one and three quarter miles and again to Point Conception Beach’’® west of the Mission a little over four miles distant. Only the larger boys were allowed to make this trip. Generally we went in groups, each group supervised by a prefect. Most of the bigger boys liked to travel with Father O’Keefe, the President of the Institution. There was a reason.

Every group carried its own lunch consisting of meat, sandwiches, cake and fruit. After the swim each crowd would repair to the shade of some large oak tree and there partake of the frugal repast. This done Father O’Keefe would produce his Merschaum pipe with a twenty-four inch stem, fill it with tobacco from his pouch, light it and get it going good. We all sat in a circle surrounding him and the pipe would pass from hand to hand for a puff or two like so many Indians smoking the pipe of peace.

23

After a good rest we would descend to the beach and practice foot rac ing, hop-skip and a jump, and the running broad jump. Father Wade was the champion running jumper. With his heavy and cumbersome Franciscan habit on and sandals for shoes he could clear twenty-two feet. He seemed simply to fly and turn more than half ways around when he landed. Often times the toe of his left foot served to mark instead of his heel. The rule in jumping was always to mark the last imprint of the feet in landing. Everyone else of the jumpers was marked at the heels but no one of us even reached the twenty foot mark.

Our baseball games still continued. Both Father O’Keefe and Father Wade were excellent players and were always chosen on either side. Often by insistence they would be the choosers and we surely had good games.

In those days the rules were practically the same as they are today save that the pitcher delivered the ball underhand instead of over as now. Then the pitcher did not lift his hand above the waist line to deliver the ball.

Football games were not played much at this time. A few games were played this season but no one seemed to enjoy them. 1 do not remember very much about the game only that it was all foot work. No touching of the ball with your hand. No huddling or rough or tumble work. But there was instead a whole lot of shin kicking that no one seemed to enjoy very much as only the feet were brought into play. There was a middle line and two end lines, one for each side, and the game was simply to kick the ball across the rival’s home line. One trial of this game sufficed for me as well as for many others.

There were not many episodes worthy of mention this term of school.

When a circus came to town Father O’Keefe and also Father Wade occasion ally would escort a dozen or so of boys who desired to take it in and had the money to pay admission. Father O’Keefe was always good not only that way but in every other way. During the Fair given by the Sisters of Charity he would allow some of the bigger boys to go to town over night provided we promised to be in time for school the following morning.

My nephew, Jesus Rojas, was also an attendant in this term of school and was ever ready for any sort of amusement or festivity. He, Osvaldo de la Guerra and I went down together to Osvaldo’s house in order to attend the Fair. Jesus was almost five years older than I but sparely built and very short of stature. I was fully a head taller than he. But he was very popular with the ladies for not only could he play the guitar nicely but he could also sing well and had quite a repertoire of pretty Spanish love songs.

Miss Dominga Olivas, music teacher at the Sisters’ Convent, was at the house as she an^ Clotilde de la Guerra, Osvaldo’s elder sister, were very intimate friends and always traveled together. They w’ere both nice looking women about the same weight and height, both being at least a whole foot taller than Jesus. Each one took him by the arm and escorted him to the hall w'here the Fair was taking place. They made quite a figure and surely at tracted the attention of the multitude. But Jesus was unconcerned and walked proudly between them like a true cavalier. Osvaldo and I went by ourselves.

We had not partners. The Arnaz girls did not attend the school this term so my Venturita and I had seen the last of each other the year before.

Martha Streeter who had been a very dear friend of mine with whom I had taken many a buggy ride along the Santa Barbara beach, had gone 24

to work and got herself married off, while tiny Mary Dornaleche had been sent to school in Los Angeles. So I had no girl friend in Santa Barbara save Miss Mary Packard who ever proved true and faithful even keeping up correspondence with me long after I had returned home from school. With all my busy moments I had found time to keep my promise to Elena Soler at Monterey by writing to her and when she answered my letter she decorated one comer of the envelope with a pretty bunch of blue forget-me-nots, paper flowers.

