Eulalia Pérez de Guillén Mariné (1766? – June 11, 1878) was a

Californio Californios (singular Californio) are Californians of Spaniards, Spanish descent, especially those descended from settlers of the 17th through 19th centuries before California was annexed by the United States. California's Spanish language in C ...

who was '' mayordoma'' of

Mission San Gabriel Arcángel Mission San Gabriel Arcángel () is a Californian mission and historic landmark in San Gabriel, California. It was founded by the Spanish Empire on the Nativity of Mary September 8, 1771, as the fourth of what would become twenty-one Spanish mi ...

and grantee of Rancho del Rincón de San Pascual in the

San Rafael Hills The San Rafael Hills are a mountain range in Los Angeles County, California. They are one of the lower Transverse Ranges, and are parallel to and below the San Gabriel Mountains, adjacent to the San Gabriel Valley overlooking the Los Angeles Ba ...

, in present-day

Los Angeles County Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles and sometimes abbreviated as LA County, is the most populous county in the United States, with 9,663,345 residents estimated in 2023. Its population is greater than that of 40 individua ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

. She claimed to have been born in 1766, if so making her 112 years old at the time of her death in 1878, but her case has not been verified or fully proven.

Life

Early years

Eulalia Pérez was born in Loreto, the capital on the Baja California Peninsula of the

Las Californias The Californias (), occasionally known as the Three Californias or the Two Californias, are a region of North America spanning the United States and Mexico, consisting of the U.S. state of California and the Mexican states of Baja California an ...

Province in the

Viceroyalty of New Spain New Spain, officially the Viceroyalty of New Spain ( ; Nahuatl: ''Yankwik Kaxtillan Birreiyotl''), originally the Kingdom of New Spain, was an integral territorial entity of the Spanish Empire, established by Habsburg Spain. It was one of several ...

(in what is today the modern Mexican state of

Baja California Sur Baja California Sur, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California Sur, is a state in Mexico. It is the 31st and last state to be admitted, in 1974. It is also the second least populated Mexican state and the ninth-largest state by ...

), to Diego Pérez of

Salamanca Salamanca () is a Municipality of Spain, municipality and city in Spain, capital of the Province of Salamanca, province of the same name, located in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is located in the Campo Charro comarca, in the ...

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

and Antonia Rosalia Cotes (or Cota) thought to be mulatta. Macedonio Gonzalez, one of Eulalia's nephews, knew Antonia Cota as Lucia Valenzuela according to Eulalia's English-born son-in-law and author Michael C. White, aka: Miguel Blanco. Diego Pérez was a ship captain, thought to come from

—family members have been unable to trace records of his commission through the

Archivo General de Indias The ''Archivo General de Indias'' (; standard abbreviation AGI; ), often simply called the Archive of the Indies, was created by Carlos III of Spain, Carlos III and inaugurated in 1785. It is housed in the former Consulado de mercaderes, merchan ...

or in Loreto, which has been ravaged by hurricanes over the centuries. Her siblings were Teresa, Petra, Juana, Josefa, Bernardo, and León. According to family lore, Capitan Pérez taught his daughter how to read and write, a fact later important to her survival and eventual prominence. She married Spanish army Sergeant Miguel Antonio Guillén at age fifteen. He was in the company at the Presidio of San Diego. They moved from Baja about 1800—on foot in those days—to the garrison at the new Mission San Gabriel, with their children Petra, Rosaria, and Isidoro. Miguel died while later serving at the garrison at San Diego, leaving Pérez with several children.

Misión San Gabriel

Pérez managed to obtain employment at Misión San Gabriel, initially as cook and

midwife A midwife (: midwives) is a health professional who cares for mothers and Infant, newborns around childbirth, a specialisation known as midwifery. The education and training for a midwife concentrates extensively on the care of women throughou ...

for those such as Governor Pío Pico. She was eventually made "keeper of the keys" (''mayor doma'') of the mission itself. Victoria Reid, an Indigenous Californian, worked as her assistant for a time in her young age.

Rancho del Rincon del San Pascual

Map of Mexico including Yucatan and Upper California 1847

When she retired, Mexican Governor José Figueroa rewarded Pérez as the grantee of the Rancho del Rincón de San Pascual with her husband Juan Mariné.. Rancho San Pascual encompasses the present day cities of

Pasadena Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial d ...

, South Pasadena, and

San Marino San Marino, officially the Republic of San Marino, is a landlocked country in Southern Europe, completely surrounded by Italy. Located on the northeastern slopes of the Apennine Mountains, it is the larger of two European microstates, microsta ...

. This had been part of the homeland of the Tongva-Gabrieleño Native Americans for thousands of years. Within the independent Mexican territory of

Alta California Alta California (, ), also known as Nueva California () among other names, was a province of New Spain formally established in 1804. Along with the Baja California peninsula, it had previously comprised the province of , but was made a separat ...

, as a woman Pérez was unable to have ownership of property in her own name, so she married retired Mexican artillery lieutenant Juan Mariné (d. 1836). (According to descendants, the fathers at San Gabriel Mission made her the grant under Spanish rule; when Mexico acquired Alta California, Pérez then married Juan Mariné because Mexican law did not allow women to own land.) According to some descendants, Mariné and his sons lost all the land in a short time by gambling. In another narrative, one of Marine's sons, Fruto, was an active soldier and could not take charge of the Rancho. He sold it to José Pérez and Enrique Sepúlveda in 1839. Perez and Sepúlveda submitted a new land claim and in 1839 were re-granted their own title to Rancho San Pascual by Mexican Governor Juan Bautista Alvarado. Both built small

adobe Adobe (from arabic: الطوب Attub ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for mudbrick. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is use ...

houses near the Arroyo Seco. Jose Perez died in 1841 and Enrique Sepulveda died in 1843, which left Rancho San Pascual abandoned until a new grantee later that year.

