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| Lucinda Temple Zuñiga (1860-1928) standing in front of the store and saloon owned by her husband Manuel M. Zuñiga (1854-1928) at the Basye Adobe. Rafael Basye and Jesús Andrade built the adobe and started the business and then Zuñiga assumed ownership after Basye's death. Lucinda's brother, Walter P. Temple (1869-1938) bought the adobe in 1912 and moved his family into it. Copy provided by Carlos Hartnell, a Zuñiga descendant, to the Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum. |
With the 1890 federal census largely destroyed by fire, there is a major twenty-year gap between censuses, spanning from 1880 to 1900. For example, in the Los Angeles region, the economic slump that began in 1875 continued for about a decade. But, in 1885, a direct transcontinental railroad link reached the Los Angeles area from the east via the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad line. Soon after, a massive real estate boom, called the "Boom of the Eighties," ensued, bringing many new residents to the region. The boom went bust by the end of the decade and the 1890s was largely marked by a national depression, beginning in 1893 and compounding the local downturn, and several years of drought.
As to Old Mission, many of the old families remained, while there were a few new additions. Though not technically within the neighborhood, there were several groups of Chinese settlers close by, including a group of four men who worked a farm and had four Chinese laborers with them. It is noteworthy that all eight men had been in the United States for at least twenty years, the earliest of them migrating in 1862. This is significant because, in 1882, an exclusion act was passed by Congress forbidding any Chinese to settle in the country. Also just outside Misión Vieja, there was the unusual circumstance of Sing Hom, a farmer who came to California at age 10 in 1877, being married to Claire, a white woman from Pennsylvania and of English and French parentage. Intermarriage was not only exceedingly rare, but in the El Monte area, known as a hotbed of racism during the 19th-century, it must have attracted some attention, given that the Homs had quite a few neighbors from Texas, Alabama and Missouri around them.
One of the first Old Mission families counted in the census by enumerator William P. Spence was that of Tomás Alvitre, then 65 years old, and married for 45 years to his wife Francisca Verdugo. The two had three adult children, two sons and a daughter, residing with them, as well.
Two households away were the brothers Charles and Walter Temple, the sole remaining members of the once-prominent family that owned a great deal of land in and around Old Mission prior to the failure of the family's bank in 1876. The two, youngest of eleven children, inherited the fifty-acre Temple Homestead salvaged by their mother, Antonia Margarita Workman, after the bank's collapse. She died in 1892, however, during a two-week period when the flu took the lives of her mother and son, also. Walter, aged 30, and Charles, 28, still owned the early 1850s adobe and circa 1870 French Second Empire brick residence on the property. They, however, were leasing the former, as will be seen below. Meantime, the two had a boarder, a man only identified as "Camp," a 28-year old who was listed as married for five years, though his wife was not with him. Moreover, no information was given as to his birthplace or that of his parents. "Camp," however, was listed as the teacher at the La Puente School, which the Temple brothers were both involved in as trustees around this period. Also of note is that Charles Temple was a widow--his first wife was Rafaela Basye of a well-known Old Mission family. Therein lies a tale to be told at a later date (but, hopefully, not too much later)!
The next two households consisted of two men who leased the old Temple adobe from the Temple brothers. These were Italians Giovanni Piuma and Paolo Briano. Piuma was born in 1864 and migrated to the United States at age 21 in 1885. His wife, Mary, came to this country a few years after he did, presumably to marry him, because their first child was born that same year, 1888. Every two years another child followed, so that the brood was six by the time of the census. Also in the household were Piuma's parents, Rosa and Frank and a sister-in-law, all of whom migrated from the old country a few years prior. Briano, aged 28, and his wife Mary were migrants of 1896, having just married, and had a daughter and son after their settling in California. Notably, while Piuma's occupation was "wine maker," that of Briano was "farm laborer," so it appears that the latter worked for the former, though later they were partners.
The next residence was occupied by Manuel Zuñiga (listed as "Sunaga"), his second wife, Lucinda Temple, sister of the Walter and Charles noted above, and his son, David, by his late first wife, Carmel Davis. Zuñiga was proprietor of the store and saloon opened in 1869 by Rafael Basye in an adobe building he had constructed. After Basye's death in the late 1880s, Zuñiga took over the business and ran it from an undetermined period of time.