All letters arriving at the school passed through Father O’Keefe’s hands and he made it a point to deliver them personally to the boys. This time, however, he said to me: “Come to the office. I have something for you.” I went feeling rather apprehensive. Could not guess what it could be. We got to the office and he handed me the letter. I knew at once from the post mark, the scent and outward looks what it was and who it was from. He ordered me to open it and read it. I did as bid. The letter was written in Spanish. When I got through reading it I said: “Here it is, Father, you may read it yourself.” He took it and just glanced at it. He saw the name and asked who the young lady was. I told him that we were old time friends and that her parents and mine had been very good friends for years past.

Which however, was a prevarication. He asked me what she had to say and I told him part of the contents of the letter being careful to tell the exact truth as far as I went with it.

Father O’Keefe was a master of Spanish. In fact he had taught that language in the institution until the advent of Father Romo, a Castilian priest, who relieved him of the task. He then said: “You answer this letter and bring it open to me so that I can read your reply.” Here I had to use a little strategy. I wrote Elena about the nice times we were having, making swimming trips to the beaches attending shows, Sisters Fairs, and even dances now and then. I told her I was very busy studying wishing to make this my last year at school, and that if I was not very prompt or interesting in my letter writing she must overlook it on that account. My letter was neither too long or too short. I took it to Father O’Keefe. He read it and approved of it and said it was very nice, etc. In the meantime I had got a boy friend, a day scholar, to go to the post office and pay for a call box for E. S. Fel for six months and bring me the post office receipt.

He did this for me and then I wrote to Elena to my heart’s content, told her what had occurred, and for her to answer my first letter which had been censored, and make her writing very friendly, but not loving, and say that she was glad to hear that I was taking such great interest in my studies and that it would be best if she did not bother me and take up my valuable time with her letters, etc. Then I gave her the post office box number and the newly assumed name, E. S. Fel. E. S. stood for Elena Soler and Fel for Felipe Estolano Larios, for that is the way my name really runs. Only I changed it after I got home and started clerking in the store as everyone called me Estolano I made Felipe my middle name instead.

My plan worked very successfully. I received only one letter from her from Father O’Keefe. As intended I let him read it. He seemed pleased to think that Elena was such a sensible girl. But in the interim E. S. Fel received many a letter from Monterey. These letters as well as the answers went back and forth from the school and post office safely carried in either Charlie 25

Freeman’s and Augustine Goux’ boot leg. Most of the boys in those days wore boots instead of shoes like today.

Our vacation days were now at hand. The twentieth of June on Saturday afternoon the whole school trudged down town and into Lobero’s theater.

We had more plays, declamations and music than real examinations in our studies. We were all up in the air at the finish. Fifteen of us were to receive our graduation diplomas publicly. Judge Maguire^' and Judge De la Guerra^^ with Father O’Keefe composed the committee. With a nice complimen tary remark along with a little advice by either of the judges each one of the fifteen boys received his papers. Many handshakes and compliments were given us by our mutual friends.

I had written to Mr. McDougal in Los Angeles for a hundred dollars.

He always sent what I asked for by express. On Monday morning I went to the express office. John Maguire, the judge’s son, ran the office. He handed me the money package and the letter. The money was only sixty dollars in stead of a hundred. The letter said; “This is the last of your patrimony. I would advise you to go to San Juan and engage in the fancy poultry business.

I will see that you get all the help you require to get started.” This was a hard blow for me. I had fancied that I should have money enough to throw to the birds. I felt down in the mouth and his fancy poultry business did not appeal to me. The next night a steamer was due for Frisco and I em barked at once.

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NOTES 1. Father Jose Godiol (also spelled Godayol), a native of Catalonia, was one of the first three novices of the Franciscan Order admitted in Santa Barbara, July 23, 1854. He died Oct. 30, 1902, and is buried in the Old Mission Cemetery.

2. Father Jose Marfa de Jesus Gonzalez Rubio was a native of Guadalajara, Mexico, who came to California as a missionary in 1833. Having served at Mission San Jose until 1841, he spent the rest of his life in Santa Barbara until his death, Nov. 2, 1875. He is buried in the Old Mission Cemetery.

