In a ranch house next to a small creek near San Luis Obispo, California, Hipolito Serrano was born August 9, 1867, according to the baptismal records, a son of Miguel Serrano and María Prudencia Quintana de Serrano. He was baptized in the Old Mission Church with Antonio Ortega and María Pía de la Luz Miranda as godparents. His grandfather, Francisco Estevan Quintana [1801-1880] was one of the prominent dons of the San Luis Obispo area, having two large ranches and considerable real estate in town. The family was at its apex of wealth and prestige in 1867.

Four years later in San Luis Obispo, María de los Dolores Méndez was born on September 26, 1871, the daughter of María de Guadalupe Córdova and her husband, Acensión Méndez, natives of Sonora Province in Mexico. She would be called “Dolores.” When she was four days old, like her future husband, her parents took her to the Old Mission Church for baptism. Her godparents were José Blanco and Leonarda Romero.

On February 28,1874, while shoeing a horse, Acensión Méndez, a blacksmith, was kicked in the head by a horse and killed, leaving his wife a widow for the third time, with four children. Guadalupe was in difficult straits and took in sewing. Life was far more difficult for the poor Córdova-Méndez famiy than for the wealthy Serranos.

In October of 1875, Dolores’ mother married a fourth husband, Miguel Arvallo, who was only twenty-six years old, nine years younger than Guadalupe. Surely this was a formula to end her bad luck with marriage, but she was again a widow just a few years late with yet another child. She again had to turn to the hardscrabble life as a seamstress to support her family.

In 1880 Don Estevan Quintana died, the first step toward the gradual disintegration of the Quintana-Serrano family wealth and power. His estate went into a seven-year probate.

In 1881 Hipolito received his first communion at the Old Mission Church, his sponsor being Juan Pacheco. Hipolito was rather old to receive his first communion at thirteen, but the church records incorrectly say he was twelve. His future wife, Dolores Méndez, four years younger than Hipolito, actually received her first communion before Hipolito, on April 26, 1881, at age nine. Her communion entry number was 1792; his 1799. Her sponsor was Josefa Soto.

In April of 1884 Hipolito’s mother dropped dead in front of the stove while cooking at the Rancho Potrero. She had been bequeathed half of the ranch by her late father’s will, which was still in probate. She herself died intestate. This meant a further division of the family wealth. By California law, Miguel should have received one third of Prudencia’s inheritance and her children two thirds. To keep the ranch from being sold, Hipolito and his siblings quitclaimed their interest in their mother’s estate to their father at the suggestion of Hipolito’s older brother Manuel, who said, “We can sell the ranch when our father dies. Let him enjoy the lifestyle he has until then.” Only the two youngest siblings, Carlos and Refugio were unable to quitclaim their interests because they were underage.

About 1885 Hipolito’s older brother Narciso Serrano married Pilar Rodrigues, a young girl who was recently orphaned by the death of her mother. Visiting Narciso, Hipolito became better acquainted with Pilar’s young half-sister, Dolores Méndez. They married on March 27, 1887, in the Old Mission Church. She was fifteen and he, nineteen. Exactly nine months later their first child was born: Manuel Daniel Serrano on December 24, 1887. Narciso and Pilar were the padrinos, godparents.

On 10 September 1888, an article appeared in the San Luis Obispo newspaper:

On February 16, 1889, a daughter, Eloisa Guadalupe Serrano, was born. This child would always use the Anglicized name Alice Irene Serrano.

The Great Register of Voters of San Luis Obispo County, California, in 1890 shows that Hipolito registered to vote on 26 September 1888, giving his age as twenty-one and his residence as San Luis Obispo proper.

In September of 1890 another article appeared in the San Luis Obispo Tribune regarding the celebration of Mexican Independence Day on September 18:

The Serranos’ third child, Ana Delfina Serrano, was born on July 25, 1891. Dolores was not yet twenty, and Hipolito just twenty-three. The event was saddened by the death the same day of Dolores’ sister Pilar Rodrígues de Serrano, just twenty-two years old. Narciso was left with a two-year old son to rear alone. Dolores and Hipolito no doubt helped out.

Pilar’s death at the time of Ana’s birth was portentous. On March 13, 1892, the baby died at the age of seven months. She was buried at the Catholic Cemetery with a wooden marker.

What Hipolito did to earn a living was probably not physical labor. He probably could not earn enough with just his band gigs. He was raised as a caballero, [gentleman] and physical labor was not what caballeros did.

On July 4, 1893, Hipolito may have been playing music somewhere, but that was the day that another daughter, Laura Gorgiana Serrano was born. The couple then took a four-year hiatus from childbearing. At this same time the Southern Pacific was laying track across the Rancho Potrero. The railroad reached San Luis Obispo in 1894.

Hipolito was still playing music for Hispanic events in the San Luis Obispo area as late as 1895. He was shown in the Tribune to have played at the Mexican Independence Day celebration Sept. 18 in the small town of Pozo along with Z. A. & E. Pico, Rothe, and Estudillo.

Both Hipolito and Dolores smoked the roll-your-own cigarettes that were the mode of smoking in the days before ready-made cigarettes. Somewhere along the line Hipolito picked up a little saying that mixed English and Spanish:

No tengo tobaco. [I don’t have any tobacco.]

No tengo papel. [I don’t have any paper]

No tengo dinero. [ I don’t have any money]

His grandson, Harry Serrano, would remember the little poem from his childhood, though his grandfather died when the boy was just four. Perhaps he heard the story related by others.

