Feliciana’s California Miracle

by Esther J. Comstock
177 pages, Hardcover
Comstock Bonanza Press, January 1, 1985

A true adventure story about Feliciana Gutiérrez de Arballo, a young and beautiful woman who came to California in 1776-seventy-two years before Marshall found gold at Sutter’s Mill.

Just before a company of Mexican colonists is to leave Sonora for California, her husband is killed by Indians.

Feliciana is faced with a difficult choice: should she, a young widow with two very young daughters, travel to faraway San Francisco Bay with the expedition of Captain Juan Bautista de Anza?

Her decision is to go, despite much advice to the contrary. She and her daughters, Tomasa and Eustaquía, bid farewell to family and friends, hoping to find a happier future in California. But whereas Captain Anza approves, Padre Pedro Font gloomily insists the presence of an unmarried woman will result in scandal or worse.

To Feliciana’s dismay, Padre Font’s prediction seems to come true. Her own attractiveness and lively spirit provoke unwanted attention, causing two soldiers to compete for her favor. When violence results, Feliciana wonders if she was wrong to leave Sonora.

In addition to personal problems, Feliciana and her daughters share hazards and discomforts with the other colonists: potentially hostile Indian tribes, difficult and sometimes dangerous river crossings, shortages of food and water, and repeated delays caused by illness, childbirth and death among their fellow travelers. The last and greatest obstacle is a fierce snowstorm, worst ever to hit the southern California desert, which engulfs them before they reach San Gabriel Mission.

The story of Feliciana is romantic, touching and amusing. It is also one that will surprise many who thought they knew California his-tory. Because of the preoccupation of scholars with the other exciting events of 1776, Feliciana’s brave trek across the Sonoran desert is all but forgotten, although many of her grandchildren are well-known: Pío and Andrés Pico, Romualdo Pacheco, and the Carrillo sisters, Francisca Benicia and María de la Luz, who married Mariano and Salvador Vallejo.

About the Author

ESTHER JACOBY COMSTOCK was born in San Francisco shortly before the 1906 earthquake and fire. When the ashes settled, her banker father moved his family across the bay to Oakland, where she grew up.

She attended the University of California at Berkeley for two years before transferring to the College of the Pacific in Stockton. In 1926 she received her B.A. and teaching credential, and married architect Floyd B. Comstock. Not until her third (and youngest) child was attending the same college did she finally pursue a teaching career.

For ten years she taught primary grades, and then continued for five years as a substitute teacher, mostly in the fourth grade. From this experience came her desire to improve the quality of California history books available to young people. Her first book, Vallejo and the Four Flags, was published by Comstock Bonanza Press in 1979. It is the life story of General Mariano Vallejo and is used in hundreds of California and Nevada schools as a supplementary text in the study of California history; moreover, it has been read by hundreds of adults and children for sheer pleasure.

After living in Contra Costa County for many years, the Comstocks now reside in Stockton, California.