Misión Vieja and the 1910 Federal Census

A detail of a map of Rancho Potrero Chico showing plots owned by Julia Davis Cruz, Elizabeth Bermudez Barry, Timoteo Repetto, and Pedro Alvitre.  Notice at the bottom that there is "Temple Road," named for the Temple family, whose ranch was at the very bottom right corner below Durfee Avenue.  The small comment at the bottom left, however, indicated that Temple Road had just been changed to San Gabriel Boulevard.  Its path also was moved to just above the roadbed shown here and the fork where it meets Durfee is where what is now Rosemead Boulevard ended, though it was much later extended north into the Potrero Chico ranch.  Rancho La Merced (over 2,300 acres) is also partially indicated on the southern edge of the much smaller Potrero Chico (about 80-90 acres, depending on the survey.) Clicking on the map gives a slightly larger view in a separate window.  Courtesy: Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum, City of Industry, California.

With the 1910 federal census, the Old Mission community probably had relatively little change from the previous count a decade earlier.  Many of the families who had resided in the community for decades were still there and engaged in various types of farming, including growing walnuts, fruits and vegetables or, in a few cases, grapes for winemaking.  They were enumerated in the census by Charles Soward, who had some of the problems working with Spanish-language given and surnames that his predecessors had, although his writing also could be a little tough to decipher, thanks as well to light fading on the original sheets.

On the first page covering the community appears the family of Paolo Briano, recorded in the 1900 census along with Giovanni Piuma.  Briano and Piuma, who were brothers-in-law (Briano married Piuma's sister) had been partners in a winemaking business and leased the old adobe and brick houses that comprised the Temple Homestead at the southeast corner of today's Rosemead Boulevard and San Gabriel Boulevard/Durfee Avenue intersection.  By 1910, however, Piuma moved into Los Angeles and opened a large winery that was well known for many years.  Briano, with his wife and four children, appears to have remained at the same property at Old Mission, but was listed as a store salesman in the census (a decade later, he ran a store in Monterey Park, and in both censuses his wife worked alongside her husband.)  His brother, Bartolo, however, is shown as a "vineyard laborer" which suggests that the grape growing and winemaking conducted on the Temple ranch for decades and then leased to Piuma and Briano continued.  The next household was of another Italian, Bartolomeo Pastorino and his wife Rosa, and Pastorino was also a "vineyard laborer."

The next household was that of Walter P. Temple, the last of his family to remain in Misión Vieja.  Temple's brother, Charles, had been living with his brother in 1900 on the remains of the family homestead, but after legal troubles (to be detailed later) and a new marriage to Susie Castino (whose sister Lucy Pegorari is mentioned below) after the mysterious death of his first wife, Old Mission native Rafaela Basye, found him moving out to Santa Monica.  In the meantime, Walter occupied a section of the homestead just south of Briano, having married Laura Gonzalez, a Misión Vieja native, in 1903 and started a family that included three children in the 1910 enumeration.  Temple, listed as a farmer, raised walnuts and apples on his portion of the homestead.  Included in the Temple household was Francisca Valenzuela, listed as Laura Temple's aunt, and who had resided in Old Mission since her birth in the early 1850s and Antonio Ramirez, a nephew of Mrs. Temples.

Next to the Temples was the large family of Felipe Rodriguez, his sister, and his seven children, with Rodriguez listed as a farmer.  Adjacent was a household of several persons headed by Indiana native Ira Corpe and his wife, also from Indiana, and three sons born in Washington and Oregon.  They seem to have occupied an area just north of Durfee Avenue and east of Rosemead. 

The next household was that of Julia Davis Cruz and her brother Thomas Davis.  These were the remaining members of a longtime Old Mission family, whose residence in the community goes back to the 1850s and their connection to Juan Matias Sanchez, once the half-owner of the Rancho La Merced, which covered much of the Misión Vieja area.  Notably, Julia Cruz is listed as living on her "own income," while her brother, Thomas, was denoted an "imbecile."  By this was meant that he was mentally disabled and was, therefore, under the care of his older sister.  Ironically, oil was later found on the just under 10-acre Davis/Cruz property (see the map above) on the north side of San Gabriel Boulevard/Durfee Avenue, before Rosemead Avenue pushed north from that point, and just weeks before drilling was to begin on the leased property in 1917, Julia Davis Cruz died at age 66.  Walter P. Temple, whose family was closely associated with the Davises, assumed management of the Davis/Cruz oil revenues from General Petroleum Corporation, which held the lease. 