Although the family attended the Catholic church, they don’t seem to have taken the sermons too seriously. Both Dolores and Hipolito used salty language, and there didn’t seem to be a strongly imbedded moral code in the family. None of the children they raised were ever serious church-goers after their parents died.

Dolores was a pretty woman. Her brown hair had red highlights. She claimed to be French and Spanish, which research supports. Her grandmother Dolores Guingochea Méndez was probably French Basque; her other ancestors seem to have been Spanish.

On February 18, 1897, a second son, Simón Hipolito Serrano, was born, but he would die at four and half months on July 9, 1897. He joined Ana in the Catholic Cemetery. The following year yet another son was born, Arturo Serrano, on Christmas Day, December 25, 1898. That certainly was not portentous, for “Arthur” would become a drug dealer in the 1920’s and spend time in Leavenworth Prison.

Just a year later, as anticipation for the turn of the century was widespread, news came from the ranch that old Miguel Serrano, Hipolito’s father, was found dead in bed on December 23, 1899. This event would trigger a probate that would scatter the family and create bitter animosities. The Serranos’ half of the Rancho Potrero was sold, and there was virtually nothing left for those who had quitclaimed their interests back to their father. The siblings turned on their brother Manuel, who had continued to live on the ranch with his father, living a lavish lifestyle. He had been having his illiterate father sign mortgage notes against the ranch unknown to his siblings. Only the inheritances of the two youngest, Carlos and Refugio, were unmortgaged. Manuel’s wife, already having an affair with his brother Carlos, turned against him. All of the siblings except Carlos moved away from San Luis Obispo.

Hipolito crossed over the hills into California’s Central Valley and made a living for awhile cutting wood in Kern County. Hipolito began to style himself as “Henry” Serrano, perhaps to appear less ethnic in the racially intolerant times.

The family was living at Button Willow on August 22, 1901, when a daughter, Stella Juanita Serrano, was born. Stella’s birth was not recorded in the family Bible, but Stella later forged her own birth entry when it was time for her to apply for Social Security.

From Button Willow, the family moved to nearby Kern City. There three more sons were born: Ramón Serrano, on May 1, 1903; Alfred, who would be called “Buster,” on November 19, 1907; and Harry Serrano, on February 17, 1909. The death of a Jack Harold Serrano in San Luis Obispo County on 22 December 1903, was probably a son of Hipolito and Dolores whose birth was not recorded in the family Bible. [Hipolito’s son Manuel would name his three sons Harry, Harold, and Jack after his deceased brothers.] Jack’s death in San Luis Obispo indicates the Serranos had returned there briefly.

It was in 1909 or 1910 that the family moved to Stockton, California. Living in Stockton at the State Asylum was Hipolito’s youngest sister, Refugio Williams, who had become mentally ill in 1905 after marrying and having a daughter. The family of Hipolito and Dolores lived in a house at 236 West Main Street. In Stockton, Hipolito became a pioneer motion picture projectionist and theater manager. He had adjusted to life away from San Luis Obispo and made a decent living without having to do physical labor. He and his son Manuel helped to organize the first motion picture projectionists’ union in Stockton. The family later moved to 230 South San Joaquin Street, facing Lafayette Park. St. Mary’s Catholic Church also faced the north end of Lafayette Park.

In Stockton four more children were born: Ernest Charles Serrano, on August 12, 1910; Lola Serrano, on December 3, 1911; Gladys Velma Serrano, on November 24, 1913; and Robert Michael Serrano, on December 18, 1916. The family had taken a step away from their Hispanic origins by giving the younger children Anglicized names. It was probably during this period that Hipolito adopted an Anglo name, “Henry.”

It was about 1912 that Hipolito saw a herd of sheep being moved down a road near Stockton. He was surprised to see that the shepherd was his despised brother Manuel. It is not known if the two spoke. Manuel was to die in Los Angeles four years later.

Two of the Serrano children died in Stockton: Lola and Harry. The exact dates of their deaths aren’t known.

In 1912 both Manuel and Alice married, and the Serranos began having grandchildren.

Hipolito worked at different times as manager of the Maze Theater and the Chinese Theater. All was going well for the Serranos as their older children moved away to start families of their own.

In 1919 the Serranos’ son Arthur separated from his wife Lucille. He was left with his daughter Thelma, a year old. He brought Thelma home to his parents to care for her.

In 1921, however, Hipolito contracted tuberculosis, and by late 1921 Dolores, after caring for her husband, had it as well. Arthur had to find another way to rear his daughter. He put an ad in the newspaper asking for a “home needed for 3 ½ year-old girl with an eye toward adoption.” A couple came forth and Thelma would never again see her father or her grandparents.

Although Hipolito had been suffering from the disease for some time, when Dolores came down with it, she went downhill fast. She died on March 9, 1922, at the age of fifty. In the Stockton Record on Saturday, March 11, her obituary appeared:

Life was difficult for the ailing Hipolito with Dolores gone. His childen had to help take care of him. He survived Dolores by five months, dying on August 17, 1922, two days after his 55t^h birthday. The Stockton Record ran his obituary as well:

With their parents dead, the children continued to scatter. Alice Stephens tried to take care of her four youngest siblings, but her home didn’t have enough room and her husband didn’t make enough money. The three youngest children were placed in the Children’s Home of Stockton. Alfred did not have to go there because he was working. Alice returned to San Luis Obispo and lobbied her wealthy uncle, Carlos Serrano, to take the children. He agreed to take the two oldest boys, Alfred “Buster” and Ernie, but Alfred did not remain with Carlos very long. Eventually Gladys and Robert left the Children’s Home. None of the children of Hipolito and Dolores remained in Stockton after a few years passed. Eventually Manuel’s widow returned with her children in 1926, but they lost contact with all but Alice Serrano Stephens.

