Jose Martin Cruz married my Great-Great Grandmother, Maria Mauricia Faviana Verdugo (1863-1941), on May 16, 1885 in Compton, Los Angeles. Jose Martin (Morales) Cruz and Mauricia Verdugo are found in the 1900 census living in Long Beach, California with Mauricia’s widowed mother, Basilia Verdugo, and 7 children ranging in age from 23 to 2 years old.
Later, in the 1910 census we find Maria Mauricia Faviana
Verdugo (1863-1941) widowed and living alone in the San Antonio Township. The San
Antonio Township was formerly part of the Rancho
San Antonio owned by the Lugo family; Mauricia’s paternal and maternal aunts had
both married into the Lugo family, so it is not unlikely that she had been provided
a home to stay in from a close relative. As recounted below, 2 younger
daughters of Mauricia at this time were inmates in an orphanage; the older children likely found their
own way and the whereabouts of the two youngest Cruz children is undetermined
as of 1910.
Rosa Maria Cruz was the second daughter of Jose Martin
(Morales) Cruz (1854-1920) and Maria Mauricia Faviana Verdugo
(1863-1941). She was born in Long Beach, California on June 6, 1896; one of nine children. The youngest child, daughter Aurelia “Ray” Cruz (1906-1923)
reportedly died at the Weimar Sanatorium in
California of tuberculosis, but I can find no record of her death in Weimar records under Cruz or under her married name of Stevenson.
It is unclear what family difficulties occurred between 1896 and 1910;
but Rose and her younger sister, Florence
Ambrosia Verdugo Cruz 1901-1983), are found in the 1910 census as
inmates at the Los Angeles Orphanage.
Rose was 13 and Florence 9 years old. Per Rosa Maria Cruz she came to San Diego
when she was 14 years old (presumably with Florence) to live with her brother, Marshall Verdugo Cruz (1888-1951),
who either owned or worked for the moving company, Triangle Transfer & Truck Company. Marshall would have been a
fairly recent transplant to San Diego himself, as he is found previously in the 1910
census, at 20 years old, living in Los Angeles as a boarder in the home of Carmen Marquez, with his 23-year-old
brother, Benjamin F. Cruz
(1887-?).
Rosa Maria Cruz is perhaps found (in the 1920
census) living in Pomona, California; the wife of Reginaldo Palomares Vejar and
mother of a 3 ½ year old daughter Regina Teresa Marcelline Vejar (1916-2016).
A second daughter, Henrietta Josefina Vejar (1921-1988), was born in San Diego (per family history); whether Henrietta was Reginaldo Vejar's daughter or the daughter of Henry Cesena remains unclear, but by 1923 Rosa was again in
San Diego and had remarried Vernon
Monroe Kemp (1903-1968), the father of her third daughter, Helen Marie Kemp (1924-2005).
In a column about Rosa Maria Cruz outlining her life
when she was 79 years old, she claimed Mission Indian and Spanish descent, she
claimed (it seems mistakenly) that the famed Maria Eulalia Perez (1766-1878) was
her 5th Great Grandmother. Rosa stated that the Verdugo family came
from Majorca, Spain and were landowners in Pasadena and of the Rancho Los Cerritos in Long Beach. Rancho Los Cerritos was a part of Rancho Los Nietos and was held by Maria Manuela Antonia Perez y Nieto (1791-aft.1835) and
her husband Juan Ignacio Guillermo de
Cota (1768–1844). Juan Ignacio Guillermo de Cota’s marriage to Maria
Manuela Antonia Perez y Nieto was his second. He had been previously married to
Maria Manuela de Jesus Lisalde
(1777-1803), the daughter of Maria Tomasa Lopez
(1756–1778) and Captain Pedro Antonio Lisalde (1753-1818).
Rosa Maria Cruz bought a house in San Diego at 1942
Thomas Street in 1929 and lived there until 1974 when she moved to De Anza Trailer Park on Mission Bay.
Rose recounts fishing in Mission Bay with her family using chicken wire during
the Depression. She tells that she, 2 sisters and her mother, Maria Mauricia
Faviana Verdugo, were involved in the founding of St. Briget’s Catholic Church in Pacific
Beach. There was no Catholic Church and they sold Spanish dinners to raise funds
to build the church. Her nephew, Richard
Severn Rash (1921-1988), the son of her sister Florence, was the
first altar boy at St. Briget’s and
her mother Mauricia Verdugo would pass away before the church was completed.
In a letter from Tecate, Mexico dated 12 August 1883 from Maria
Mauricia Faviana Verdugo to Martin Cruz:
Senor Don Martin Cruz,
My beloved brother,
I will be glad if when you receive this letter
in your hands you will find yourself and all of my other brothers and sisters
in good health. My brother I wish and hope with anticipation to see all of you.
The days seem so long. I received your wonderful letter, from which we received
such great joy. I cannot tell you when we can go, I worry about the health of
our father and mother. After this Novena and request to St. Francis I hope to
be able to see all of you. Let me know when you will go to Sonora so I can
commit myself to repaying this debt as promised to St. Francis. Let me know
when you go, please do not stop writing to me. Next is only to find a job to
make enough to pay my debt to St. Francis.
My greetings to Erlinda and Chachon, greetings
from mother and father, from Margarita and from the rest of the family, and the
heart of your sister who wishes she could see you.
Mauricia Verdugo
Maria Mauricia Faviana Verdugo
refers to her husband as her brother and to her family members as her brothers
and sisters. Why Mauricia Verdugo was in Tecate is unknown. Her greeting to
Erlinda seems to refer to Erlinda
Lopez (1876-1941), the daughter of Geronimo Lopez
(1829-1921…3GGU) and Maria Catarina Lopez. Erlinda married Joseph W. Alexander (1870-1965). Margarita would likely be Mauricia’s
sister, Maria Margarita Verdugo (1863-1924).
Margarita Verdugo married Jose "Vicente"
Nicolas Melendrez (1864-1905). Whether
the “our father and mother” refers to Martin Cruz’ parents or Mauricia’s is
unknown, but the presence of Margarita seems to point to a greater possibility
that it was Jose Joaquin Juan Pedro Verdugo (1832-1889) and Maria Basilia
Perez (1824-1908), who were, in this case, living in Tecate, Mexico.
