Ramona Epic #21: La Casa De Estudillo (Part 3)

(AKA The Marriage Place of Ramona and Alessandro)

"'Majella, the chapel is lighted; but that is good!' exclaimed
Alessandro, as they rode into the silent plaza. "Father Gaspara
must be there;" and jumping off his horse, he peered in at the
uncurtained window. 'A marriage, Majella, -- a marriage!' he
cried, hastily returning. "This, too, is good fortune. We need not to
wait long."

The place of marriage can be narrowed down to Old Town San Diego because that is the only historical place for that time that would have matched the short description in the book. To identify the Estudillo home as the place is a stretch, but is the one place in the plaza that had a chapel.

Continuing from the last blog, I walked toward the other side of the U-shaped casa to view the rooms on that side.There is a workroom and a few other bedrooms on that side.The dining room. That piece of art is supposed to be of Jose Maria Estudillo, the original owner and creator of the casa.Now going back to the other side we have the chapel. From what I can tell, this room changed completely over the years. Some old pictures I have seen do not look like this room at all. In any case, for our purposes, this is where Ramona and Alessandro exchanged vows with Father Gaspara.
Now in the book, what really happens is Father Gaspara writes their names down in a marriage registry where he lives, that would be here, then they cross the plaza to the chapel. But, for the Ramona tourist back in time, this would have been the room they were married in.Behind me is where the priest's room was:
There is an odd history for this site. By the time Ramona was written and being read, it was already in a state of ruins. In more time, the remains on the site would have probably been bulldozed and completely built over with something else. So, its continued existence depended on a work of fiction that probably had nothing to do with it.

"AFTER leaving Father Gaspara's door, Alessandro and Ramona
rode slowly through the now deserted plaza, and turned northward,
on the river road, leaving the old Presidio walls on their right. The
river was low, and they forded it without difficulty."

There's really nothing left of the Presido, but the description above matches up with how they would have had to leave the Old Town San Diego plaza.

A few side notes as I wrap this one up:

Over ten years ago, I remember actually walking around at this casa when I visited the Whaley House in Old Town San Diego. I specifically remember not caring about its Ramona history because I was more concerned about the actual history of the place. If I remember correctly, it had a little more publicity about being the "Marriage place of Ramona" at the time. In the past 40 years or so, it has gradually lost some of it identification as part of the Ramona history. In the pamphlet you get there I think there is a sentence or two mentioning that it was connected with the novel. The funny thing is my attitude toward the casa and the Whaley House has totally flip-flopped in that time; my interest in one is more than the other these days.

I actually had to visit this place twice last year. When I originally went there the first time I was excited only to find out that the chapel room was closed and being worked on! I just about wanted to slam my head into the ground. I got there early in the morning to picture and video the outside, but the whole reason I went there was to get pictures and video of that room. I asked when it would open up again, I was told they just had a meeting about this, and within a few weeks by July 4th or later in the summer. I could not get a direct answer so I had it my mind I would have to come back by around Labor Day. On the day I went back I probably spent five minutes parking, walking to the casa, then going into the chapel room. I was so glad I did that I verified all footage to make sure I got everything before I went home. That room was important for this project, and for a while I was trying to come up with alternate plans for how to present this if that room was going to stay closed. I was told that the casa is in a continual state of being repaired and updated so other rooms of it are often closed for a time.

Ramona Epic #21: The Marriage Place of Ramona (Youtube Version)

Ramona Epic #21: The Marriage Place of Ramona (Vimeo Version)

Ramona Epic #21: La Casa De Estudillo (Part 2)

(AKA The Marriage Place of Ramona and Alessandro)

"The road on which they must go
into old San Diego, where Father Gaspara lived, was the public
road from San Diego to San Luis Rey, and they were almost sure
to meet travellers on it."

