by Paul R. Spitzzeri
As another follow-up to yesterday’s participation by the Homestead at the Adobe Day event at the Dominguez Rancho Adobe Museum in Compton, we look at another photo that was exhibited at our table, this one being of an adobe structure known as “Ramona’s Home,” located just west of the Mission San Gabriel and dating to about 1926.
The romantic novel Ramona by Helen Hunt Jackson became a remarkable American cultural phenomenon after its publication in 1884 and, while the author wanted the work to bring attention to the plight of California’s indigenous people, it was the love affair between the titular character and Alessandro that captivated readers (and, later, audiences watching several film adaptations.)
With greater Los Angeles reached by a direct transcontinental railroad line shortly afterward, the rise of a substantial middle class with more disposable income and leisure time, and an appetite for a florid, romanticized depiction of pre-American California, among other actors, Ramona took on an additional fictional life of her own that her creator, who died just after the book’s publication, could not have imagined.
A major part of the tourist draw were the assertions that three adobe structures in southern California were directly tied to the real Ramona. The Rancho Camulos in Ventura County, where Jackson wrote much of her work, has been identified as a residence, while Old Town San Diego laid claim to being where she and Alessandro were married. Not to be outdone, a structure in San Gabriel became known as “Ramona’s Home” and, specifically, her birthplace.
The building, heavily remodeled over many years, still stands at the northwest corner of Mission Drive and Santa Anita Avenue and has been called the “Padillo Adobe,” based on a 1930s Historic American Buildings Survey of the edifice, which also called it the “Grape Vine Adobe, Erroneously Called ‘Birthplace of Ramona'” . At the time, during the Great Depression, it was owned by the Bank of America, it was stated that the date of erection was “unknown, a relic of early Mission days, 1794-1830 or ’40.” Obviously, this is very vague, though it seems feasible that it was built for some purpose associated with the Mission.
Noting that the building was “fairly well preserved” and was “now serving as an extra dining room for an adjoining cafe,” the preparator of the report, Los Angeles architect Henry F. Withey added that there was a field stone foundation, a wood half-story above (obviously added in later days), and a cement floor. He also observed that “in 1854 this house of three rooms and a flat brea covered roof was sold by Hipolito Cervantes to Dr. George I. Rice and David Franklin Hall.”
When John R. Evertsen, a San Gabriel resident and the sole enumerator, conducted the 1850 federal census in Los Angeles County—this being done early the following year because of California’s admission to the Union in September—he recorded, on 11 February 1851, 21-year old Hipolito Cervantes, a laborer from México, as a resident. A couple of newspaper references five years later also mention the San Gabriel resident of that name, but, otherwise, he remains obscure.
The Los Angeles Star of 4 January 1855 published an advertisement for a special election in the San Gabriel Township to replace Henry C. Dalton as constable and which stated that it would be held “at the store of George Rice,” with this almost certainly being the adobe building acquired from Cervantes the previous year. Rice, too, is a shadowy figure, although he was the agent for both the Star and the Spanish-language paper, El Clamor Público in 1855-1856.
David F. Hall was a better-known figure, a Rhode Island native who came to this area during the Gold Rush years and prospected for gold in San Gabriel Canyon, and it appears that partnered with Rice in operating the store. In the years 1874 and 1875, Hall advertised his residence at San Gabriel for boarders, including those seeking relief from “Asthmatic and Pulmonary complaints,” and it may have been that the adobe was the location.
Perhaps one of those who took a room at the adobe was Robert J. Bayly (1839-1899), a native of Canada born to Irish-Catholics and who was one of the hordes of people in America who suffered from consumption, or tuberculosis, which often responded well to our generally warm, dry climate. If he didn’t stay at the Hall place, he quickly became aware of what was broadly known as the San Gabriel district.
At the end of 1874, he was elected as one of two vice-presidents of the Bee-Keepers’ Association of Los Angeles County, formed in El Monte, and he soon obtained a federal land patent to property near Rancho Santa Anita at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains, where he ran his apiary. When the 1880 census was taken, Bayly resided near the Sierra Madre Villa in what is now the northeast corner of Pasadena.
Within a few years, Bayly was joined by his widowed sister, Kate McCormick and her three sons, Cyrene, William and Edgar, who came to San Gabriel from Chicago. It appears that Bayly acquired the adobe building by the time his sister and nephews joined him in 1883 and the Los Angeles Times of 7 May 1892 reported,
There is a grape vine at the San Gabriel Mission which was planted in 1771 by the mission fathers. Elder Isaac Studebaker of Olathe, Kan., J.C. Studebaker of Pasadena, Mr. Bagly [Bayly] and Mrs. Kate C. McCormick took some measurements of this vine on March 10, 1892. [After giving certain numbers of inches in circumference at various heights] The vine with all its branches was measured in 1891 and the total length was 2436 feet.