A seemingly-new family to the neighborhood was adjacent to the Zuñigas, this being the household of "Alves" [Elva?] Maria Flores and her four children. Next to the Flores family was that of Ramona Alvitre de Gonzalez, a member of the long-standing Alvitre family in the community, and long the widow of Feliz Gonzalez. She resided with three sons, a daughter and two granddaughters.
Then there is Julia Davis Cruz, her brothers Peter and Thomas, and two nieces, Lenora and Lucinda. There are direct connections here to Manuel Zuñiga from above. Namely, Julia, Peter and Thomas were the siblings of Zuñiga's first wife, Carmel, and Lenora and Lucinda were his daughters. Yet, though their brother David resided with his father and step-mother, the Zuñiga daughters were living with their aunt and uncles. Also puzzling is that Julia's marital status box was left blank, though she had been twice married (in the 1880 census her last name was given as "Montigue") and it is not known if her second husband, Carlos Cruz, was dead or living in 1900.
A few households follow of relatively new families to the area, including one shown as "Emetino" and other of a woman, Gertrude Cordova and her two children. These are followed by blacksmith "Eufemio" Bojorquez and his wife and three children. Afterward is Martín Flores and his wife and three children.
Next come more members of the Alvitre (shown as "Alvetra") family, including siblings Michaela and Ramon Alvitre, children of Juan Jose and Tomasa Alvarado. Michaela, listed as 60 years old, but five years older than that, had a boarder, while her brother, shown as 57 and widowed from Francisca Rayales, but also older (by about four years) had two sons, John and Ramon, with him as well as a boarder.
Another relatively new family to the neighborhood, shown as "Antoya," but most likely "Montoya" followed. Household head, Alejandro, was Mexican-born and an immigrant of 1883 and he lived with his wife and two young sons.
Then is the household of Victor Manzanares, whose father Cristobal, was an 1850s arrival in Old Mission, and whose mother was Inocencia Alvitre. Victor and his several siblings were listed in the 1880 census as orphans, but he was, by 1900, married and had give children. Following was the family of Jessie Manriquez and her son and three daughters.
A few households away was Elizabeth (Adelaida) Bermudez Barry, whose mother was Maria Ventura Alvitre, and her eight daughters and two sons. Elizabeth was recently widowed, her husband, Irish-born George Barry, having died in 1899. The Barrys were a long-time family in Old Mission and are the subject of a new book by descendant James Aguirre.
Further down the list were members of the Andrade family, including Encarnación, who married Rita Marina Gonzalez, daughter of Ramona Alvitre. The couple resided with their six children, three sons and three daughters. Below was 75-year old Maria Siriaca Valenzuela, first married to Francisco Duarte and then to Cristobal Manzanares, and who was living with her Duarte children: Antonio, Francisca and Dominga, as well two grandsons.
Adjacent was Anastacio Alvitre, 75, and the son of Juan Jose Alvitre and Tomasa Alvarado and older brother of the Michaela and Ramon Alvitre noted above. He was residing with his wife Eleuteria Verdugo, their son Pedro, and Eleuteria's sister, Salvadora Verdugo. Interestingly, there were also two Chinese brothers in the house, whose names appear to read "Pun Luie" and "Ken Luie" and who were 38 and 40. "Ken" was a migrant of 1875 and his brother three years later and the younger was listed as married for two years though there was no spouse present.
The next family, possibly the last in the Misión Vieja community for this census, was that of Felipe and Francisca Rodriguez, living with nine children. Remarkably, Mrs. Rodriguez had given birth to 17 children with just that little more than half surviving. Of course, larger families were more common then than now and the loss of children was frequent. In fact, one woman, Antonia Andrade, lost five of twelve children; Elizabeth Barry lost three of thirteen; and Raymunda "Emetino" lost an amazing ten of sixteen. Rare was the case where all of a large family survived, though this was the case with Francisca Alvitre, who bore eleven children.
The 1900 federal census revealed that some longtime families, such as the Alvitres, Zuñigas, Davises, Manzanareses, and Barrys still maintained a large presence in the community. Yet, there were new residents, including the Italian Piuma and Briano families, a few Chinese and a couple of Mexican families. Farming was the predominant occupation and would remain so for another fifteen or twenty years. Future censuses would start to show a declining population, particularly as the oil industry came to the area.
Contributed by Paul R. Spitzzeri, Collections Manager, Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum, City of Industry
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