Next was the family of Urbano and "Horavia" Estrada, who operated a dairy, an industry that was relatively new in the community, but which became prominent for years.  The couple had four young children, two sons and two daughters, and a newly arrived Italian immigrant, "Sam Pocanano", worked as a laborer there.

Another new family in the area was that of Frank and Delores Jeffredo.  Delores was the daughter of the abovementioned Juan Matias Sanchez and his wife Matilda Bojorquez and was born in the late 1870s.  In 1897, she married Jeffredo, whose father was French. and who was a resident of San Gabriel, and the two began their family and resided at Old Mission, where Frank was a farmer.

The adjacent household was that of Micaela Alvitre, a 69-year old native of Misión Vieja and daughter of Juan Jose Alvitre and Tomasa Alvarado.  Although the columns provided for listing number of total and living children each say one for her and her son, 48-year old Joe Malcolm was residing with her, there is a 20-year old man, Joseph "Leibas" or Leiva, living in the household and denoted as "son."  It seems likely that this identification was a mistake.  In any case, Malcom and Leiva are shown as "odd jobs laborer," rather than farmers, so it is not clear what land Micaela Alvitre and the others were residing on.  Was it property passed down through Alvitre connections to the old Rancho Potrero Chico, half of which went to the Alvitres back in the 1840s, or something separate?

Other families follow with the surnames of Rosas, connected through marriage with the Alvitres, with Ramona Alvitre, daughter of Jacinto Alvitre and Lugarda Moreno, having married Ramon Rosas about 1850; "Anguro," or Angulo and "Mongia" or Munguia--all of which were native to California.  These were followed by Mexican born heads of households in the Diaz, Romo and Reyes families, all of whom came to the U.S. between 1888 and 1907 and all working as "odd jobs laborer."

More recent Old Mission families followed including the Pegoraris, whose head, Peter, was from California, though his father was Italian.  His wife, Lucy, was a Castino, an Italian family who had lived in nearly "Fruitland" in the general Montebello/Bell Gardens area, and their five children were in the household and Peter's occupation was "carrying for cattle."  There was also Luis Lopez, a Montebello plumber, who lived with his wife, five children and mother.  Following was Luis Ortega, a native of Mexico and immigrant of 1893, who lived with his wife and six children and was an "odd jobs laborer."

Then, there is another longtime Old Mission family, that of Victor Manzanares, whose father Cristobal married Inocencia Alvitre.  Victor, who owned his own farm, lived with his wife, Librada, their seven children and a niece.  Nearby were Victor's two brothers, Pedro and Inocente, and relatives in the Melendrez family.

Another old connection to Misión Vieja is through the household of Encarnación Andrade, who married Rita Marina Gonzalez, daughter of Ramona Alvitre.  Andrade, born in Mexico about 1855, came to the United States in 1868 and married Marina, who went in this census by Mary, in 1887.  Mary Gonzalez Andrade gave birth, according to his census, to 16 children, of whom 11 survived and 9 were present in the household.  Later in the census was Encarnación's father, Secundino Andrade, his second wife and children from both marriages. 

After the household of Eufemio Bojorquez, a native of Mexico, who was a farmer, but had been a blacksmith at Old Mission in 1900, is the residence of Pedro Alvitre, who would remain at Old Mission long after most residents.  Alvitre, age 47, had his own farm and was married for seven years.  He and his wife had already had five children, of which three were still living.  Also in the household, however, was Pedro's parents, Anastacio Alvitre and "Elutria" or Eleuteria Verdugo.  Anastacio was listed as 99 years old, although he was actually 88, while his wife was correctly listed as 84.  The two had been married for 62 years and, remarkably, Eleuteria was listed as having had 20 children, of whom only three were still living in 1910.  The Alvitre property referred to here was 26 acres of the Rancho Potrero Chico, a portion of which is at the very top of the map shown above.