In 2002 the last of the children, Gladys Serrano Garver, died at eighty-eight in Modesto, California. Even then, most of the great grandchildren were gone.

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Manuel Daniel Serrano was born December 24, 1887, in San Luis Obispo. He was the eldest of the fourteen children of Hipolito and Dolores and is our ancestor, so he is dealt with separately in this work.

Alice Irene Serrano was born February 16, 1889, in San Luis Obispo, California, the daughter of Hipolito and Dolores Méndez Serrano. Her entry in the Serrano Bible lists her name as Eloysa Guadalupe Serrano. [She changed her own name later.] She moved with her family to Kern County, CA, in 1900, and to Stockton, California, in 1909 or 1910. In Stockton she married Charles Luther Stephens on June 12, 1912. He was born November 20, 1886 in Athens, Tennessee. Charlie worked on the railroad and retired from that work. He and Alice lived in Modesto, CA, during their retirement years. He died there on July 13, 1962, and she died there on September 1, 1985, age ninety-six. She is buried at the Lakewood Cemetery near Modesto.

In 1922 she and Charlie lived at 618 E. Jefferson Street in Stockton. That was the year Alice’s parents died. Alice was the oldest daughter of Hipolito and Dolores, so after their deaths she tried to care for her orphaned younger siblings but was unable to do so. The 1923 Stockton City Directory shows that the Stephenses had moved to 1205 South Grant Street, probably to have a larger home for the orphans. She and Charlie found they were unable to afford the burden, so Alice placed her two youngest siblings in the Children’s Home of Stockton.

About 1925 Alice convinced her wealthy uncle, Carlos Serrano, to take in the two oldest boys of the four orphans and she took the two youngest children and moved to San Luis Obispo. Records show that she at first lived at 1737 Garden Street and later at 983 Swazie Street. About 1931 she and Charlie moved to San Jose, CA. Gladys Serrano moved with her sister there, and later her siblings Alfred and Laura moved there. Alice was the most stable thing in most of her siblings’ lives during those years. For Gladys and Robert she was a mother figure.

Alice was kindly but not terribly bright. All of her life she was ashamed of her dark coloring and used heavy white powder to lighten her skin color. She was proud of her family heritage but was careful to always say that we came from a pure Spanish heritage. This is a social thing in Mexico to claim pure Spanish blood because it means higher social status. Light skin is the desired color; dark skin is looked down upon socially.

Charlie Stephens died in 1962 in Modesto. Alice’s only child, Gladys Stephens, was born in 1914. Gladys married Orville Strandwold [1904-1984]. They later divorced after having a son Charles Strandwold 22 July 1934. Gladys then married Raymond Swanson. From her marriage to Swanson she had a daughter Joan in 1946. In 1965 Gladys, who had emotional problems, committed suicide in Modesto, California, and was buried in Lakewood Cemetery near there. Charles Strandwold had four children before his marriage failed. He was a race-car driver by avocation. He died 16 August 1991, at age fifty-seven. Joan had at least two children.

Alice survived her daughter Gladys by twenty years. Her two grandchildren lived in Modesto, and then, in 1975, Gladys Serrano Stephens, Alice’s sister, moved to Modesto after her husband retired. Alice lived in various retirement homes and then a rest home for the last years of her life.

Ana Delfina Serrano was born July 25, 1891 in San Luis Obispo and died there on March 13, 1892. She was a daughter of Hipolito and Dolores Méndez Serrano.

Laura Gorgiana Serrano was born July 4, 1893, in San Luis Obispo, California, a daughter of Hipolito and Dolores Méndez Serrano. She married Gilbert Altamirano in Stockton, California, and had two children by him. Gilbert Altamirano Jr. died November 5, 1913, age 2 ½. Another baby died November 23, 1919. She divorced Altamirano soon after the death of her second child.

She moved to Fairbanks, Alaska, where her sister-in-law Grace Lester Serrano said she was the madam at a brothel and went by the name of “Georgie Roberts.” Probably about 1930 Laura returned from Alaska to live in Los Angeles, CA. There she met Howard Taylor at a garage, where he parked her car for her. They married twice and divorced twice.

Laura loved to travel and to dress well. About 1935 Laura took her sister Alice for a long tour of Cuba and the Eastern United States, probably between her two marriages to Taylor. She then moved to Seattle about 1939. She lived there until about 1950 when she moved to San Jose, CA, where Alice lived.

Grace said Laura adopted men’s attire and went by the name of “George” in her later years. She died in San Jose on December 2, 1955, at the age of sixty-two. She was a wealthy woman.

Simón Hipolito Serrano was born February 18, 1897, in San Luis Obispo. He died there on July 9, 1897, and was buried at the SLO Catholic Cemetery. He was a son of Hipolito and Dolores Méndez Serrano.

Arturo Serrano was born December 25, 1898, in San Luis Obispo, CA, the son of Hipolito and Dolores Méndez Serrano. He was about eleven when the family moved to Stockton, California, after several years in Kern County. Somewhere along the line he Anglicized his name to Arthur Jesse Serrano. Arthur grew up in Stockton and was a rather tough person.