The 1771 date was wrong simply because the original mission founded that year was to the southeast next to the San Gabriel River (Río Hondo) at Whittier Narrows and did not move to its current higher, drier location for a few years afterward. Moreover, as Withey wrote in his HABS report, “the place is better known for a very large grape vine planted in 1861 by Dr. [David F.] Hall at the rear of the house and supported on a trellis giving shade to a large out door dining area.” Another account states that the vine was originally located elsewhere in the area and transplanted by Hall to its current location.
In September 1895, Bayly sold property “in [the] village [of] San Gabriel” to his sister for $3,000 and two years later the county Board of Supervisors granted him a liquor license for a saloon in San Gabriel, almost certainly in the adobe house. He died on consumption in January 1899 and the following year Kate McCormick and her sons William and Edgar were counted in the federal census in San Gabriel. William, who was 24 years old, was listed as a “hotel keeper,” with the structure being advertised from 1912, for obvious reasons, as the Grape Vine Inn.
The year 1912 was a watershed one for the hamlet of San Gabriel. Journalist and writer John Steven McGroarty’s Mission Play was mounted that year in a rough theater next to the Grape Vine Inn and immediately became a success, running for over 3,000 performances spanning some two decades. There were other associations for the Inn, however, as the South Pasadena Record of 12 September 1912 reported that the San Gabriel Valley Inter-Community Commission had a catered supper from the establishment and it was noted,
Mrs. Kate Bayley-McCormack [sic], owner of the Grape Vine Inn, had personal charge of the serving of the meal. She has made the “Grape Vine” her home for twenty-eight years. It was first owned by the San Gabriel Mission and was at one time sold for $15. It is said to be worth $50,000 at the present time.
A reference in the Pasadena Star from 10 May regarding a movement to start a library in town (San Gabriel was incorporated the following year) mentioned that it was held in “McCormick’s hall” and that “Mrs. Kate McCormick has donated the use of the McCormick hall for library and reading room purposes.” Whether this was part of the adobe property or a separate building is not known.
Not much over a year later, Mrs. McCormick died at age 67 and William took ownership of the property (his brother, Edgar, was residing in Los Angeles). The Los Angeles Times of 1 March 1917 published an advertisement from him that was the first located reference to “The Old Grape-Vine—Ramona’s Home,” in which it was claimed that the vine, spanning 10,000 square feet, “was planted in 1775 by the Mission Fathers. A month later, the paper remarked that “the Ramona tea room at the Grape Vine Inn, San Gabriel” was the location of a luncheon and bridge tournament and that “the Spanish luncheon was served in the yard, under the historic grapevine.”
Events were held there for the San Gabriel Settlement Association, which worked with recent immigrants, principally Latinos, in the community, and the Los Angeles Schubert Club, which attended a one-act play on Ramona by Virginia Calhoun at the Mission Playhouse and then had a “Spanish supper and lunch under the old grapevine—Ramona’s Home, terminating with a dance in the ramada in the evening.”
As the Mission Play grew in stature and crowds, it was decided a much larger and more lavish theater was needed, so the Mission Play Association was formed. With Walter P. Temple, recently enriched with oil royalties from wells on his lease very close to the original Mission site in the Montebello field, investing in property across Mission Drive from the Mission’s stone church and cater corner to the adobe, his business manager and partner, Milton Kauffman, became a director of the Association.
With architect Arthur B. Benton, best known for his work on Riverside’s Mission Inn, designing the new venue, the Association issued bonds and in advertising for them in 1921, it was commented that “all walls and entrances, enclosing four and one-half acres ground, including the famous old grapevine and adobe Ramona Home, are almost completed.” There were delays due to financial and other reasons and the theater was not completed for six more years, but the adobe became fully integrated with the venue.
In a remarkable reference, the Black-owned Los Angeles newspaper, the California Eagle, informed readers in its 3 June 1922 edition that,
Arrangements have been completed by Mr. M.T. Laws by which the Mission Play at San Gabriel will be reserved for Race spectators at reduced rates on Wednesday, June 14. It is with justified assurance that management predicts that the house will be crowded on that night for there is not a colored person in California who has not a high regard for John S. McCroarty [sic] and his article on “Colored Culture” which appeared in the “[Los Angeles] Times Magazine” recently and was reproduced in the editorial section of this paper a few weeks ago. This particular article won for Mr. McCroarty many new friends in our race.
