Death
Just seven weeks after arriving on the mainland, Juana Maria died. Modern analysis suggests she contracted dysentery, but Nidever claimed her fondness for green corn, vegetables and fresh fruit after years of little such nutrient-laden food caused the severe and ultimately fatal illness. Before she died, Father Gonzales baptized and christened her with the Spanish name Juana Maria. She was buried in an unmarked grave on the Nidever family plot at the Santa Barbara Mission cemetery. In 1928, a plaque commemorating her was placed at the site by the Daughters of the American Revolution.
Juana Maria's water basket, clothing and various artifacts, including bone needles which had been brought back from the island, were part of the collections of the California Academy of Sciences, but were destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire. Her cormorant feather dress was apparently sent to the Vatican, but it appears to have been lost.
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Famous quotes containing the word death:
“What I call middle-class society is any society that becomes rigidified in predetermined forms, forbidding all evolution, all gains, all progress, all discovery. I call middle-class a closed society in which life has no taste, in which the air is tainted, in which ideas and men are corrupt. And I think that a man who takes a stand against this death is in a sense a revolutionary.”
—Frantz Fanon (1925–1961)
“No one’s death comes to pass without making some impression, and those close to the deceased inherit part of the liberated soul and become richer in their humaneness.”
—Hermann Broch (1886–1951)
“I asked myself, “Is it going to prevent me from getting out of here? Is there a risk of death attached to it? Is it permanently disabling? Is it permanently disfiguring? Lastly, is it excruciating?” If it doesn’t fit one of those five categories, then it isn’t important.”
—Rhonda Cornum, United States Army Major. As quoted in Newsweek magazine, “Perspectives” page (July 13, 1992)