Researching my Spanish Ancestry: The California Connection

 (Click here to see a video introduction and overview I produced to go along with this story)
Note: I first published this post in February 2019 on my old College of Charleston "Beyond the Grave" site created for a class I taught for five years at this university. 

During a holiday visit to my folks’ house in Virginia, I asked my mother some questions about her parents. One was where her late father (my grandfather) had worked. I knew that he was at a hotel for many years in Santa Monica but I didn't know which hotel.

"The Miramar" was her response. My immediate reaction was asking if it was located near San Diego. My thoughts went to the Tom Cruise movie "Top Gun" that was set at the fighter pilot school at the Miramar U.S. Navy aviation base.  

No, not that Miramar, Mom said.  It was not until yesterday when I began doing some research for this post that I learned about Santa Monica's Miramar Hotel and its rich, interesting, even glamorous history.  

Fairmont Miramar Hotel & Bungalows (courtesy Booking.com)

And I admit to shivering with pride to think my Grandpa Frank spent much of his working career at such a prestigious resort hotel.  

A 2011 article from the Santa Monica Mirror recounts the property's long history.  Early highlights included: 

• The co-founder of Santa Monica, John Percival Jones, built a Victorian mansion called Miramar in 1889
• His wife Georgina would plant a small Australian Moreton Bay fig tree that would grow into the huge landmark and signature tree (below) that dominates the resort's front courtyard

Moreton Bay fig tree at the Miramar 

• Georgina Jones, in 1912, sold the house and property to safety razor inventor King Camp Gillette for $77,500
• Gillette, several years later, would sell to Gilbert Stevenson, who is described as an "eccentric hotelier" in the Santa Monica Mirror article referenced earlier
• Stevenson turned the estate into a hotel, which by the early 1920s became a celebrity hot spot with stars such as Greta Garbo, Betty Grable and Jean Harlow gracing its rooms, restaurant and stage. 
  
  

A bungalow that is part of the Miramar Hotel's unique history

Bungalows are a unique part of the Miramar resort. To me it seems a very "L.A." term- bungalows. The Miramar bungalows have been occupied by a who's who of movie stars and U.S. presidents. See this piece for a list of celebrities who "bungalowed" here. This article, written by folks at the Fairmont Miramar Hotel also looks at famous people who have stayed and dined there (including the notoriously reclusive Howard Hughes!). Click here for that article.

Hint: the list includes Marilyn Monroe and John F. Kennedy. Maybe at the same time- maybe not. What happens in the bungalows stays in the bungalows- ha! 

"He always dressed well," my mom says of her father 

Enter Frank Gomez

My grandfather would work at the Miramar Hotel for 20-25 years, according to my mother.  He started as a bartender and worked his way up to being the manager of the Miramar's two bars.

Mom says he really enjoyed his job. "He liked hobnobbing with the rich and famous," she said. "They knew his name and he liked that." And he knew their drinks, she said, having their favorite drinks ready by the time they sat down at his bars.

Frank had a social personality and picked up on things quickly. He would learn things from his guests, it would seem.  "He was good with money," my mother said. "He was successful in the stock market. We never wanted for money."

My father credits Frank for helping him in 1956 after he graduated from Gonzaga University and needed income for six months before beginning his career as a U.S. Army officer.  "Frank had a friend at Summers Gyroscope, a company in the area, and he hired me as an accountant," Dad said.

My parents were married right after high school. Mom says it was her childhood dream to have her wedding reception at the Miramar. Guess who made that happen? Her father, of course. "He helped get us a good rate," for the reception, she said.

Fast forward 50 years and my parents returned to Santa Monica from Virginia to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. They stayed at, where else, the Miramar Hotel.

SS Manchuria, launched in 1903, was a passenger and cargo liner

Coming to America

In 1920 Grandpa Frank immigrated to America from his hometown of Torre Baja, Valencia in Spain. He sailed here aboard this ship, the SS Manchuria. He was just 17 years old.

(Note: my mother told me just recently that her dad lost his two older brothers to the so-called Spanish flu, a worldwide pandemic that spread at the end of World War I in 1918, killing 50 million people around the world, including 675,000 in America).

He was accompanied by his older brother, Severino. For reasons not exactly known, Severino would return to Spain not long after coming to America.

The brother mystery deepens in that only Frank's name can be found on this Ellis Island entry site.

Frank was born Francisco Gomez Baguena. In the U.S. he eventually would shorten his name to Frank Gomez.

Frank entered America, as millions would, through Ellis Island in New York. He arrived on Sept. 5, 1920.

Listing of Manchuria passengers on Sept. 5, 1920

This handwritten Ellis Island immigration document on that date lists Francisco (Frank), but not his brother, curiously.

The information indicates that he had a sponsor waiting for him in Johnstown, Pa. He was Juan Ginaro at the Island Park Hotel.  Several other men aboard the Manchuria also had sponsors in Johnstown.

1930s Ford assembly line

It is unclear how long Frank stayed in Pennsylvania or what he did there. But at some point he moved to Detroit where he landed a job at the Ford Motor Co. He worked in the parts department, according to my father.

