The Belding banner-news. (Belding, Mich.) 1918-1973, 1918-11-13

to do the work himself, 30 it was about
IL o'clock when We got started; we
drove out to the old mission and went
through that; Il WAS founded In 1883,
some Of the rooms are - they were
originally except Of course they have
! to Be mended occasionally; they were
built by the Indians under the super
vision Of the priests; they are adobe;
the roof il new ~ all Of these mis-
sions suffered greatly in the earth
quake of 1872 not being built very
solid they could not stand the shock;
! the mission now has two large towers
which are of solid concrete; In these
! towers are the old mission BELLS /
believe one has been broken and one
was stolen. We saw many very an
Gent things in these rooms; piano
| Of rosewood that came around the
cape centuries ago, book which was
very well preserved printed, or rather
| / believe It was done by hand in the
year 1403; also some very old water
jars; the priests were some OF them
very musical and undertook to teach
the Indians; they seemed unable to do
this until one of them thought of the
idea of using flowers instead OF notes,
so we saw some Of the music written
that way. Many old paintings OF
the different missions and also Of the
priests who have been in these mis-
sions. The church proper is very
old, but has had some repairs recently
they have redecorated the walls and
made a new altar. We went out in
to the garden, or rather guess it was
the cemetery, where many of the early
Spanish families were buried. They
also have a crypt where the older
priests were buried; they are allowed
to use it now only for the priests from
the mission. 1t was not large lot,
quite long. and they told US there were
over 5000 Indians buried here; they
are six and seven on top on one an
other. The steps, except the two
lower ones, were the old original ones.
1t was rather warm and we did not
climb up to the tower where we could
have had better view of the yard and
also a view of the priests private
garden. The old stones were there
where the Indians used to do their
washing.
Before we reached Santa Barbara
we saw an old Spanish house with
the red tile roof, it seemed in fairly
good condition but no one was living
in it. At Santa Barbara there were
number of houses built to represent
this old style of architecture. There
are a number of old, wealthy Spanish
families at Santa Barbara. There are
number of very beautiful homes
built and being built on one side OF
the city, upon the high hills; we in
tended to drive around there but our
time was limited so did not j. Og-
den Armour is building a mansion
over there We had our dinner and
started for home about 1890. We
had to go back the same way as the
ether road we wanted to take no one
could seem to find out whether or not
it was finished and did not care to
ride far in the dust, as we would had
to have done if we had to detour. As
/ said before we stopped at the gentle
mans brothers fer couple Of hours
and at another place about Is min
utes and drove l20 miles reaching
\ Pasadena at about $3.50. The ride
u coming back was just as interesting
and enjoyable as it was going.
When one sees a picture painted
from here you can scarcely believe
that there is such coloring, coming
I back one mountain in particular
stands out in my memory; at the bot
tom was some weed which in color re-
sembles sorrel, which gave a reddish
color, back Of that waSsthe gray of the
sage brush and above that the brown
Of the mountain, it looked so much
like a painting saw down town a
few days before. 1t is hard to des-
cribe the wonderful coloring of the
II flowers and shrubs here; it is some
thing that has to be seen in order TO
appreciate.
II We put in some spinach this morn
ing, would have put in few potatoes
but the ones we have do not seem
VERY good SO did not.
There are plenty OF vegetables and
they are quite reasonable. must
7 ret busy and go down and hello at the
n Red Cross; think they will be glad
Of little work along my line if
cannot sew to speak Of. They have
over 5000 garments to make here be-
fore the LIST Of October so guess some
one viii have to get busy. am MOI
going TO try and get anything to dc
until after the middle of October. not
that / expect to have hay fever but
think I will keeb a little quite from
lnow on. We would like to 60 to the
beach for a week but as there Is SC
much ship building going on expect
rooms viii be very scarce and very
high but / do love the old ocean and
would ike TO be where I could hcal
the swizh swash all of the time.
On the way home I saw the largest
tarantula ! ever want to see and dc
not care for close acquaintance
either; the man stopped the car and he
and | got out and went back and
locked at it; its legs were all Of two
inches long, it's body was as large as
fair sized mouse. and he could &c
quite swift enough for me. The fun.
NY part Of it was that four other cars
besides ours passed along and never
touched the blamed thing. was like
the small boy. / would like to have
seen him go squash; think by COCO
rights he should have been killed. Al.
!, ter seeing it / decided that guessed
did not care to travel and camp by
, the roadside, as many do out here.
We were going to the Busch garden:
A 4 - - a. 80