Arthur boxed competitively under the name of “The Spanish Tiger”. We have a boxing photo signed by him in Tacoma, Washington. He was quite young, perhaps eighteen years old. It was probably taken before he married Lucille Rogers on April 13, 1917, in Stockton, when he was eighteen.

Lucille was also a tough person. She was sixteen years old at the time of her marriage to Arthur. She had been born on December 15, 1900, in Fresno, California, and had a son Alvin that had been born when she was fourteen, on September 4, 1915. Alvin was to adopt his stepfather’s surname and maintained it for life although Arthur never had adopted him. Alvin died March 10, 2000, age 84, in Sacramento, CA, after some years of suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

In 1918 Arthur was listed in the 1918 Stockton City Directory as a “chauffeur.” No doubt the research for the directory had been done in late1917. A common occupation of the time was to park one’s truck at a berth on Hunter Square in Stockton and rent one’s vehicle and services. Such persons were called chauffeurs. Soon afterward he was working at a foundry in Oakland, CA, when, on March 23, 1918, Thelma Lucille Serrano was born. Thelma was to be Arthur’s only child. She was born when Arthur was nineteen. Lucille’s parents also lived in Oakland.

Arthur and Lucille were young, and the marriage was stormy. They separated on October 6, 1919, when Arthur was twenty. Arthur wanted to take Alvin and have Lucille take their daughter Thelma to rear, but she balked, taking her son and leaving Arthur with Thelma. Both parents then took their children to their parents to rear and left to live their own lives. Thelma arrived in Stockton to live with her Serrano grandparents that day.

In 1921 Arthur’s parents came down with tuberculosis. As his mother deteriorated, she told Arthur that he had to find someone else to care for Thelma. Arthur’s solution was an ad in the Stockton Record, which appeared on December 21, 1921, page 16, column 6:

Russell and Feena Wilt answered the ad and took Thelma to live with them. Apparently some of the family, perhaps Arthur’s mother, upbraided Arthur for having given his daughter up, and there was talk of reneging on the arrangement. The Wilts quickly moved away from Stockton. After that they lived all over the West Coast with frequent moves.

In Stockton, Arthur took to a life of crime. Mildred Serrano Rivara recalls a time about 1926 when she was about five when her Uncle Arthur took her in a car at night with two other men. She was sitting between Arthur, who was driving, and another man who had a shoulder gun holster, and there was another man in the back seat. The men took her to a location in the Delta islands west of Stockton and used her to get through some kind of security ferry telling the ferry tender, “We’ve got a sick little girl here.” Mildred knew she wasn’t sick and that they were lying, but it took many years for her to realize that they had been up to something criminal. Arthur also hid a gun at the home of his former sister-in-law, Lois Serrano, widow of Manuel and mother of Mildred. Lois found the gun in a dresser drawer and scolded Arthur for putting her family at risk.

At this time Arthur was married to a woman named Aurice Kinney, who used heroin and later lost an eye due to her drug use. Aurice had a daughter from a previous marriage, but they had no children together. About 1927 Arthur was arrested for selling drugs and was sent to Leavenworth Prison for about a fifteen-year incarceration.

Released from prison about 1940, Arthur moved to Seattle, where he died in 1957 from a blood clot on the brain at the age of fifty-eight.

Thelma Katherine Serrano was born March 23, 1918, in Oakland, CA., the daughter of Arthur Serrano and Lucille Rogers. At the age of 3 1/2 she was given to another couple, Russell and Feena Wilt, to rear. After leaving Stockton in 1922 she lived in Oakland, Los Angeles, Sacramento, Eureka, San Diego, and Blythe, CA. When she was in the eighth grade the family moved to Portland, Oregon and then made several moves around the Pacific Northwest: Salem, OR; Yakima, WA; Cle Elum, WA; and Ellensburg, where she was married to James McGovern Norris from 1937-1951. With Norris she lived in Wapato, WA; Yakima, WA; Kent, WA; Blythe, CA; and Auburn, WA. They divorced in Auburn.

Later Thelma married William Christensen [1951-1968]. This marriage also ended in divorce. Thelma worked for the Department of Social and Health Services for eight years in Auburn before retiring.

She had six children from the two marriages:

[1] John Norris, who had three children from his marriage to Jo Enders. They were living in Bremerton , WA, in 1982. He retired from the Navy in 1981. [2] Janie Lee Norris had five children from her first marriage to Glenn Patterson. She later married a Mr. Braun. She lived in Kent, WA, in 1982. [3] Sherry Ann Norris was married to farmer Bill White and lived in Canton, Illinois, in 1982. They had three children. [4] William Christensen was unmarried and living in Auburn, WA,in 2000. [5] Rene Christensen had a child by an earlier relationship then married Bob Loeck, who adopted the boy. [6] Nancy Christensen had a child by a man named Bill Branch. She later married a man named Everett Hargrove. She had three children.

Thelma was a kind-hearted person. She died of cancer February 21, 2000, in Federal Way, WA, at the age of eighty-one.

All the while I was growing up in Stockton I heard the story about my mother’s lost cousin Thelma who had been adopted out. Whenever someone would tell my mother [Mildred Rivara] that she looked like someone else, she would wonder if that person was her cousin Thelma. Eventually we quit believing that we would ever meet Thelma.

