Tentatively titled The Robles Girls, this novel will tell the ancestral tale of my 4X great grandparents,“Californios” Don Secundino and Doña Maria Robles and their 29 children, born in Alta California after their families arrived from New Spain in the late 1700’s. After discovering a mercury mine and selling a portion to investors, Don and Doña Robles bought a 6,000 acre rancho they named Rancho Santa Rita on land that would one day become the city of Palo Alto, California.

Trained by their father, the six Robles daughters became expert riders before they could sew. Since none of the Robles sons lived to riding age (accidents, dehydration and illness were common causes of childhood death in the 1800's), the girls were an essential work crew, especially during the rodeo, an annual roundup that included branding and slaughtering cattle and preparing the meat, hides and tallow for trade with Yankee ships.

The sisters were responsible for the day to day labor, including caring for their younger siblings, growing, harvesting and preparing the food and wine, making soap and candles, scrubbing and mending clothes and linens, washing dishes, sweeping the grounds and feeding, watering and milking the animals.

Rancho Santa Rita was the only property for miles between San Jose and San Francisco. Don and Doña Robles wouldn’t dream of letting a hungry traveler pass through without a meal, a cup of wine or aguardiente and a rest beneath the shade of their black maple trees.

Although the family was well versed at preparing for the birth of a child each year, the joy of new life was never taken for granted. Only eight of Secundino and Maria’s children would live to adulthood, six daughters and later two sons. Ten babies lived just long enough to be named. Eleven died between the ages of eight days and eight years. The family was engulfed by the sorrow of losing a child 21 times.

 

Burying their grief became a means of survival.

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