The Journal of San Diego History
SAN DIEGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY QUARTERLY
Winter 1969, Volume 15, Number 1
Rita Larkin, Editor
Places and People in Old Town
Part I – Places in Old Town
By Orion Zink
Map of Old Town
Part II – People in Old Town – Four Pueblo Families
The Bandini Family
By Patricia Baker
The Estudillo Family
By Sister Catherine McShane, Ph.D.
The Machado-Silvas Family
By Rosemary Masterson
The Machado-Stewart Family
By Orion M. Zink
Genealogy of the Machado-Stewart Families
Front Cover Image
There is in the pastoral Grotto an air of tranquility. Patterns of sunshine and shadows, sifted through the lacy leaves of the pepper trees, speckle a bowed figure. The meditating priest stands almost at the spot on Presidio Hill where Father Junipero Serra raised the Cross on July 16, 1769.
The “Father Serra Statue” was commissioned by newspapermen and philanthropist E. W. Scripp, to Arthur Putnam as part of a series of statues which were to depict the spirit of the history of California. The first was to be of an Indian, the second, of a Spanish priest. Both statues now are in Presidio Park, having been placed there on loan in 1933.
Arthur Putnam was born in 1873 and came to San Diego as a child in 1891. His mother, a widow, owned a lemon ranch in La Mesa. As a child he attracted attention through his artistry. Too soon the creative hands, which bad made him famous as a California sculptor, were rendered motionless by the fatal effects of a malignant brain tumor.
Small brown birds with bright eyes bustle about the Grotto, hopping without fear around the statue and over the feet of the priest. Little girls, on tours from school, blow kisses to the furrowed face. A photographer, wearing a brown beret, smiles at the children as he checks his light meter. The message, of successful effort, spoken through their capable hands by two dedicated men, fills the glade.
