I never met Derricks grandfather; what I know about his life I
learned from stories Derrick told me over the years. In my own words I'll write
what I know; I'm not a writer and it shows yes, but want to get Derricks
past down in writing so that I can get on with the main story which is about Derrick, Samjas, Anna and myself.
Vargas died in 1964 at ninety
years old when Derrick was fourteen. As
close as I can determine Vargas was born in 1874; ninety-nine years after The Spanish sloop
Sonora, led by a Don Juan Francisco de la Bodega, sailed into the mouth of
Tomales Bay at the southern end of of what is now named Bodega Bay on the
Northern California coast.
I heard it this
way; Vargas’s great grand father,
Estanislao, 15 years old, along with his People, watched from the
thick forests of Cypress, Giant Sequoia, and an mixture of Firs Pines and
Juniper. Estanislao
had told of this event to Vargas's grandfather many times over the years at
story telling gatherings. Vargas had heard this and other stories of Estanislao's heroic
battles from his father many times.
When Estanislao was thirty two he was
among several Indian war leaders that emerged from these peaceful natives of
California. Becoming war leaders, Estanislao, Pompomio, and Joscolo were feared in the
white ranchos and settlements. Derrick didn't give me all these details, it
was years later when I did some internet searches about the Pomo Indians during
those years. I found a lot of documentation telling about such events as the
attacks on the white settlers above.
These
Spaniards wanted to convert the savages or kill them; there was no in
between. There was no in between with the Indians either. In 1797, Raymundo el Californio led an expedition
of 40 troops into the wilds of
Contra
Costa
County
after runaway Indian converts. These still free Indians killed them all in an attack.
At various times in his life
Estanislao was hidden & protected by a certain Spanish gentleman, a friend, a Mexican
citizen, whose own son's life was saved from drowning by Estanislao. The man, Bolinas, owned large tracts of land in
Sonoma
and
Mendocino counties.
When Estanislao's
lady gave birth to
her first child, Bolinas gave the new baby legal title to an isolated forty acre
piece of land with creek and several springs.
Estanislao's son, Vargas’s grandfather, lived on this land his whole life with
his wife and six children, every one of them leaving before they turned 16. In 1852 when he was fifty-two years old with the help of an
Indian/Spanish lawyer, he set the land in a trust that prevented it from being
sold, or taken. He died two years later. The land was empty of humans until his
grandson Vargas and his wife Lillian move there in 1930.
I
have some stories about these years on a page called Derrick or something or
another. He told me about these times when we first met on
the beach at Bodega Bay. I'll find them and put them into this story later.
In
my notes it says that it was in 1844 when Vargas’s
father, when he was 14 years old, moved from this land onto the Bolinas
ranchero in Mendocino
County first as a laborer, then a foreman. He
and his Pomo wife moved to
Mexico
when they were 18 years old in 1848 along with the
Bolinas family. This was two years
before
California
statehood. They were forced to leave by whites
that were literally stealing land from the Mexicans. They were one of the few
Mexican families who were able to sell their land and cattle. During these times
Indians were being hunted for sport. The young Indian couple knew that they
would have a better life in
Mexico
working for a wealthy land owning family whom they
had known all their lives.
Vargas was born in
Mexico
in 1874. His mother died when he
was ten and his father died in 1894. Vargas had for many years the desire to
find his roots and really be an
Indian. He had read stories of the
American Indians and the Wild West in the popular dime novels popular in those
days. He wanted to be an Indian.
He used to tell Derrick how ridicules it was; he was a full blood Indian
but knew nothing of his people his culture! Derrick told me how Vargas would
laugh and laugh at this injustice.
I
can see this picture in my mind's eye. It is 1894, Vargas is 20 years old,
raised in
Mexico
on a Ranchero by full blood American Indian parents. He was raised in the
Mexican culture as a Mexican. By the time he was thirteen he was an expert
horseman, a Vaquero, working the steers, speaking Spanish fluently, with a good
command of English, and had a smooth but limited vocabulary of Pomo.
Needing desperately to connect
with his American Indian roots, Vargas heads north to
San Francisco, arriving in 1895 where he connects with a local ‘Wild West Show’. Vargas,
has the
unique non-experience of never experiencing life as an Indian. He learned
fast, and with his classic looks, became somewhat of a star of the show. In 1898
he joined Buffalo Bills Wild West Show, eventually touring
Europe
with them from 1903 to 1907.
In 1905, Vargas now thirty-one,
meets Lillian in
France. Lillian is twenty-one, somewhat of a wild Indian herself, Irish, intelligent,
rich and an adventuress. They fall deeply and madly in love. The first time for each of
them. She is an heiress from
Cambridge
Massachusetts. Her parents are a liberal wealthy family, who has accepted her ‘Bohemian’
ways. The two of them carouse through
Europe
for a dozen years. They eventually get married in 1908. They return to Harvard, in about 1918.
Lillian and Vargas were able to agree
with each other even when disagreeing. The issue with kids came up early on.
Vargas felt that his age, and his love of travel was not a good combination for
making a good father. Lillian, from a family of seven kids, was right in the
middle; she had been powered over by three and had to power over three. She
never thought that she would be a mother. Yet they never did anything to keep
her from becoming pregnant. When she found she was with child, both Lillian and
Vargas were surprised but pleased. Their
daughter Lili was born in 1926.
Lillian’s family loses most of
their money in the 1929 stock crash. In 1930, tired of the ways of the world, Vargas and Lillian
move to California to his
ancestor’s land with their
four-year-old daughter Lili. They both have at this
time in their lives renounced the world so to speak. They build a substantial
two-room redwood log cabin. They grew most of their food, they hunted and
fished,
and they were avid readers, staying up late at night reading to each other, and to
Lili, who they loved dearly.
I am still editing out the writing in the present tense but don't haven't
the time to get to each sentence.
It is the depression
years and
times are tough. Although they have sufficient money, they keep a low profile. In
1933 there is virtually no chance of their half breed daughter getting a good
education, or any at all. The
public schools in Sonoma/Mendocino at this time would not admit Indian children
who were routinely captured
and sent off to distant Bureau of Indian Affairs run boarding schools. Half-breeds were looked upon with
disdain.
Indian
women killed their babies during these years to keep them from being taken by
the whites. (I have historical documents regarding this.)
In 1933 when
Lili is seven, after much soul searching, they send
her to Cambridge MA to live with Lillian’s younger sister Dora, a widow, living in a comfortable old
house and more than agreeable to raising Lili.
When Dora
registered Lili in school, suspecting possible future discrimination, she altered
her birth
certificate to show Vargas's ethnic group as Italian. Lili never looked back at
her Indian heritage.
In 1946,
Lili is twenty years old when she meets her future husband at college who was studying at the
Newport
Navel
War
College.
She let him believe that she was Irish/Italian. They get married in 1949 and
soon move to
San Francisco
when he gets stationed there. She does not let her parents know that she
has married or that she is in
San Francisco. Derrick, Their only child, is born in the City one year
later; 1950.
Notes
to producers and or screenwriters: I have documents and sources for the
historical events and persons names noted above. Derricks family history
beginning with Vargas all came directly from Derrick himself. -Link Upton
Notes from the bottom:
Whew!
Got through that okay, next pass through will be some editing. -Link U.
The
Man in the Maze
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