Unforgettable: Long Ago San Diego
Sacagawea carried him all the way across the country and back again. When she rode through rapids in a dugout canoe, she rode with her baby; when food was scarce, both she and her baby went hungry.”
In 1950, he had a “chance meeting” with Miguel de Ulloa, who claimed to be a descendent of Francisco. Miguel said two members of the Trinidad expedition survived. One of them wrote a document about the odyssey.
On November 25, the Los Angeles County judge, Augustin Olvera, advised Juan Antonio to contact Garra about the uprising. “If Garra could explain his grievances,” Olvera wrote, “the problem could be settled without further violence.”
“War cries woke Warner. Phillips: “Rifle in hand, he ran to the doorway and discovered that the two horses he had tied near the house had been cut loose. Seeing Warner, some 20 Indians took cover.”
"Garra sent his son to San Diego with cash, but it, too, was short of the assessment. Few Americans or Californios in San Diego County realized how deeply the Indians of the region resented being taxed.”
He’d love to write national ads for the Chamber of Commerce, claiming that La Jolla is “pestilence-ridden, scourged by locusts, swamps with water-moccasins and cottonmouths, and typhoon tidal waves resulting in chickens in the bedroom every Friday.”
Max Miller (1899-1967) was a journalist, author, and world traveler. He served in the Navy for three wars and lived most of his life at 5930 Camino de la Costa in La Jolla, just south …
The club’s most memorable award was given by the Royal Order of Mudhens. The perpetual trophy — donated by the Jessop brothers — went to anyone who fell overboard or capsized a skiff while fully clothed.
Most members lived on the “mainland” — Mission Hills and Point Loma (especially the Roseville/La Playa area, which runs west from the old Marine Corps recruiting depot) — and most moored their boats around the Roseville Pier.
“Nearly a decade before Jiminez discovered Baja California, Cortés had heard accounts of an island rich in pearls and gold and, ‘inhabited only by women without any men.’ Jiminez, then, may have known what to look for.”
Esplandian was published around 1510, “while our California, even the peninsula of that name, was not discovered by the Spanish till 1526 and was not named California till 1535.”
"The girls just had one dress and we’d fight. I’d throw them and the dress would tear and they’d cry and cry.... I tore my dress too, but I sure liked to wrestle.”
“The men started the fire, and the women watched to see that it did not approach the houses. When it did, it was beaten out. It burned the hills, all over, clean through to the next one.”
"Opossums are good food, the meat is real good. I still eat them when I have a chance, but now I’m getting old, and I care more for cottontail rabbits; they’re easier to find."
What struck visitors to the region was how freely families shared their plenty. “Housewives felt that food should not be sold to neighbors or those in need and gave of their abundances anyone who was hungry."
When Monterey’s presidio was established, the importance of San Diego’s fortification was diminished. San Diego’s harbor and climate were exceptional, but the surrounding country was not as fertile, so it became more of a way station.