By Pat Murkland
News from Dorothy Ramon Learning Center is sharing some news today from 1800s newspapers. We start with a scrapbook from the pioneer Gilman family of Banning, CA, where this Banning Herald newspaper headline from April 29, 1891, screams:
“BANNING WAS IN IT”
In what? The next headline reads:
And the President Stepped on Banning Soil.
“Banning pretty unanimously took a holiday on Wednesday morning to pay its respects to President [Benjamin] Harrison [23rd U.S. president from 1889-93].
“At a late hour on Tuesday afternoon it was learned that he might stop and the clans were notified to be on hand. By the hour of 11:15 when the Presidential train rolled in, flags were hoisted about the station, festoons of wild flowers were strung, the depot was decorated with magnificent stems of Yucca, and 300 delighted and expectant souls all went to eyes and ears.”
Banning was the first stop in California for President Harrison’s train, sort of the “Air Force One” of 1891. Here’s the Southern Pacific train depot in Banning in 1912. (Courtesy of Banning Library District)
“The day was the superbest of the season. A sky of limpid blue arched from Grayback's white cowl to San Jacinto’s rugged peak. The floor of the valley was covered with a carpet of green so rich and refreshing that the sight plunged into it for a bath. Between played a breeze, caressing as a whisper of love and soft as perfect sympathy. The schools had a holiday and all the children were present, each armed with a bouquet of our incomparable wild flowers.
“Miss Morris [Morongo day school teacher Sarah Morris] brought her charges from the Potrero [now Morongo Reservation] and they bore rich offerings of rare flowers from the Potrero Canyon.”
(Photo courtesy of the Huntington Library’s William H. Weinland Collection, Box 7, photCL 39 Volume 2)
Starting in 1888, Sarah Morris (later Gilman) served as the federal government’s day school teacher at Morongo for about 17 years. She was an ally who sometimes had to fight for the right to give her students an education equal to that of non-Native children. The first schoolhouse, pictured here, was an old adobe that belonged to John Morongo, the reservation’s Serrano leader, pictured at far right with his wife, Rose. His daughter Anna served as a Native language interpreter and teacher’s aide in the new school. Sarah Morris, initially the only white person living on the reservation, visited her students’ families when school was not in session. She carried medical supplies and ran errands, such as helping weavers sell their baskets so they would get fair prices.
“The St. Boniface school for the Indians [a Roman Catholic industrial boarding school that had opened only the year before] sent its full delegation of a hundred in charge of Father [B. Florian] Hahn [school superintendent priest] and two Sisters of St. Joseph,” the 1891 news article continued. “Almost every other soul in Banning swelled the audience to what was for us was imposing proportions.”
The President got off the train, said a few words, and shook hands with the schoolchildren, and patted little ones on the head, including all the impressive numbers of Native Americans. Some women, including teacher Sarah Morris, presented the President with a custom redwood box filled with “a choice collection of canned plums, pears, figs, raspberries and other varieties that are Banning specialties.” After the visit, as the train began chugging west, everyone pelted the cars with wildflowers.
“Although a small town we were able to make an impression,” the newspaper writer concluded.
“Bravo, Boys!”
This letter is credited to a Native American student at St. Boniface Industrial School and was published in the Roman Catholic boarding school’s own Mission Indian monthly newspaper on October 15, 1895:
“Bravo, Boys! St. Boniface Indian School, Banning, Cal., September 29, 1895.
“Dear Uncle Tom: We went to Banning yesterday and we had a game of base ball [sic] with the Banning boys. The boys of St. Boniface were the victors, as always. The first time we played four innings: we beat them. They did not want to give up the game, so we added three more innings, and we began the game again. The Banning boys were batters the first time. After we put three men out we got to the bat, and then it was when we went ahead way off. And instead of playing three innings more, we played only one inning. Then they saw that they could do nothing any more, so they give up the game. This was the end of the base ball game.
Your loving nephew, ASSIDRO LUGO.”
Few enrollment records remain from the long-defunct boarding school’s early years. Father Hahn filed a statement in October 1896 with his superiors that shows Assidro Lugo, age 18, attended the school starting in 1891 and was attending again in September 1896, along with four other Lugos ages 10 through 14. (If you are a Lugo family member, please reach out.)
In St. Boniface’s early years, while some students came from Morongo Reservation and other areas, many of the Native American students apparently came from Cahuilla and Santa Rosa reservations. That may be because the two reservations already had a strong Roman Catholic faith community by the school’s opening day in 1890.
Santa Rosa Mission Chapel was built a dozen years earlier, in 1878, the first Roman Catholic chapel for Native Americans in what is now Riverside County, according to the late San Bernardino Diocese archivist R. Bruce Harley. This chapel was followed by St. Joseph Mission Church, for Soboba Reservation, 1888; St. Mary Mission Church, on Morongo Reservation, 1890; and Our Lady of the Snows, Cahuilla Reservation near Anza, 1896, Harley wrote in the diocese’s 1992 Readings in Diocesan Heritage: Ethnic Diversity in Diocesan History.
As for the game, baseball already was the national pastime by 1895, and Banning was no exception. Residents of the then-tiny unincorporated town held “field days” at which St. Boniface team players shined. In late 1895 the Mission Indian newspaper reported that community leaders were planning new athletic grounds that included a race track, baseball diamond, and a “bicycle road” not far from St. Boniface School.
A story repeated 127 years later
The Mission Indian newspaper reported on March 15, 1896, that February’s severe rainstorms were followed by an early March snowstorm.
“J. Pluvius’ bad weather clerk treated Banning to a surprising series of atmospheric changes the initial week of March. A cold wave made its presence felt the closing days of February, which shortly gave place to a raging sleet, hail and snow storm that lent a wintry aspect to our green fields and mountainsides, and only subsided after a foot or more of snow covered the ground.
“The sight of snow at one’s doorstep in Banning is an unusual occurrence, and generally happens but once in a decade, and then disappears as fast as it comes almost, but this last snowfall exhibited remarkable staying qualities and repelled the sun’s softening rays for a whole week before it yielded. The damage done by the blizzard to trees just filling out with new leaf is considerable, many limbs being broken by the weight of snow upon them, while fruit trees in blossom no doubt also suffered to some extent. The snow afforded excellent sleighing, but sleighs being scarce as hen’s teeth in this land of perennial sunshine, the merry jingle of the sleighbell was conspicuous by its absence.
“The old saw of March coming in like a lion and going out like a lamb is likely to be verified, as at present the loveliest summer weather again prevails and the bees are busily gathering golden-hued nectar from flower-bedecked hill and perfume-laden dale.”
We hope this also proves true in March 2023!
March 2023 snow on medicine plant Yerba santa, tanwivel in Cahuilla (Pat Murkland Photo)
And we thank you.
Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, the 501c3 Nonprofit led by Elder Ernest Siva (Cahuilla-Serrano), is in its 20th year of saving and sharing Southern California’s Native American cultures, languages, history, and traditional arts. Join us!
And as always, thanks from Center leaders Ernest and June Siva and Editor Pat Murkland for reading, liking, subscribing, and sharing News from Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, your FREE online weekly newsletter. EMAIL. March 22, 2023.