One day in August of 1976, I received a phone call while I was painting the interior of my home in Modesto, California. It was my mother telling me that her cousin Thelma, who lived in Auburn, Washington, had come to Stockton to look for her natural family. Knowing that her father’s name had been Arthur Serrano, she began calling all of the Serranos in the Stockton phone book and asking them if they knew Arthur Serrano. When she called Harry Serrano, he told her, “Arthur Serrano was my uncle.” Harry told Thelma that his mother Lois Hodgson Serrano Menefee, widow of Arthur’s brother Manuel, was still alive and living in Stockton. Thelma told the relatives in Stockton that she was trying to find her parents. Everyone told Thelma, “You need to see Don,” because I was the family historian.

I received a phone call from Thelma, and she came down to my home in Modesto to begin with me the strangest experience of my life. That evening we visited Gladys Serrano Garver, Arthur’s youngest sister, who lived in Modesto. Gladys produced a small booklet that had, written in Dolores’ handwriting “I took charge of Thelma October 6, 1919.” We hadn’t known that Arthur’s mother Dolores had cared for Thelma, so this was new information. Thelma had a copy of newspaper advertisement for her adoption from which her parents made contact with Arthur. It was dated December 21, 1921. From this I deduced the reason for Thelma’s being adopted out: Dolores was dying from tuberculosis. Arthur would have no one to care for Thelma. It took a bit of the seemingly cold-bloodedness out of the newspaper ad, but not all of it. It was our first piece of the puzzle of Thelma’s past that we solved.

I had already told Thelma that Arthur was dead, and, by coincidence, he had died in Seattle, where Thelma had been living at the time. I told her that she had a brother named Alvin, whom I thought was Arthur’s son from his second wife Aurice. I knew about Alvin and that he lived in Sacramento from another strange coincidence: Arthur’s younger brother Ernest lived in Sacramento briefly in the 1960’s. While he was living there, there had been a mix-up of some clothing from a dry cleaner. The cleaner mixed up the clothing and gave Ernest the clothing of Alvin Serrano. The two had to meet to exchange clothing, and I believed that Alvin had stated he was Arthur Serrano’s son. Later on I found out that Alvin had quite a sentimental attachment to Arthur and probably stated that Arthur had been his father because he wished it to have been so. But I told Thelma that Alvin kept an unlisted phone number. I knew this because I had tried to contact him in my research.

Our game plan for the next day was to drive the thirty miles north to Stockton to look at old city directories of Stockton and to check out old court records if necessary. On the way we planned to visit Alice Serrano Stephens, Arthur’s eighty-seven year old sister who was living in a retirement home in Salida.

In Salida we visited Alice. Alice gave Thelma a photograph of herself as a child that she apparently had somewhere in the rest home. [Alice would never show her photographs to anyone, for fear they would want them I guess.] When I talked to Alice about Arthur’s son Alvin, she stated, “Arthur never had a son!” I thought that this was just the memory lapse of an old woman, but I was to learn she was right.

In Stockton Thelma, my daughter Rainie, and I went to the Stockton Public Library. We looked through old Stockton city directories and had some not too promising leads. It was lunch time and we were hungry, so we went to a store and bought some things to eat and went to sit in my pickup by a park. Our plans were to go to the courthouse to look for records. I finished eating quickly and told them we would drive now to the courthouse. I was in front of the library again when an idea flashed through my mind: I should stop and look through the current Sacramento city directory to see if I could find Alvin listed. I knew that people whose telephone numbers were not listed in a telephone book sometimes could be found in city directories. I made a sudden left turn so I could revisit the library and parked facing north [toward Sacramento] and went inside while the others finished their lunch.

Inside the library I found the current Sacramento city directory and found the name Serrano. Sure enough I found Alvin Serrano listed at the top with his home address given. Then I scanned down the list of Serranos and found something that just didn’t calculate. Listed at the same address as Alvin’s was a Lucille Serrano, retired. This was Thelma’s mother! She was alive and living with Alvin! It didn’t make sense to me, but it was clear to me that we had to go to Sacramento.

I excitedly told Thelma the news in the pickup, and she was in a state of disbelief. I asked her if she wanted to go to Sacramento, and she assented. She was going through emotional turbulence that would not subside for days afterward. We talked about how her mother would receive her, about not being able to telephone Lucille and Alvin to let them know we were coming, and about many other things, including the puzzling fact that Alvin was living with Thelma’s mother when I had thought he was Arthur’s son from Aurice.

As we approached the address, Thelma told me, “You do the talking. I have butterflies in my stomach.” We parked and got out. I was carrying my thick Serrano family history ledger under my arm. The front door was already open. I knocked on the screen door. A woman perhaps in her forties, Alvin’s wife Elaine, answered the door. I explained who we were. Then she called her husband, “Honey, your sister Thelma is here.”

A big man with very slicked down hair came to the door and said, “Thelma, oh my God! Mama just died! We’re cleaning out her room this very minute.” We were invited in and the reunion began. Sitting just inside the door on a large round coffee table were all of Lucille’s effects and potted plants received at her funeral. I found out that Arthur was not Alvin’s father but his stepfather and that Alvin was Lucille’s son she had before she married Arthur, but both Lucille and Alvin had kept the Serrano surname those many years. What was also a very great coincidence was Thelma discovered that she had been in Sacramento the day her mother died, August 19, 1976. She had stopped to visit friends in Sacramento and spent the night before traveling to Stockton to look up her family. Both of her parents had died when she was in the same city, unbeknown to her at the time.

