Santa Ysabel’s mission enterprise in the 1821-1840 period was uncommonly successful, both spiritually and agriculturally, much more so than San Diego. The foremost Franciscan scholar, Zephyrin Engelhardt, thought it a great consolation to the padres at a time when they sorely needed it. He wrote much on the subject back in 1920, including even a foundation plan.

Two pillars of our local “asistencia” (mission station) were Padre Vicente Oliva and Apolinaria Lorenzana, “La Beata” [blessed]. They remained great friends and she was with him at his death in 1847. He was from Aragon in Spain and must have known that Isabel the saint and “holy queen” was born a princess of Aragon. Being a Spaniard, he enjoyed an extra glass or two of sacramental wine to fortify his piety.

Oliva visited here every two weeks or so, but La Beata lived here for years at Santa Ysabel, although she owned ranchos at Cañada de los Coches (Lakeside), Santa Clara de Jamacha and Capistrano de Secua (Sycuan).

Los Coches, by the creek below the Walmart, was also called “Buena Esperanza de los Coches,” which we might imperfectly translate as “High Hopes of the Hogs.”

La Beata was skilled as a seamstress, nurse, and school-mistress, passing her skills on to hundreds of local girls and godchildren, many named after her. Born around 1792, she herself had it harder as a pitiable charity case with no parents, learning nursing while being seriously ill with a paralysis at the San Diego mission infirmary of Padre Sanchez, founder of Santa Ysabel. They called her a “curandera” for her herbalist skills in natural healing. When a brig was quarantined with measles in the harbor, it was “the orphan” that they called for. The priest could wait.

Orphaned or perhaps just given up by parents of Spanish descent, she had come from Mexico City with a group of orphans to be settled with families here in New Spain. It was said that she had a fine Castilian accent and a Spanish appearance, and this helped people to accept her assertive manner. Today, a supervisor might consider her “pushy,” even insubordinate. She got things done, though.

She had taught herself to write by practicing on discarded cigarette cartons. Taking over a girls’ school from her boss, she was able to teach a curriculum of reading, writing, praying and sewing, all they needed to get by. She was everything they could ever dream of becoming, even acquiring a rare horse-drawn spring carriage instead of the usual solid-wheeled workaday oxcart with a heap of straw to complement the natural elasticity of the female anatomy. She traveled a lot and needed to go first class.

Rancheros liked to look good, and so they sought her out for embroidering vests, scarves, and “abbess” coverings for chamois boots, often of silk with spangles.

Indian vaqueros (cowboys) were not such insufferable dandies, but they, too, had sombreros, pants, boots and a saddle. Santa Ysabel Indians were said to be snappy dressers, with Chief Tomas Chi-uj the snappiest in his silver-laced Mexican military jacket.

Oliva and La Beata were a great team, whether setting broken bones or raising hogs for church candles, shampoo, axle grease or bacon. They baptized natives ranging in age from 5 to 96.

Wheat and maize grew better at Santa Ysabel than elsewhere, she said, and there were orchards, gardens, and vineyards. San Diego Mission had three ranch superintendents, of which one was permanently at Santa Ysabel, and another at Rancho El Cajon [Lakeside]. Most fields were in the western part of the valley. There was a reservoir up Jamatai (Santa Ysabel Creek] for dry years.

Students of the language will find elements of water, land and bigness in that Jamatai name, but don’t expect dependable translations from anyone. Too much has been lost, although language classes are being taught on reservations to save what can be saved.

La Beata said she was “not inclined toward matrimony”, although she acknowledged the “merits of such a sacred sacrament.” At least one suitor felt desperately disappointed and went south. He later returned, permanently heartbroken and rejected. She had other priorities.

She would regularly take sick people to a cure at the hot springs at Warner’s, staying two months at a time to care for them and bathe them.

In that same era, people were “taking the waters” at places like Bath and Baden-Baden.

She enjoyed helping with weddings, which were rather different then. Luckily, we have a detailed description of a local wedding, a pretty standardized ceremony.

Padre Oliva received the nuptial couple outside the chapel door. There, he would bless 13 coins with holy water, and the rings, too. Vows were exchanged outside, in the presence of witnesses. The chapel was only 21 feet wide, not enough for big crowds munching mesquite bean bread.

Only then did the padre lead the bride and groom inside by their right hands to the altar, where they knelt for mass and the Pater Noster (Lord’s Prayer). There is symbolism here from the parable of the good shepherd bringing the flock into the sheepfold of the Church.

Some of the chapel floor is still there under leaves and debris. It’s a good place to contemplate our transitory, dream-crossed lives and the persistence of our collective memories, our traditions and history.

The padre then covered the bride’s head and the groom’s shoulder with a red and white veil to symbolize the blood they would pass on to the future, and fidelity to each other, and the groom’s duty to protect his bride.

After a nuptial blessing, the padre gave the bride’s right hand to the groom, saying, “I give you a companion, not a servant. Love her as Christ loved the church.”

Thus wedded and veiled (“casados y velados”), the couple joined a fiesta which might last for days when possible.

There seems to be nothing in the deal about “honor and obey,” which some men value perhaps more than women do. Women’s rights and Indian rights were protected in New Spain and the Mexican republic before the 1846 invasion by the Army of the West.

The fame of Santa Ysabel spread. Indians came from Vallecito and even from Yuma to be baptized, at a time when the Imperial Valley was a sterile deadly desert, before irrigation, when even Indian survival skills might not save you.

La Beata gave a lengthy interview to a Bancroft historian in 1878, including gory details of the 1837 Indian rebellion, bequeathing us a precious insight into mission times in the old west. She was at the end of an adventurous and generous life. He wrote that she was then poor and blind, but still cheerful and a “good old soul.” She told him, “I had the satisfaction of being well loved by all who met me.” I believe she was the most beloved person in the history of San Diego.

Santa Ysabel was mainly a happy place. Little is preserved, but the Julian Historical Society wants your imagination and our scattered facts to help you feel the charm of those happy years as you gaze upon the old chapel floor, and the pastoral valley all around you, a valley where La Beata is still somehow easy to remember.