My mom tells a wonderful story about her father and some other men, maybe the brother Severino, being at a Detroit Lions football game being played in a blizzard.

The Spaniards were all grumbling about how they hated the cold Michigan weather. What are we doing here, they asked themselves. "So they flipped a coin," my mother said. "Either we move to Florida or California. California won the coin toss.  And the rest is history."

Life in California- Is Good! 

I like that Maurice Studio can be seen at the bottom of this photo

It is not clear what year Frank moved to California. But once there he would put on his dancing shoes and that would lead him to meet and marry the love of his life, my Grandma Anna, on April 23, 1930.  He was 27, she was 23.

This beautiful photograph of the young married couple was found on ancestry.com. This and the other photos of Frank and Anna were put on Ancestry in 2015 by John Gallegos. My mom says he is the son of one of her cousins.

Precious outfits the girls are wearing!

Anna Peralta (on the right in this photo with her older sister Aurora) was born in 1907 in Arizona when it was still a U.S. territory.

Her father was German and her mother of Spanish descent. Not too much is known within the family today about Anna's parents and upbringing.

That can be another research project that would involve contacting John Gallegos no doubt.

In the Santa Monica area there was a dance emporium that Frank would frequent.

"Dad loved to dance," my mom said. "There he met my Uncle Ray who was a dance instructor. Ray would introduce him to his sister." That was Anna.

For a while, Frank worked as a waiter at Santa Monica's Westport Beach Club.  I'm sure the sunny and warm Southern California weather was a nice change from the cold of the Midwest.

Francisco Gomez Baguena did more than "Americanize" his name. He worked hard to learn the language of his adopted land.

"He was a young immigrant, not speaking any English," Mom said. "He was self-taught. He learned the language by going to movies and watching them over and over."

The 1940 U.S. Census finds Frank and Anna living on 18th Street in Santa Monica. They have two daughters, including my mother Adele, age 6.  Aunt Marie Kathryn is 1.

One more daughter, Christina, was still to come.

(A footnote: currently, 1940 is the most recent U.S. Census data available to the public. Due to federal privacy laws, 72 years must pass before a new census is made public. In 2022, the 1950's U.S. Census will be released)

This image of the actual 1940 U.S. Census lists Frank's occupation as a waiter at a hotel.

Grandpa Frank became a U.S. citizen in 1943

On July 14, 1943 Frank Gomez became a U.S. citizen.  It lists his occupation as "bar tender."

The Petition for Naturalization lists his birth name: Francisco Gomez Baguena followed in parenthesis by Frank Gomez. His signature at the bottom is his full birth name.

In 1943, the young family now lived at 1020 Westgate Ave. in West Los Angeles.

The next document confirms that Frank is now working at the Miramar Hotel.  This is Frank's World War II Draft Card dated Feb. 16, 1942.  At age 39 he was likely considered too old to be drafted into the military.

World War II military draft form from 1942

Frank would have a long and prosperous career at the Miramar Hotel "where Wilshire Meets the Sea" as stated on this postcard from the era when Frank tended then ran its two bars. The card lists L.B. Nelson as the hotel's manager. I bet Frank knew him.

A few old "Hotel Miramar" postcards found online

Like folks today in the food and beverage and hospitality and tourism industries, Frank worked long hours. My mother says he would go into the Miramar at 4 p.m. and not get home until after 2 a.m.

She says he did have weekends off. Often on  Sundays, he took the family on a drive, up and down the Pacific Coast Highway was a Mom favorite.

Frank eventually would retire from the Miramar. He and Anna, with the children grown, eventually resettled to this house in San Marcos, which is near San Diego.

We always heard about his green thumb and how well he kept his yard and gardens.

Frank would lose his beloved Anna in 1979.  He would live another eleven years.

They are back together, for eternity, at San Marcos Cemetery.

I was only able to be with my grandparents a few times, unfortunately. Growing up mostly on the East Coast the distance was difficult for get- togethers.

I think the last time I saw Grandpa Frank was when I was in high school in Northern Virginia and he came for a visit.

I was shy around him, I'm sure. Now I wish I had cherished the brief time together to learn more about this good, hardworking and resourceful gentleman who made himself an American and a great American success story while always cherishing and honoring his Spanish roots.  And I would have liked to hear more about his celebrity encounters and dealings at the fabulous Miramar Hotel and Bungalows.

Many thanks to my brother Pete who lives in Oceanside, Calif. for taking these photos of the Gomez' last home and their gravesite.

And thanks and love also my parents Adele and Mike Harwood for sharing their memories of Francisco Gomez Baguena aka Frank Gomez aka Grandpa Frank.

Update July 2021:  My sister Ann and her husband Paul visited the gravesite of our grandparents Frank and Anna Gomez in San Marcos, Calif. This was the day after the wedding of their son David to Sophia that took place at the Milagro Winery in Ramona, Calif.  They took and placed floral arrangements from the wedding reception at the Gomez gravesite. 

I have documented that West Coast trip for Alesia and myself in this post on my BirdsEyeViews blog.