There was another unusual Anglo household that followed, that of John J. Fay, a farmer, with his wife Elaine and daughter Alice May.

Nearby was another old Misión Vieja clan, the Barrys.  Elizabeth Bermudez Barry, widow of George Barry, lived with six of her children (overall 10 of her 13 children were living in 1910), while a seventh, James, resided close by with his wife, Isidora, and their four children.  The Barrys occupied about 36 acres of Rancho Potrero Chico on either side of today's Rosemead Boulevard north of San Gabriel Boulevard/Durfee Avenue (see the above map.)

Close to the Barrys was another longtime family in the community.  This consisted of Maria Antonia Alvitre Basye, her son James and daughter Isabel.  Mentioned above was a deceased daughter, Rafaela, who was married to Charles P. Temple and whose mysterious death in 1899 caused a sensation in the community.  This was further inflamed when another Basye child, Thomas, was killed by Temple three years later--allegedly over Rafaela's death (again, this will be covered subsequently.)

Not far from the Basyes and Barrys is "Timotaio" or Timoteo Repetto, who had a fascinating history.  His mother was Maria de la Cruz Alvitre, daughter of the Juan Jose Alvitre and Tomasa Alvarado noted above with Michaela and Anastacio Alvitre, who were her sister and brother.  Cruz Alvitre married, in 1843, Jose Ygnacio Serradel (also Cerradel), but had Timoteo in 1866 through a common-law relationship with Alejandro Repetto, a colorful natve of Genoa, Italy with a medical background, who owned a large ranch in what is now Monterey Park on the hills just north of the 60 Freeway.  Alejandro Repetto raised sheep and was, evidently, well off when he became the final victim of famed bandido Tiburcio Vásquez in Spring 1874.  Although Vásquez was foiled in his attempt to steal from Repetto, fled and was soon captured in modern-day Hollywood (and then executed in San Jose in 1875), rumors persisted for generations about hidden loot stolen from Repetto and buried either in the hills near the Repetto adobe or in the Montebello Hills closer to Old Mission.  In any case, Alejandro died in 1881 and Cruz Alvitre about a quarter century later.

As for Timoteo, he was educated at the La Puente (later Temple) School on Durfee Avenue at Misión Vieja and assisted his father until Alejandro's death before engaging as a professional acrobat for twenty years.  Meantime, he married in 1887 Maria Hernandez, born in Jalisco, Mexico, and, although a biography of Timoteo says there were no children, the 1910 census shows an 11-year old son, whose name appears to say "Wangisus" or Juan Jesús, though the young man may have died before reaching adulthood.  After retiring as an acrobat, Timoteo and family returned to California from Mexico in 1902 and settled with his mother on the house and ranch where he was born, though this was not the Repetto ranch in Monterey Park, which had been sold years before.  Instead, Timoteo moved to Old Mission, on Alvitre land from Rancho Potrero Chico passed down to his mother (see the map above.)   Eventually, on the 16 acres, Timoteo farmed and had at least one oil well lease from which he derived revenue.  His wife died in 1930, but Timoteo lived until at least the mid-1930s.

Near Repetto and after Secundino Andrade was another relatively new arrival in the community, farmer Victoriano Salgado, an 1888 immigrant from Mexico, his wife and five children, and it appears that the enumeration of Misión Vieja ends about with the Salgado family.

As with previous censuses, Old Mission remained overwhelmingly Latino, although with a greater mix of fairly newly arrived Mexicans among the long-established families in the area and in California, generally.  There were only a few Americans and Italians and, just outside the community, was a household of five Chinese "truck farmers," meaning vegetable or fruit growers and, at another residence, one Japanese laborer. 

In 1910, the community was also still wedded mainly to agriculture, but within several years that was to change dramatically with something different emerging from the ground than walnuts, apples, strawberries, grapes, lettuce and whatever else was raised on farms and ranches.  Old Mission would not be the same fairly static place it had been for decades before.

Contribution by Paul R. Spitzzeri, Assistant Director, Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum, City of Industry, California.