Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1871-02-25
Daily 3'ennrbrt yournal,
A BRAVE CALIFORNIA WIDOW.


Many years ago before gold was dis
covered, a citizen of st Louis, who is YET
and again dweller of the Mound City
and also well known on this coast as al
owner in great navigation company
came to California, and went down to
Santiago, Chill. There he married into
an immensely rich Spanish family and his
marriage was legally Witnessed and re-
corded. In these Hispano American mar
riages in California it is too often the case
that the American considers the contract
void as soon as 1t suits his convenience
but when man goes in Spanish country
and takes unto himself one of the fair
daughters of Chill to wife, her friends
will look to it that he abides by the ca
tract. However, it seems not to -: ,o
been SO done in this instance, for ms CT :
zen left his Chill wife and childre:., rs ..,rn-
ed to st Louis, and there committed biga-
my. One of his sons grew up in Chill,
and he likewise took wife of the daugh-
tiers of the land. The conduct of the old
gentleman had caused them TO lose caste
in Chilli, SO they came to California, ask
ing at least recognition from their father,
who was vibrating between St Louis and
California on business. He paid no atten,
ton to them, and they, too proud to beg
anything of him, and never taught to la
Dor, were in desperate strait. They
managed to get little house in this city,
and kept a Kind of hospital for sick and
disabled miners. who were often glad to
reward them literally tor little house,
like nursing. They accumulated little
property and then the husband died. The
poor woman was thus left alone in this
great roaring pandemnoium, in the first
years of the gold discovery, unable to
speak English, and among rude, rough
men, accustomed to look upon all women
of her nation rs no better than they ought
TO be. Indeed, she was obliged to keep
studiously aloof from all her country wom-
en- in this city then, for the very reason that
they were of that character. She struggled
heroically to live an honest woman. She
bought cloth, made it into garments, and
had them peddled for her among the
mines. She dared not keep dodgers in
those days. But she had two or three
houses which she rented. Fate seemed
to be against her. Thrice, in common
with all Sacramento, she saw the fire level
all her possessions with the earth A
poor helpless woman, friendless and
alone, unable to speak the language, in
the rude jostle of the turbulent men (for
Sacramento has history bloody above all
other for the contentious about her land
titles), she saw one after another of her
little lots slip away into the clutch of the
infamous, accursed dcvourers of widows
portions and of the very heart and SUBJ
stance of the land, who have made Cali
fornia, as they did Michigan, steuch in
the nostrils ofmen. She is living now on
her last, and is eking out her living by
keeping few Spanish dodgers, such
alone as she can trust. But even this is
threatened with mortgage, and seems
likely to slip soon from the poor woman's
grasp. Her friends advised her to pro-
cure small loan from her immensely
wealthy father-in-law but she scorns to do
it. She is lady ofthe most exquisite
and dainty type of Castilian beauty, well
educated in her own language, refined
and sensitive. She adores the memory of
her American husband, and is eloquent
over California. 80, you sabee NADIA !"
she cries in her sweet CASTELAR,, after vain
ly attempting to depict the golden dreamy
glories Of these placid shores before they
were turned into hell by the discovery
of gold. All! those long, long sunny
years which rolled in unbroken tranquil
ity over the golden valleys and the purple
hills of California in those brave days of
old! If there was paradise on earth
since the primeval fall, it was here, it was
here Sacramento Paper.