3. Father Bernardine Sheehan was a native of Ireland who became a Franciscan at Santa Barbara, March 6, 1856. He remained at the mission until the beginning of 1870 when he returned to Ireland.

4. Father Pacificus Wade from Brooklyn, New York, became a Franciscan at Santa Barbara, July 21, 1863. He remained at the mission until March, 1873, when he went to England.

5. Father Joseph Jeremias O'Keefe was a native of Ireland who at the age of ten came to the United States with his parents and settled in San Francisco. He be came a Franciscan at Santa Barbara, Aug. 4, 1860, where he remained until 1891.

He restored Mission San Luis Rey between 1891 and 1912. He died in San Francisco, Aug. 13, 1915. He is buried in the Old Mission Cemetery, Santa Barbara. The History of Santa Barbara County by Thompson and West (1883) says of him: “He is a bighearted Irishman ... A visit to the Mission owes half its pleasure to the conversation of Father O’Keefe ... The young people, whether Protestant or Catholic, are especial ly drawn to him, and consider it a great pleasure to be in his company.” p. 251.

6. Father Joseph Coffey was a member of the diocesan clergy (Grass Valley, now the Diocese of Sacramento) whom the Franciscans hired to teach in their col lege, 1871 and 1872. In 1873 he was pastor of Crescent City. Later on Larios states h© was a Jesuit. This is an error. The Jesuit garb is very similar to the cassock worn by the diocesan clergy. Larios confused the two. He had been acquainted with the Jesuits at Santa Clara.

7. Brother John Cullinan was a teaching brother from Brooklyn, N.Y., who came to Santa Barbara in 1863. He taught at the boys’ college until it closed in 1877. He did not become a Franciscan.

8. A Charles Reid, a native of London, Ontario, Canada, came to Mission Santa Barbara in 1868 first as a lay student and then became a novice in the Franciscan Order in June, 1869. He left and returned in 1872. He was first employed as a lay man, “assistant” in the boys’ college, then as a Tertiary Brother in 1873, after which he entered the novitiate again in 1874, and made his vows on Aug. 4, 1875, when he took the name, Dominic. He died Aug. 25, 1903, at the Pajaro Valley Orphanage after teaching there for eighteen years.

9. A half brother of Larios.

10. The exact wording of the regulation was: “The use of tobacco in any shape or form is absolutely forbidden and also the use of intoxicating liquors.”

11. Identification of students from the Santa Barbara area can be made by con sulting the list following these memoirs.

12. Gus Coleman came from San Francisco in 1869.

13. Ignatius Glynn came from San Francisco in 1868.

14. Nelson Beck came from San Francisco in 1868.

15. Jerry Mullins came from San Francisco in 1869.

16. A Frank Noriega is listed only in 1877.

17. John O’Keefe came from San Francisco in 1868.

18. The Pacheco brothers, Juan and Romualdo, were listed as students in 1871.

They came from San Luis Obispo.

19. This vineyard located between Foothill Road and Mountain Drive, was a vineyard in Old Mission Days and was part of the property given by Bishop Amat to the Franciscans in 1856 for part of their maintenance. Final disposition of most of this land was made in 1949 when it became an athletic practice field belonging to the University of California, Santa Barbara College on the Riviera.

27

20. Jesus Rojas came to the college from San Juan Bautista in 1872.

21. Mrs. Carolina Jimcno Kahn was a daughter of Anguslias de la Guerra y Jimeno, authoress of Occurrences in Hispanic California.

22. Gonzales Rubio who was stationed at Mission San Jose between 1833 and 1841 could easily have known Manuel Larios.

23. Guillermo Carrillo was a son of Anastasio Carrillo who was born in Santa Barbara in 1788. He was prominent in local affairs.

24. Nick Covarrubias was a son of Jose Maria Covarrubias who came to California in the thirties. Nick was elected sheriff of the county in 1867, 1871, 1873, 1875 and 1877.

25. Father Jose Maria Romo was not a Castilian nor even a Spaniard but a Mexi can who had served in the Holy Land for a number of years until 1871 when he was sent to Mission Santa Barbara to succeed Gonzales Rubio as superior. He re tained that position until 1885 when he returned to the Holy Land.