Why had Thelma chosen this time to look up her family? Had Lucille been thinking of her lost daughter as she lay dying of Hodgkin’s disease and somehow communicated to Thelma. These things were discussed with Alvin and his wife.

On our way back to Modesto, stunned, Thelma sat quietly with her mother’s vanity set on her lap and a potted plant from her mother’s funeral at her feet. Thereafter Thelma would maintain contact with her brother Alvin and his family. That I was able to help Thelma in this way was perhaps the best thing I ever did in my life.

Stella Juanita Serrano was born August 22, 1901, in Button Willow, Kern County, California, the daughter of Hipolito and Dolores Méndez Serrano. She was always a rather wild child and did not do well in school. She moved with her family to Stockton about 1910. It was there about 1919 that she met a vaudevillian, Leo Haley, who was performing in town. When he left, Stella went with him. They married and did the West Coast vaudeville circuit. Stella learned to sing and play the ukelele. Leo sang and did some other things. Mildred Serrano Rivara remembers sitting near the stage in the elegant Fox Theater in Stockton and feeling proud to see her Aunt Stella on the stage. Mildred sat with Stella’s daughter Dodie.

A daughter Dolores Haley was born January 18, 1921 in Stockton. She was to be called “Dodie.” Eventually Stella and Leo divorced and Stella married a man named Edwards. Together they had a son named John Harlan Edwards on May 9, 1935. Stella had given up vaudeville when she left Haley. She and Edwards had settled in Long Beach, CA. John was born there. Yet later Stella divorced Edwards and married a man named Penrose. She and Penrose also divorced.

In 1933 a devastating earthquake struck Long Beach, where Stella lived. Her sister Gladys was visiting at the time. It struck during the day and the people were told to leave their homes and sleep in the fields because of aftershocks. Stella took Gladys and her daughter Dodie to stay with their brother Ray, who lived in Los Angeles at the time.

Stella was an alcoholic and for the last fifteen years of her life her daughter Dodie tried to keep her in a retirement center, but Stella would leave and show up drunk at Dodie’s house. Stella died March 2, 1978 at the age of seventy-six.

Dodie was married twice but was childless. Her second marriage to Raymond McConahay [Sept. 8, 1916-Feb. 20, 1997] was her marriage that endured. Raymond was a policeman. Dodie died February 6, 1999, age seventy-eight, in Long Beach.

John Edwards was last known to be living in Long Beach. He was a shy, steady man, who had about four children.

Ramón Serrano was born May 1, 1903, in Kern City, California, the son of Hipolito and Dolores Méndez Serrano. He moved to Stockton, CA, about 1910. Later Ray would adopt the Anglicized name Raymond Serrano.

In Stockton Ray came to manhood and joined the United States Army about 1921. He was in the Phillipines when both of his parents died in 1922. He returned to Stockton in 1923. His family had collapsed in his absence. His parents were dead, and many of his siblings had left town. His youngest siblings were in the Childen’s Home of Stockton. And the exodus from Stockton would continue.

In Stockton Ray married Henrietta V. Hagenhofer [1906-1987], a half-Filipino, half-German girl. They were married December 14, 1923, in Stockton. [In 1932, by chance, Henrietta’s brother, George Hagenhofer [1908-1956] married Rose Rivara [1912-1957], a first cousin of Enrico Rivara [1912-1983], who would marry Mildred Serrano [1920-] in 1937.] Ray and Henrietta would have a son born in 1925.

The 1924 Stockton City Directory indicates that Ray and Henrietta lived at 715 E. Church Street and that Ray was working as a laborer.

Early in 1925 Ray was arrested for stealing the airplane of Mike Mannasero of Lodi. He jumped bail and left his wife and child to fend for themselves. Later Henrietta would say that Ray was using drugs when he was married to her. Ray fled to Los Angeles, where he assumed the name Raymond Hall.

Given little choice, Henrietta filed for a divorce in San Joaquin County on March 27, 1926, charging desertion and failure to provide. She was given custody of their son and awarded $30 per month alimony-child care. Henrietta later married William Vierra, and her son with Ray adopted the name William Vierra, Jr, although there never was a formal adoption.

In Los Angeles Raymond Hall married again to a woman named Ruth, an immaculate, well-groomed woman, who modeled hosiery and lingerie. He was married to Ruth when the 1933 Long Beach earthquake devastated Long Beach, sending Ray’s sisters Stella and Gladys to his home for shelter during the aftershock period.

Later Ray wrote that he and Ruth had separated. A few years after separating from Ruth, Ray wrote that he had remarried and then that he had twin daughters. About 1945 the contacts stopped. His siblings never heard from Ray again. Alice said that it was unlike Ray not to contact his family. She believed him dead.

William Vierra, Jr., known as “Billy” and later as “Bill,” grew up believing that Vierra was his father until he went into the military. Then he found out the truth. But he had no feelings of kinship toward his Serrano cousins until his later years. William Vierra, Senior, later died and Henrietta married Wayne Hill. Henrietta was a friend of Elva Hodgson Roberts [1912-1974], our aunt, who had been a sister-in-law to Ray’s older brother Manuel. It was at Elva’s funeral gathering that Henrietta met for the first time Lois Hodgson Serrano Menefee, who had once been her sister-in-law. Henrietta died in Stockton, January 4, 1987, at the age of eighty.