Flores Adobe – South Pasadena

Pérez lived in the Adobe Flores, the 1839 adobe headquarters of Juan Perez on Rancho San Pascual on the southern slope of Raymond Hill. It was restored by architect Carleton Winslow, Sr. in the early 20th century and is still standing on Foothill Street in South Pasadena, and is on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

. It was named after a Californio hero, General Jose Maria Flores, the commander of the Mexican forces in Alta California during the

Mexican–American War The Mexican–American War (Spanish language, Spanish: ''guerra de Estados Unidos-México, guerra mexicano-estadounidense''), also known in the United States as the Mexican War, and in Mexico as the United States intervention in Mexico, ...

, who had camped near the adobe. She spent many years of her remaining life in the homes of various daughters, including that of Maria Rita de Guillén de la Ossa, wife of Jose Vicente de la Ossa, owner of Rancho de los Encinos, foundation of

Encino, California Encino is a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles, California. History Etymology The name Encino is the misspelling in masculine of Encina, the Spanish language, Spanish word for "holm oak” (Quercus ilex). The Spanis ...

. (What remains of that rancho is now Los Encinos State Historic Park.)

Death

Los Encinos De La Osa Adobe southern face

Pérez died in the

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

area on June 11, 1878. Her death certificate, located in the Santa Ana courthouse, records that she lived to be 140, but descendants for the most part agree on more conservative figures like 110 or 112 years old, making her a famous

centenarian A centenarian is a person who has reached the age of 100. Because life expectancies at birth worldwide are well below 100, the term is invariably associated with longevity. The United Nations estimated that there were 316,600 living centenarian ...

of early

and of Mexican (later U.S.) history.

Legacy

Eulalia Pérez de Guillén Mariné is one of only two non-clergy buried with the priests in the San Gabriel Mission courtyard cemetery. Although there are an unknown number of Native Americans from the Kizh tribe or Gabrielino (as they were later identified due to their proximity to the Mission) in the courtyard cemetery, the priests were buried in a designated section immediately adjacent to the wall of the Mission in a place of honor. In Catholic tradition, burials closest to the most sacred areas of the church are reserved for individuals of stature, usually clergy. Eulalia being honored in this way (Thomas Workman-Temple II, Mission Historian being the other), was a highly unusual honor at that time for a woman: a marble bench inscribed with her name marks the spot. Her numerous descendants married other

Californios Californios (singular Californio) are Californians of Spaniards, Spanish descent, especially those descended from settlers of the 17th through 19th centuries before California was annexed by the United States. California's Spanish language in C ...

from other founding Spanish and Mexican families of pre-statehood

. Some of Eulalia Perez de Guillen Marine's (deceased) descendants include: * Maria Rita de Guillen de la Ossa, wife of Don Jose Vicente de la Ossa, owners of Rancho de los Encinos in

Encino, Los Angeles Encino is a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles, California. History Etymology The name Encino is the misspelling in masculine of Encina, the Spanish word for "holm oak” (Quercus ilex). The Spanish name reflects t ...

* Katherine Kevane Murray, champion of English for Spanish-speaking children in California public schools * Alexander Howison Murray Jr. (1907–1993), twice mayor of Placerville *Patricia Murray Chambers (1936–2007) * Victoria Duarte Cordova, California genealogist and historian, (1912–2005)

References

External links

* * "The Reminiscences of Eulalia Pérez" in ''The Californians'', The Magazine of California History (Grizzly Publications). *
Tales of California Yesterday"> Tales of California Yesterday
' by Rose L. Ellerbe (Los Angeles: Warren T. Potter, 1916), "Three Cooks of San Gabriel," pp. 11–17 *

' (Berkeley: HeyDay Books, 2008), pp. 142-145, 197
''Latinos in Pasadena''
by Roberta H. Martinez (San Francisco: Aradia Publishing, 2009), pp. 16-18, 25, 28, 30, 34
''Latina Legacies: Identity, Biography, and Community''
by Vicki Ruíz and Virginia Sánchez Korrol (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 24-25 * *
''In America''
by Susan Sontag (New York: Macmillan, 2001), p. 193.
''Uppity Women of the New World''
by Vicki Leon (Newburyport, MA: Conari, 2001), pp. 60-61 *

- ''California Pioneer Project''
Michael White Adobe website
- ''(research section: information on Eulalia Pérez''

- 52:71-75; 53:141

- ''June 1962, Volume 50 Number 2''
UC Berkeley News: California women's "Collective Voice" exhibit

- ''March 11, 2007''
Homestead Museum blogsite
- ''March 4, 2010'' *Photos *
Santa Clara University
Eulalia Perez *
UC Berkeley News
Exhibit's slideshow] *
Homestead Museum
Eulalia Perez de Guillen Marine circa 1878 {{DEFAULTSORT:Perez De Guillen Marine, Eulalia Californios Landowners from California 19th-century American landowners Mexican midwives 1878 deaths People from Pasadena, California People from San Gabriel, California People from South Pasadena, California People from the San Gabriel Valley History of Los Angeles County, California Longevity claims Religious workers from California Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles 19th century in Los Angeles People from Loreto Municipality, Baja California Sur Year of birth uncertain 18th-century American women landowners 18th-century American landowners