ABSTRACT
Eulalia Perez experienced life on Mexico’s California frontier during the period in which this region was transformed from a Franciscan missionary outpost into a burgeoning commercial territory ceded to the United States in the 1848 war. In his introduction, Thomas Savage notes that while Perez was ancient at the time of their interview, she still possessed remarkable strength and lucidity. Her statements reveal that she was tremendously proud of the part that she and other women played in the development of California. As she recounted in her life story, she married Miguel Antonio Guillen at age fifteen and gave birth twelve times during her marriage to him. After her husband’s death in 1819, the Franciscans of San Gabriel offered Perez work and took in her family, eventually appointing her San Gabriel’s “keeper of keys,” a title of great responsibility. Encouraged by the Franciscan friars, Perez was remarried in 1832 to Juan Marine, a retired soldier.