In the 1990’s Bill Vierra’s daughter, Christine Branstad, contacted Don Rivara and discovered the Serrano family history. Bill and his wife came also to learn about his Serrano family. Christine’s research produced the following article from the Los Angeles Herald-Express, dated May 7, 1947, on page A-6:

Alfred “Buster” Serrano was born November 19, 1907, in Kern City, Kern County, California, the son of Hipolito Serrano and Dolores Mendez. When he was about two years old, the family moved to Stockton, California.

Alfred was fourteen years old when his mother and father died in 1922. He was not placed in the Children’s Home of Stockton because he was working, but he did live briefly with his Uncle Carlos Serrano in San Luis Obispo afterward. Alfred’s effeminate ways did not set well with his uncle, and he soon left to work on a ranch north of San Luis Obispo. Eventually Alfred moved to San Jose, where his sister Alice had moved. There he found hotel work and love in a man named Earl.

Alfred could play the piano well. Apparently he was a kind, sweet man, but homophobia alienated him from the men of the family and many of the women.

He retired from hotel work about the time that his lover Earl died. He later expressed being hurt that none of his family had attended Earl’s funeral. Those were different times when being gay was the same as having the bubonic plague.

In his last years Alfred moved to Modesto, California, to be near his only surviving sibling, his sister Gladys. He died in a rest home there on November 23, 1994, at the age of eighty-seven.

Harry Serrano was born February 17, 1909, in Kern City, California, the son of Hipolito and Dolores Mendez Serrano. Sometime shortly after Harry’s birth the family moved to Stockton, California. Harry died there in childhood. Nothing else is known of him. A nephew, born in 1918, would be named for him.

Ernest Charles Serrano was born August 12, 1910, in Stockton, California, the son of Hipolito and Dolores Mendez Serrano. Ernie was twelve when he was orphaned when his father died. He lived awhile in the Children’s Home of Stockton, where his sister Gladys said he was everyone’s pet. About 1924 he was taken in by his father’s brother, Carlos Serrano.

When he was eighteen, for a brief period, Ernie lived with his brother Ray in Los Angeles. Because Ray was using the alias surname of Hall to avoid the law, Ernie had to use that surname also to keep Ray’s identity secret.

Ernie went into the Army about 1930. Finished with the army, he settled in San Jose, where his sister Alice lived. She was a mother figure to her younger siblings. In San Jose, Ernie met and married Grace Katherine Lester [January 7, 1917-September 28, 1996]. They had three sons: [1] Robert Eugene Serrano, born July 13, 1937, who is an artist who was married once briefly without childen [2] Donald Marvin Serrano, born June 27, 1938, in Santa Clara County, CA and married Carmela Basile [1941-] in 1959. They had two sons Donald Joseph Serrano on July 19, 1961, and Timothy Earl Serrano, on May 10, 1963, and divorced about 1971. Don was killed in an automobile wreck September 6, 1973. [3] Ernest Charles Serrano, Jr., born dead, January 29, 1943.

In the 1950’s the Serranos lived in Oakland, CA, but later moved to South San Francisco, CA, where Ernie had a job in a factory. He retired from that job about 1975 and moved to San Luis Obispo. He died there of a heart attack on January 29, 1977. His widow Grace died there nineteen years later on 16 October 1996. They are buried in the newer mausoleum at the San Luis Obispo Catholic Cemetery in San Luis Obispo, California.

Lola Serrano was born in Stockton, CA, on December 3, 1911, and died there not long afterward. She was a daughter of Hipolito and Dolores Mendez Serrano. Nothing else is known of Lola.

Gladys Velma Serrano was born in Stockton, California, November 24, 1913, the daughter of Hipolito Serrano and Dolores Mendez Serrano. Gladys was eight when her mother died in early 1922 and when her father died that August.

Because none of her older siblings could afford to take in all of their orphaned younger siblings, she lived about three years in the Children’s Home of Stockton. Her older brother Ernie had once run away from the home and nothing had happened to him, so Gladys and a friend ran away and visited Ray Serrano’s mother-in-law Mrs. Hugo Hagenhofer. The girls were severely reprimanded and had to stand up most of the night.

From 1925 on Gladys and her brother Robert lived with their older sister Alice Serrano Stephens. About 1930 Gladys went to live with a Jewish family in Los Angeles. She would go to school for half a day and work in the family’s store the other half for her keep. This lasted for one year. Then Alice moved to San Jose about 1931 and Gladys went with her.

In San Jose Gladys met and married Earl Salladay Garver [November 25, 1909-after 2003]. They were married April 27, 1933. They had two daughters, Barbara Jean Garver, born March 17, 1934, in San Jose; and Linda Anita Garver, born June 17, 1940, in Gustine, CA. In Gustine Gladys worked as a beautician at a rest home for a few years.

Earl worked in Gustine, California, as a ditch tender for the irrigation system in that area. He retired from that work in 1974, and they moved to Modesto, California. Gladys enjoyed painting, playing the piano, gardening, and decorating her home. They lived in Modesto for twenty-seven years until Gladys died there from heart failure at the age of eighty-eight on February 26, 2002. Earl then sold their home and lived half of each year with his two daughters. Gladys is buried in Porterville, California, with Earl’s family.

Barbara Garver was married to James Nilan from 1955-1980 and had five children. She was a psychiatric nurse. She is now retired and lives in Arroyo Grande, in San Luis Obispo County, California. Her children are [1] Michael James Nilan, born April 7, 1956; [2] George Cornelius Nilan, born September 17, 1957, in Texas; [3] Timothy Earl Nilan, born 1959 in Texas; Craig Garrett Nilan, born December 8, 1961; and Jennifer Nilan, born 1968.

