Veronica Knows ...

Senona Luna Luera Maltos, Gomecindo's Widow
photo circa 1900

 " I can tell you what happened to widows - the mine would assign an unmarried miner to live with her so she could earn room and board money.  He often became the next husband. They also took in laundry for unmarried miners.  Sometimes they would be lucky and have a widowed father to live with or a son old enough to work and support her and the younger kids.  You can see the story on the census records, showing boys as young as 14 working in the mine.  All of these scenarios happened in my families."

Veronica

  

Veronica Jordan is our go to girl in all things New Almaden. We were first introduced to her by Mary Hanel, the librarian at County Library History Room, on our first excursion Santa Clara. Veronica had to cancel our meet-up at the last minute, but we were assured that she knew a LOT about Almaden.

So true.  Veronica knows where all the bodies are buried.  She uncovered the Gomecindo Luera murder in the newspaper and tied him to our tree.  She is a crack researcher who has exceptional ability to source the really juicy stories, particularly when it comes to newspapers.

In addition, Veronica has deep knowledge of the families of New Almaden. As a child she visited her grandparents in New Almaden. Some of her kin still live in the area. We have discovered that her tree runs parallel to ours with some common families Avila, Sambrano, Paredes, Selaya.  Veronica holds the characters of the village of Almaden in decades past her head, and can make connections like no one else. 

Veronica is a great detective with the ability to put the pieces together. Best of all she is enthusiastic and lots of fun.  

Thanks Veronica, for being such a great Search Sister.

Gomecindo Luera's Widow

Alas, lost Gomecindo.  Vanished one winter evening in 1866 from Spanish Town in New Almaden  . The San Jose paper reports in 1885, " his wife never saw him again and refused to believe he had deserted her."   

Twenty years later Gomecindo found, deep in the New Almaden mecury mine with a bullet hole in his skull. 

Source: Cinnabar Hills, The Quicksilver Days of New Almaden, Lanyon and Bulmore

 What did Senona do while waiting for Gomecindo to come home those months after he disappeared in 1866?  She and her baby daughter Mary Reymunda Luera lived in a company town in a miner's cottage. It is not likely that the New Almaden Quicksilver Mining Company  was willing to support a woman whose husband had abandoned his wife and job.    Senona Luna de Luera, no doubt had to scramble to make a way for her tiny daughter and herself in a town of miners. What could she do?

Maria Senona Diaz Luna Luera got herself a new husband, Jose Maria Maltos. How this happened we will never know. In the year Gomecindo's body discovered the 1870 census records show she was living with Jose Maria in a miner's housing in New Almaden's Spanish Town.  By that time Jose Maria Maltos and Senona had produced seven children, our grandpa Juan Maltos among them.

If Gomecindo hadn't taken a bullet in the head, would we exist? 

Perhaps Gomecindo's tragedy was our lucky shot.