Cristobal Aguilar - Background

Background

Aguilar was born in 1814 in Los Angeles, which was then under Spanish rule. His parents were José María Aguilar and María Ygnacia Elizalde. José Maria Aguilar was the grantee of Rancho Cañada de los Nogales. The Aguilars lived in a spacious adobe located on what is now North Main Street. This old adobe was a prominent landmark that later served two important, but very different functions. The first was as the town calabozo or jail, and then as the town's first hospital in 1858.

On October 30, 1848, Aguilar married Maria Dolores Yorba at the San Gabriel Mission just east of Los Angeles. His wife was the daughter of José Antonio de los Remidios Yorba and María Catalina Verdugo. The Yorbas possessed vast land holdings including most of the Santa Ana Valley (in present-day Orange County, California).

Cristóbal and Dolores had five children, which were as follows:

  • Librada, a daughter born in 1850
  • José, born in 1851
  • Matias, a second son born in 1858
  • Guadalupe, born in 1860
  • Rosa, born in 1863

Aguilar could not speak English, but, as reported by Los Angeles historian H.D. Barrows in 1899, he "made a good and acceptable Mayor because of the general familiarity of citizens of all nationalities then residing here, with the Spanish tongue."

Read more about this topic:  Cristobal Aguilar

Famous quotes containing the word background:

    ... every experience in life enriches one’s background and should teach valuable lessons.
    Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)

    In the true sense one’s native land, with its background of tradition, early impressions, reminiscences and other things dear to one, is not enough to make sensitive human beings feel at home.
    Emma Goldman (1869–1940)

    Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)