Linda Garver married Thomas Blackburn Stephens, on June 17, 1973, in San Francisco, CA. They had two daughters: Julie Fields Stephens, born September 25, 1976, in Oklahoma City, OK; and Janet Garver Stephens, born April 7, 1978, in Oklahoma City, OK. Linda now lives in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Robert Michael Serrano was the youngest child of Hipolito and Dolores Méndez Serrano. He was born December 18, 1916, in Stockton, California, when his mother was forty-five and his father, forty-nine. He was orphaned at age five and sent to live in the Children’s Home of Stockton in 1922. He lived there three years with his sister Gladys. His older brother Ernie went to live with their uncle, Carlos Serrano, in San Luis Obispo, in 1924. In 1925 his sister Alice took him and Gladys out of the Childen’s Home and moved to San Luis Obispo. After a few years there he went to live with his Uncle Carlos and worked on his ranch. Then he went to work for another ranch in San Luis Obispo.

Robert went into the U.S. Navy about 1934. He did not marry until about 1970, when he was in his fifties, and there were no children. He died in early 1987 of phlebitis at the age of seventy.

There is an interesting story about Robert. His oldest brother, Manuel Serrano [1887-1924] could hardly be remembered by Robert because Manuel had moved away from Stockton when Robert was about five years old and then Manuel died when Robert was eight. Manuel’s family was separated from all of the Serranos after they left Stockton in t the 1920’s. Only Robert’s sister, Alice Serrano Stephens, kept in touch with Manuel’s widow Lois from time to time.

In 1961 Manuel’s son Harry Serrano [1918-1999] was working away from Stockton temporarily on a job in San Francisco, so he went to a restaurant to eat. While he was in the restaurant, the man sitting on the stool next to him at the counter turned to him and asked, “Is that clock right? Harry looked at the man and was stunned. He looked so much like Harry’s father, who had died when Harry was six, that he asked the man, “Are you by any chance related to the Serranos?” The man’s mouth fell open. He said, “I am Robert Serrano.” The two men were not even two years apart in age. The chance meeting triggered a reunion of the remaining Serranos with Manuel’s children and their families, and that led to our knowing much of the information that is related here.

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I have in my possession a page from the Serrrano Bible giving the births of their children. The ink is fading and the paper is crumbling as of this trancription, 31 August 2000. Dolores no doubt entered the names, misspelling the Serrano surname and other Spanish words. She also did not write in the Spanish accent marks, but she was literate in two languages at a time when many were not literate in one. Alice Serrano Stephens had the page and gave it to me.

[Translation with corrections: Manuel Serrano was born the 24^th of December 1887 and was baptized in the Mission San Luis Obispo the 11^th day of the same year [sic]. Acting as godparents, Mr. Narciso Serrano and his wife, Pilar Rodriguez Serrano. Legitimate son of Hipolito Serrano and Dolores Mendes Serrano. ][Narciso Serrano was the brother of Hipolito Serrano, married to the half sister of Dolores Mendez, Pilar Rodriguez]

[Translation and corrections: Elouisa Guadalupe Serrano was born the 16^th of February 1889 [illegible] and was baptized in the Mission San Luis Obispo the 26^th of April the same year. Acting as her godparents, Mr. [illegible] Alviso and Mrs. Pilar Rodriguez Serrano. Legitimate daughter of Hipolito Serrano and Dolores Mendes Serrano.][Pilar was the half sister of Dolores Méndez Serrano.][Eloysa used the names Alice Irene Serrano, not her baptismal names.]

On the back of the page is another entry for Ana Delfina:

[Translation and correction: Ana Delfina Serrano born in San Luis Obispo and died in San Luis Obisp the 13^th of March of 1892 at the age of seven months eight days]

[Laura Gorgiana was born in San Luis Obispo the 4^th of July 1893 and was baptized the [illegible] of August of the same year. Acting as godparents: godfather Miguel Serrano; godmother Mrs. Flumencia Serrano.][Miguel Serrano was Laura’s grandfather. Flumencia was the wife of Laura’s uncle Manuel Serrano.]

[Hipolito Serrano was born the 18^th of February 1897 and was baptized in San Luis Obispo April 24 of the same year. Acting as his godparents were Jose Peralta and as godmother Dona Laura Manqui [?] Peralta. [Church records show him as Simon Hipolito Serrano.]

[Translation and correction: Arturo Serrano was born 25 December 1898 and was baptized the 5^th of February of [illegible] Acting as his godparents Mr. [???ule] Castro and as godmother Mrs. Mary Shifferley.][Arturo went by the Anglicized Arthur Serrano.][Note the English spelling of December. The family was shifting more to the use of English.]

[This entry was an admitted forgery by Stella, who for some reason was not entered in the Bible by her mother. Stella wrote her own name in when she wanted to get Social Security in 1963. Stella was somewhat of a rebel and didn’t last long in school. It shows in her inability to spell her own middle name Juanita and the month of August.][She died Stella Penrose in Long Beach, CA, 2 March 1978.]

[Also omitted here was the Serranos’ son Raymond, born 1 May 1903 in Kern City, CA]

[Hipolito Serrano and Dolores Méndez > Manuel D. Serrano > Mildred D. Serrano > Donald L. Rivara > Rainie A. Rivara > Salman and Rehan Saeed]

Contributed by Donald Rivara