26. See note 6.

27. The college prospectus states: “Students who read sufficiently well and audibly will occupy the reader’s stand in their turn in the refectory.”

28. The Vischer photograph of 1872 reveals five altars in the sanctuary and body of the church with possibly two more in the side chapels. Others may have been located in the sacristy to accommodate the number of priests who said Mass daily.

29. Father Francisco Sanchez a native of Mexico, came to California with Bishop Francisco Garcia Diego y Moreno in 1841. He taught in the bishop’s seminaries both at Mission Santa Barbara and Santa Ines and was a member of the apostolic from its inception in 1854 until his death, April 17, 1884. His chief offices were novice master and traveling missionary. Sanchez is celebrated as “Father Salvierrdera” by Helen Hunt Jackson in Ramona. See details in The True Story of Ramona by Carlyle Channing Davis and William A. Alderson (New York, 1914). Sanchez is buried in the Old Mission Cemetery.

30. Father Francisco Alvarez came from Mexico to Santa Barbara in 1870 where he remained until 1875 when he was transferred to the Pajaro Valley Orphanage. He died at Mission San Luis Rey, July 10, 1897.

31. Better called a cruel.

32. This was Feliciano Dominguez who was still alive in Montecito in 1940 at the age of 105. According to the Santa Barbara News-Press of April 28, 1940: “At the age of twelve he was an altar boy and was chosen by Father Gonzales to climb into the Old Mission towers to ring the bells. One day he fell from the bell loft to the ground, but escaped with a broken leg.”

33. Beginning in June, 1871.

34. The occasion was definitely a Corpus Christi celebration. The mission did not celebrate its centennial until 1886.

35. In the line-up of the baseball teams in a game played between the Santa Barbara and Mission teams near the court house in April, 1871, Father O’Keefe is listed as catcher for the Mission and Henry Ord for the town team. Larios was not in that line-up. A copy of this line-up appeared in the Santa Barbara News-Press Nov. 23, 1947.

36. The second story of the front wing of the mission was built up gradually between 1856 and 1870 to make rooms first for members of the apostolic college and lastly for the boys of the Colegio Franciscano. It contained private rooms, dormitories, classrooms and libraries. See pictures of this development in Maynard Geiger, Pictorial History of Mission Santa Barbara, pp. 8 and 22.

37. McDougal was Larios’ guardian since before he left San Juan Bautista for Santa Barbara in 1869. McDougal resided in Los Angeles.

38. Brother David Potter was at the mission by 1872. Water pipes were led into the mission gardens from the old reservoir when Bishop Amat sold his rights over old mission lands to the local water company but provided for free water for the mission and several other institutions.

39. This was Brother Dominic Reid. See note 8.

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40. Not Brother Marion but Brother Marron. He was a native of Ireland who became a Franciscan at the mission, Oct. 4, 1870, and studied for the priesthood.

However be left the Order with dispensation, April 3, 1875, and continued his studies elsewhere for the diocesan priesthood. The ordination to which Larios refers was that of minor orders which Marron received from Bishop Amat, March 30, 1873. According to the Catholic Directory for 1882, Father Marron was pastor of Sl Patrick’s Church, Watsonville.

41. This individual is not identifiable.

42. This Sisters School was Sl Vincent’s Orphanage established in 1856 and is known today as SL Vincent’s School conducted by the Sisters of Charity.

43. Only one Ortega, Emilio, is mentioned in the college lists. He entered in 1872.

44. Alfonso and William Den were sons of Nicholas Den, owner of Dos Pueblos Rancho.

45. A brief transcript dictated by her father, Gerardo de la Cuesta, Tulita de la Cuesta gave to the mission some years ago. Among the fellow students he mentioned were Estolano Larios, the De la Guerra and Orena boys and others. Concerning O’Keefe he wrote: “I will never forget what a fine, big man Father O’Keefe was. He knew how to manage us and yet was very kind. Once, we were tired of boiled potatoes for supper so we boys, each stuck them in our pockets, and when Father O’Keefe made his round to see that we were all in for the night, as the Father stood by the lantern in the dormitory, we showered him with potatoes, but he was too quick and they did not strike him. Instead of kicking us out, in his jovial way he said: ‘All right, boys, no more boiled potatoes for you.’ And then we were sorry.”

