Manuscripts

Manuel Garfias letters, documents, and photographs

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Description: This small group of twenty-one items includes letters, legal documents, receipts, and photographs related to Manuel Garfias, his wife Luisa Avila de Garfias, his daughters, his friend Lewis C. Granger (who had previously owned Rancho La Cañada), and Manuel Sepulveda. The group contains items both in English and Spanish.
Type: Manuscripts(Opens in new tab)
Production date: 1851-1885.
Call number: mssGarfias
Creator: Garfias, Manuel(Opens in new tab)
Provenance: Purchased from Dawson's, January 1964.
Find out more: View in the Library catalog(Opens in new tab)

Documents, photographs, and autograph album

Visual Materials

A collection of photographs and documents dating from 1859 to 1917, related to the Avila and Fraters families, their friends, and other Californio families of Los Angeles. The photographs are mostly studio portraits of individuals and family groups dating from the 1860s to the1890s. The collection belonged to Joseph August Fraters (1873-1936) and Petra Avila Fraters (1873-1951), and includes their wedding portrait (1898), portraits of Petra, their children Joaquin and Ysabel, and their house in Los Angeles. There are also three framed photographs of Petra and her parents Felipe Avila (1832-1900) and Prudenciana Ruiz de Avila, and four tintypes. Other people who appear in photographs are: Ernest (Anastacio) Avila; Francisca Avila; Francisco Avila; Hernaldo Avila with his wife Maud C. Gorham (born in Iowa) and four children; Lugarda and Elizabeth Avila (sisters); Luisa Avila; Tomas Avila; Susana Machado Bernard (1839-1907), with five children; T.J. Cordoza; Ernest Gibelin Du Py; Maria Elena Hurlbert; Felipe Lugo; Petra Lugo (Vignes); Serafina Macias; Sacramenta Moulton (daughter of Elijah T. Moulton); Christina Palomares; Concepcion Palomares; Francisca "Pancha" Sepulveda; Ruperto Serrano; and Hortense Yorba. There are several unidentified portraits of men, women and children. Other materials in the collection include Petra Avila's scrapbook autograph album, 1889 to 1896, which has handwritten notes, poems, and drawings by family and friends, with color decals of love sentiments attached to some pages. The signers added their Los Angeles neighborhoods after their names: Compton, Vernon, Florence, Green Meadows and Tajuata. There are also approximately 40 family documents and 14 programs for minstrel shows and concerts organized and performed by San Quentin Prison inmates, 1900 to 1903.

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Documents

Visual Materials

Items related to the Avila (also spelled Abila), Fraters, Palomares, and Yorba families. Also undated clippings about Dona Laura Garfias de Lainesse and Reginaldo F. Del Valle and a program for the Celebration, Carnival and Street Fair in San Rafael, California, July 2-5, 1902.

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Photographs

Visual Materials

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Petra Avila Fraters, framed photograph

Visual Materials

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Unidentified portraits, taken by unknown photographers

Visual Materials

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Unidentified portraits, taken by Los Angeles photographers

Visual Materials

photCL 355

Manuel Garfias letters, documents, and photographs

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Documents, photographs, and autograph album

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