Doña Eulalia Pérez

Doña Eulalia Pérez: (1766?/1736? – June 11, 1878) was a Californio who was “llavera” (Keeper of the Keys) of Mission San Gabriel Arcángel and the first grantee of Rancho del Rincón de San Pascual in the San Rafael Hills, in present-day Los Angeles County, California. Eulalia, born in Baja Mexico (New Spain) came to the San Gabriel Mission in 1818 as a cook and was soon promoted to run the Mission’s business and factory interests until her retirement in 1833.

In an era of fraught tensions between the Tongva people and colonizers, she considered her race to be blanca pura (pure white), but some accounts have her as mixed race with her father as Spaniard Diego Pérez (from Salamanca) and her mother either Antonia Rosalía Cota or Lucía Valenzuela. By some accounts, she had been born in 1736. Her death certificate states that she lived to the ripe old age of 145. She claimed to have been born in 1766 — if so, she was still remarkably 112 years old when she died. Exact accounts of her longevity have not been verified. Eulalia was educated, a midwife, main cook, and supervisor of laborers at the San Gabriel Mission.

Although the Rancho San Pascual changed hands many times as the sovereignty of the greater area switched from indigenous tribes to Spanish to Mexican to American, it’s clear that for a few years, she was its official owner. She gave it up to Señors José Perez and Enrique Sepúlveda, who also lost control, unable to keep cattle from wandering off or being stolen, a condition of ownership. This allowed Rancho San Pascual’s acquisition by Manuel Garfias in a third grant from yet another Mexican Governor, after Garfias had purchased the homes of both José Pérez and Sepúlveda.

As the onetime owner of 14,000 acres and the Keeper of the Keys at the Mission San Gabriel, Doña Eulalia has a strong association with the City of South Pasadena and the entire region from the Mission era to the Rancho era.