46. Fred Branch entered in 1870.

47. He was from Amador County and entered the college in 1869.

48. He is first listed in 1871.

49. Sepulveda entered in 1872.

50. Maguire entered in 1872.

51. McDougal is listed in 1871.

52. Willie Carlyle entered in 1871 and Eugene in 1872.

53. Aguilar is not listed among the students of 1872-1873.

54. He probably meant Tom Fennerty who entered in 1869. He is not mentioned for the year 1872-1873.

55. Lorenzana entered in 1869.

56. Mullins entered in 1869. Neither Aguilar, Lorenzana nor Mullins are mentioned for honors at the end of 1873. Larios must have been referring to earlier years.

57. The extant catalogues bear out this statement but Larios also received other awards. In 1873 he received honorable mention for good conduct and orderly de portment, second premium for diligence, first premium in grammar, rhetoric, Spanish and French, an ex-aequo premium in elocution, second premium in natural philosophy, honorable mention in astronomy and for neatness and politeness.

58. This grapevine was frequently described in the past century. For details see History of Santa Barbara County (1883) pp. 183 and 267, and Wm. Brewer, Up and Down California in 1860-1864, 59-60.

59. The name has survived in Grande Parra Lane, Montecito.

60.

61.

62.

63.

The name survives in Hot Springs Road, Montecito.

Mike Callahan came to the college in 1870.

Isaac Sparks came to Santa Barbara in 1832 and Albert Packard in 1845.

This is correct. The Santa Barbara Mission Archives retain a printed copy

of the program of the Sixth Annual Exhibition given June 2, 1873. Larios was Count Flavy in “The Expiation,” a dramatic entertainment in three acts. This was followed by a drama written in Spanish by the students themselves in which Osbaldo de la Guerra was ‘Garcilaso’ and Larios was ‘Belesario’. Finally came the original dialogue entitled “Muerte de los Rivales,” in which Osbaldo was ‘Alonzo’ and Larios was ‘Bernardo.’

29

64. One of the several grade schools Larios attended before coming to Santa Barbara.

65. Rather the Santa Susana Grade.

66. O’Brien is listed for the year 1871-1872.

67. John Ward is also listed for 1871-1872.

68. This is the Old Mission reservoir built in 1807 and which is still part of the city water system at the comer of Los Olivos Street and Mountain Drive.

69. Ruins of the old mill may still be seen in Mission Historical Park.

70. He means the area of Arroyo Burro Beach State Park.

71. Maguire became judge in 1863 which position he retained until his death, June 17, 1879.

72. Pablo de la Guerra was appointed district judge from 1864 till almost up to death in 1874.

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LIST OF STUDENTS FROM THE SANTA BARBARA AREA WHO AT TENDED THE COLEGIO FRANCISCANO DURING THE YEARS 18681877 Note: The year following the name indicates the year of entering the college.

In certain cases the given name is missing in the records in which case it is indi cated by “N.”

FROM SANTA BARBARA

Haine, Benjamin, 1868 Haine, William, 1868 Hartnell, Anthony, 1875 Haskell, M., 1869 Janssens, Adeline, 1876 Janssens, Jose, 1868 Janssens, Ramon, 1876 Janssens, Victor, 1868 Kays, John, 1868 Kelly, James, 1868 Kelly, Willy, 1868 Leyva, Fr., 1872 Loomis, Dixie, 1868 Loomis, Frank, 1868 Loomis, Setti, 1868 Lopez, Junipero, 1869 Maguire, Augustine, 1868 Maguire, Francis, 1868 Martinez, Francisco, 1868

