Sometimes it's hard to figure out exactly what I feel when I'm down at Dana Point these days. How is one supposed to feel knowing it was once all family land. My family, that is. The canyons and cliffs edged the river's flow to the sea and the rancho was known as Boca de la Playa, the mouth of the beach.
Even to historians, it's a bit of a muddle who owned what and when with the various transfers of the properties back and forth between the Vejars, the Avilas, the Pryors, the squatters, and eventually the lawyers and judges of civil and tax courts. Suit and countersuit and even the deadly poisoning of her husband, Pablo, in 1879, did not prevent Juan Avila's eldest daughter, Rosa Modesta, from recovering and continuing at the rancho's dwindling lands to raise her family: Juan Miguel, Teresa, Reginaldo, Dolores, Albert, and Soledad.
As the rancho's lands were pieced out, tract lots became smaller and smaller. Both Albert and Soledad's properties are marked on a vintage survey done for the development of San-Juan-by-the-Sea into a tourist destination between Los Angeles and San Diego. In its heyday, San Juan's charms brought celebrities such as Madame Modjeska for the hunting, fishing, riding, and swimming.
Photograph: My great-great grandmother Rosa Modesta Avila-Pryor with grandson, Charles Landell, at Dana Point cliffs, circa 1901.
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