In the real world, the comandante of the nearby San Diego Presidio, Jose Maria Estudillo retired in 1827 and was given this land to build his home on. He died in 1830 and his son, Jose Antonio Estudillo, continued building the home. By 1887 the family moved to Los Angeles and the home was left with a caretaker. By 1906 the place was almost in ruins, it was purchased by Nat Titus. It was eventually sold again. By 1908, the place was restored by architect Hazel Waterman and converted into the "Marriage Place of Ramona" tourist spot. By 1968 the home was restored as a museum in the California State Park system.

When the museum opens up there are a couple of ways to enter it. I entered it from the front. In this next picture I went into the midde of the casa and turned around to where I came in from. Just imagine there are two sides: one on my left and one on my right. The chapel we will get to in the next blog just happens to be the first room on the right side. You can barely see the door entrance in this picture.

For this blog, I am skipping the chapel for now, but will show you some of the rooms on the right side (from the perspective of the above picture) of the casa. The room in the above picture is the storage room. If you turn to your left there is a short entrance to the guest bedroom:

Another room on that side is the dining room which I will skipping here, but the next room down is a bedroom:

The next room down is the kitchen. And, just looking over to the right side of the kitchen:

Outside there is an oven next to the kitchen. Keep in mind that a lot of the items you see in these pictures are there just to keep the feel of the old California days and not items that go back to those times.

Back to our historical fiction and this place. While there is nothing in the book to indicate that this is the spot Helen Hunt Jackson had in mind for Ramona and Alessandro's wedding place, it would make since for someone to think it was nearby. First, we know that they end up in San Diego. Second, the only place of significance for that time would have been what is known as Old Town San Diego. This area that the casa is contained in.

Once we start talking talking about where Father Gaspara wrote down their names in the marriage book and where they were actually married it gets a little more problematic. I'll finish this one up next time.

Ramona Epic #21: The Marriage Place of Ramona (Youtube Version)

Ramona Epic #21: The Marriage Place of Ramona (Vimeo Version)

Ramona Epic #21: La Casa de Estudillo (Part 1)

(GPS: N32 45.265 W117 11.810)
(AKA The Marriage Place of Ramona and Alessandro)

"Alessandro had explained to her his plan, which
was to go by way of Temecula to San Diego, to be married there
by Father Gaspara, the priest of that parish, and then go to the
village or pueblo of San Pasquale, about fifteen miles northwest of
San Diego."

In chapter 18 of Ramona, as Alessandro and Ramona are traveling, there is a lot of talk about the California Missions. The talk of it is not always good about the priests and some of the Indians that inhabited them. One of the persons spoken of is Father Gaspara, one of the good ones, in San Diego. That is where they go after Temecula in order to be married.

This will be the first of three blogs on this site in Old Town San Diego. The Estudillo home (La Casa de Estudillo) became known as the marriage place of Ramona. I will cover some of the real history in the next blog, but for this one will focus on the fictional history involved.

In the Ramona book, Helen Hunt Jackson has her main characters go to San Diego to be married. There are a few brief descriptions of the place where they were married, but nothing to the extent of some of the other places mentioned in the book. However, this site had been a major Ramona tourist destination from the late 1880's as pointed out in the chapter dedicated to it in Dydia Delyser's Ramona Memories book.

From the very beginning, the site became a major point for Ramona merchandising. All sorts of trinkets could be found to be sold here. These days you probably will not find Ramona goods at this place, but if you go on e-bay you still might find old postcards like the following:

From somewhere very close I got this:
Another postcard one can find shows the entrance from the other side.The little bell tower you see was added later.The entrance. The adobe originally started out as L-shaped, but then was developed into a U-shape as many of these old adobe homes tend to be..So, this is one of those places that, although had a history of its own, was developed into a Ramona tourist site for the public as a money making venture. No one knows if Helen Hunt Jackson visited this place, and there really is nothing in the book to indicate that this was where Ramona and Alessandro were married.

With that said, it was not a total stretch for one to come to the conclusion from reading the book that this was close to where the event took place. I will mention a few items in the next two blogs about this.

Ramona Epic #21: The Marriage Place of Ramona (Youtube Version)

Ramona Epic #21: The Marriage Place of Ramona (Vimeo Version)