Adam, J. 1870 Aguilar, Solomon, 1869 Arrellanes, Miguel, 1877 Barnett, N., 1873 Barrera, N., 1871 Birabent, Baptiste, 1873 Botiller, Antonio, 1869 Botiller, Benigno, 1869 Botiller, Joaquin, 1869 Botiller, Pascual, 1869 Boust, Ellsworth, 1868 Boust, Willie, 1868 Camarillo, Felipe, 1868 Cordero, Miguel, 1869 Cota, Octaviano, 1872 Dally, Joseph, 1868 Den, Alfonso, 1868 Den, William, 1868 Dominguez, Franco, 1876 Dornaluhe, N., 1868 Dunne, John, 1868 Elizalde, Jose, 1868 Espinosa, Otato, 1876 Foxen, William, 1868 Freeman, Charles, 1868 Freeman, Edward, 1870 Frisius, Peter, 1868 Fryce, James, 1875 Goux, Augustine, 1868 Goux, Thomas, 1868 Guerra, De la, N., 1869 (son of Francisco)

Martinez, Joaquin, 1868 Massai, John, 1868 Massini, Antonio, 1875 McAllister, James, 1875 Moore, Fred, 1868 Moreno, Manuel, 1868 Norman, Charley, 1868 Norman, George, 1868 Norman, Hugh, 1868 Nugent, James, 1871 Olivera, Jose, 1868 Ord, Henry, 1868 Ord, Jimmy, 1868 Ord, Robbin, 1868 Orena, Dario, 1871 Orena, Leopoldo, 1871 Orena, Orestes, 1871 Packard, F., 1869 Pertu, Francisco, 1869 Peters, N., 1868 Pico, Antonio, 1868 Pico, Ramon, 1868 Reddick, Franklin, 1868 Reid, Charles, 1868

Guerra, De la, N., 1869 (son of Francisco) Guerra, Carlos de la, 1871 (son of Pablo) Guerra, Gaspar de la, 1868 (son of Miguel) Guerra, Osbaldo de la, 1868 (son of Francisco) Gutierrez, Antonio, 1868 Gutierrez, Benigno, 1868 Gutierrez, Leandro, 1870

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FROM SAN JOSE VINEYARD (Between Santa Barbara and Goleta)

Roche, John, 1868 Rodriguez, Antonio, 1870 Seabury, George Davis, 1868 Soleus, N., 1870

McCaffery, Thaddeus, 1874 McCaffcry, Thomas, 1874

Wayland, N., 1870 Zurmuhlen, James, 1875 Zurmuhlen, Herman, 1875

FROM CAMULOS RANCH Valle, Anthony, 1875 Valle, Juventino, 1875 Valle, Ulpiano, 1875

FROM SAN BUENAVENTURA Arnaz, Jose, 1872 Arnaz, Manuel, 1872 Ayala, Francisco, 1872 Ayala, Jose, 1871 Camarillo, Adolfo, 1876 Camarillo, Juan, 1876 Camarillo, Luis, 1868 Camarillo, Niceforo, 1868 Cota, Juan Juarez, 1868 Gonzalez, Alfred, 1869 Gonzalez, Ramon, 1869 Olivas, Raymundo, 1869 Ortega, Emilio, 1869 Schippapietra, Aslulfo, 1868 Schippapietra, Pile, 1868 Solares, Osion, 1871

FROM CIENEGUITAS (Area of present St Vincent School) Coyle, Peter, 1869 Hope, John, 1868 FROM CARPINTERIA Heath, N., 1873 FROM DOS PUEBLOS Den, Alfred, 1868 FROM LA GRACIA

FROM SANTA INES

(Bell Station)

Arrata, Florence, 1872 Cuesta, Edward de la, 1872 Cuesla, Gerardo de la, 1872 Moore, Thomas, 1873

Estrada, Albano, 1876 FROM SANTA CLARA RIVER

FROM LA PATERA (Goleta)

(Ventura County) Leonard, James, 1874

Hill, Jose, 1868 Romo, Francisco, 1875 Taylor, Alexander, 1874

Goldaracema, Orel, 1871

FROM SIMI

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NOriCIAS QUARTERLY BULLETIN

Non-Profit Org. U. S. Postage PAID

OF THE

Santo Barbara,

SANTA BARBARA HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Calif.

Permit No. 534

OLD MISSION SANTA BARBARA, CALIFORNIA