[After positively critiquing the Mission Play] On the afternoon of the same day Mr. Laws has planned a picnic at Ramona’s Garden [sic] at San Gabriel under the large grape vines in the world. Come and bring your lunch and make it truly a joy day.
The highlighted photograph here of “Ramona’s Home,” shows the structure with its two-part wood-shingle roof, portico with wood posts in cement bases and with grape vines running along it, two doors and a pair of windows, a wall with red tile coping, and a rustic wooden sign with the erroneous name on it. The 23 May 1926 edition of the Times ran a feature on San Gabriel and its growth and development and, among several photos, including of the Mission’s stone church, is this image, exact as to shadows in the same places—hence the assigned date of the photo.
About a year later, however, the adobe, also referred to a month prior as the “Tea Room in Ramona’s Home,” was rechristened as “Ramona’s Home Cafe,” with the 6 April 1927 issue of the paper reminding readers that it was “an ideal spot to visit after the performance” of the Mission Play and that “Spanish entertainers, including some of the most noted names of Mexico City’s cafes, are included in the entertainment program.”
In October 1928, an expansion of the Mission Playhouse campus was announced under the auspices of the Association, with the architects Dodd & Richards, who completed the theater that Benton began, working on a building linking the adobe to the theater and the Times of the 28th, including an architectural rendering of the complex, remarking that,
Part of the structure will be occupied by a curio store. Native Mission Indians will add the final touch of early California atmosphere and the part of the structure now occupied by the old adobe known as ‘Ramona’s Home,’ will be retained as an exhibition gallery for some of the choicest of the old mission heirlooms.
The month before, there was a grape festival at San Gabriel, at which Amapola (Poppy) del Vando was named queen by well-known film actor Raquel Torres and it was stated by the Whittier News of 27 September that “after the program many people went into Ramona’s home where the mission grape vine is still growing” and that this was reported to be “the parent vine of all the grape vines of California.”
Despite the long run of the Mission Play and with the great expense of the Playhouse and its additions, it is no surprise that the Great Depression, devastating in a way no others had been before or have been since, was a serious blow to the operation of the work, the venue and the use of the adobe. The South Gate Press-Tribune of 24 January 1930 reported that,
Taking over two famous California landmarks as a permanent attraction for those coming to San Gabriel to witness the Mission Play is announced by the management of the celebrated pageant drama now in its nineteenth season.
The famous mission grape vine, reputed to be the mother vine of all California Mission grapes and the Ramon adobe, birthplace of the character immortalized by Helen Hunt Jackson will be thrown open to the Mission Play audiences without charge.
This remained the case for the following two seasons, through 1932, when waves of bank failures worsened the Depression. The Play closed down (though there were a couple of later revivals) and, reported the Duarte Star-Tribune of 5 May 1933, in quoting the San Gabriel Sun, “this famous old adobe” which was said to have been “chosen by Helen Hunt Jackson for the scene of the childhood home” of Ramona “is changing hands.” The account erroneously stated that Robert Bayly built the structure in 1852 and that it passed to his daughter (rather than his sister), Kate McCormick and then to William.
The next year, the building was leased for three years to the local American Legion Drum and Bugle Corps, which had plans including “the complete restoration of the two historic landmarks to the status they occupied during old California [stage]coaching days,” while another account said that “Ramona’s Home” would become “a museum of antiques” and the courtyard of the grapevine would have entertainment “in keeping with the time when it was the chief amusement center on the Butterfield stage coach line from the Missouri to the west coast.” Where that information came from for the period of 1858-1861 is not known, however.
Tellingly, the Times of 20 February 1934 admitted that,
Ramona’s Home has emerged from the mist of mission days with no man [or woman] knowing its true history. Earliest tradition describes it as a three-room adobe, a hostelry beside the King’s Highway [Camino del Real]. An upper story of frame construction was added within the memory of old residents.
William McCormick, who continued to reside on the property, left around 1935 for the El Sereno neighborhood of northeast Los Angeles, and lived until 1958. He and his mother are interred at the Mission cemetery, though their half-century or so of residence and use of the adobe have been all but forgotten.
In his HABS report, Withey remarked that,
This writer was informed by a former owner [William McCormick] that several years ago he named the place “Ramona’s Birth Place” for no reason but to attract tourist trade.
McCormick was only one of legion who engaged in such schemes to draw the increasing hordes of visitors seeking to soak in the storied and romanticized history of Spanish and Mexican Los Angeles, including at San Gabriel. As noted above, the adobe is still with us as an events venue, but largely unrecognizable to what is in the photo, as is the grapevine that also is not as advertised, though still very impressive.