Cemetery gravestones – the last physical remembrance of someone’s life – just haven’t been treated very well over the years at the historic Agua Mansa Pioneer Cemetery in Colton.
Decades of weather and vandals have damaged and even destroyed a number of the gravestones and other decorations at Agua Mansa, the oldest cemetery in the Inland Empire.
A ceremony May 22 offered hope that the cemetery will be given a greater amount of respect and care. The San Bernardino County Museum held a ceremony there that day to celebrate $1.1 million in repairs as well as refurbishing of a number of the damaged gravestones.
It prompted me to look at the lives of two people buried there and how their gravestones have survived for more than a century.
It was easy to notice the military grave marker of Civil War veteran Jose Gustamente. Right near the entrance road, it shines in the noonday sun just as well as it did when installed after his death in 1913.
Not far away, though, sits the vandalized partial gravestone of Maria del Carmen Robidoux de Estudillo. The stone at one time disappeared for more than half a century. It is among those on the list of stones needing refurbishing during a future phase of improvements by the museum.
Gustamente, a native of Hermosillo, Mexico, is a particularly interesting subject because he served in the Union Army in the last year of the Civil War as part of the First Battalion of the little-remembered California Native Volunteer Cavalry.
While the North and South were tangling on battlefields far to the east, Army officials recruited four companies of troops to keep in check some large pockets of Southern supporters in Southern California and especially in San Bernardino County.
Gustamente made his mark, apparently unable to write his name, on enlistment papers at Union headquarters at Camp Drum near Wilmington, on Dec. 12, 1864. He was sworn in several weeks later.
He joined Company D of the battalion, composed largely of Los Angeles-area volunteers with most also being Spanish speakers. They saw no combat, and after the war’s end all four companies were marched to near Tucson apparently to deal with Native American issues. By mid-1866, they returned to Los Angeles, and the soldiers were discharged.
Gustamente was apparently a laborer for most of his life until 1909 when he entered the Veterans Administration facility at Sawtelle, near UCLA. Records show he died in Colton on Nov. 10, 1912.
Carmen Robidoux de Estudillo was born in 1846 in Sonora, Mexico, the daughter of Louis Robidoux, the wide-ranging mountain man, rancher, developer and later one of the first supervisors of San Bernardino County. In her very short adult life, she would marry into two of the most prominent Southern California families – the Palomares and the Estudillos.
She died Oct. 20, 1873 at age 27, and was buried at Agua Mansa where other members of her family are interred. Her gravestone, attached to a stone base, was later knocked over and the top half carried away perhaps as long ago as the 1950s, according to The Sun newspaper, June 22, 2010.
The broken stone years later was found in Glendora in the foot of a tree at that city’s Rubel Pharm and Castle, an eccentric building project and ranch. Owner Mike Rubel was said to have found the gravestone in an orange grove.
Once recovered, the half gravestone was determined to be from San Bernardino so it was sent to the county museum which has kept it while its original site was being investigated. The once-lost upper half of Carmen Robidoux de Estadillo’s gravestone has returned to Agua Mansa, though sitting in the chapel, about 150 feet from its original base and lower half.
Museum Director David Myers said her gravestone will be part of the next group of stones to be refurbished, once funding becomes available.
Historic tours
The Historical Society of Pomona Valley will hold tours of three of its historic sites this month.
Tours of the Palomares Adobe, 491 E. Arrow Highway, Pomona, are planned from 1 to 5 p.m. on Sunday, June 16. Cost is $5.
From 2 to 5:30 p.m. on June 23 tours of the Phillips Mansion and Currier House, 2640 Pomona Blvd., Pomona, will be held. The cost is $15.
Tours of the Spadra Cemetery, 2850 Pomona Blvd., Pomona, will be held from 2 to 5:30 p.m. June 30. The cost is $10.
Tickets for tours must be purchased in advance atwww.PomonaHistorical.org.Information:909-623-2198
Joe Blackstock writes on Inland Empire history. He can be reached atjoe.blackstock@gmail.comor Twitter @JoeBlackstock. Check out some of our columns of the past at Inland Empire Stories on Facebook atwww.facebook.com/IEHistory.
