This beautiful painting of the Aqua Mansa Chapel hangs in the present day building at the cemetery. The adobe building known as the parish, or chapel, was built in 1854 and used until 1883.
The bell at the Agua Mansa Chapel was cast from old spoons, trinkets and metal gathered up by the parishioners; it is currently on display at the Mission Inn Museum.
Perhaps one of the reasons why the dead are at peace on this quiet hill was the presence of one elderly man of Mexican and Indian origin. We watched as he soundlessly drifted from grave to grave. He wasn't a sprit, or an apparition. He was a man, of flesh and blood...and spirit. It was this spirit that he was sharing with those laying in peace.
His name was Henry Vasquez, with a leather drum strapped to one shoulder; he held a reed flute in one hand and maracas in the other. Passing from grave to grave, he would stop and face both east and west. He then banged the leather drum three times, shook the maracas three times, and played a short peaceful tune with his flute. The soft music floated throughout the shallow slope of the cemetery hillside. As we prepared to leave our walk around Aqua Mansa, we stopped and asked of Henry Vasquez the traditional meaning behind his musical celebration among the dead. "The luring tone broke my heart," said I. With a slight smile, but mournful eyes, he responded back, "That is not the affect I wanted to cause...I wanted to heal your heart." Well, he did that, too. Henry Vasquez had many family member buried on this hill, bringing peace among these hallowed ground is what he does with his personal ceremony.
As we prepared to leave the gates of this historical ground, we were presented with two warm loaves of bread...They were loaves of Pan de Muerto-bread of the dead, given to us with a wide smile as the caretakers of Aqua Mansa Pioneer Cemetery bid us a goodbye and wished us the best.
On Halloween Day, the spirits of the dead here did not prevail; the spirits of the living did. Quietly and reverently, they celebrated the lives and passing of their loved ones. This proves once again, that cemeteries are really for the living. No matter if we classify cemeteries as monuments of recent times or of historical significance, they are first and foremost places of honor, tribute and remembrance.
Trivia:
1. Some of the Aqua Mansa Pioneer Cemetery residents came down the Spanish Trail with the Workman and Rowland group. In 1841, Workman and Rowland organized a group of about twenty-five people to make the 1,200-mile trek across hazardous territory. The Rowland-Workman Party was comprised mostly of families from New Mexico and Missouri, including Benjamin Davis Wilson, who became a wealthy businessman, ranchero, and politician in southern California.
2. The communities of Agua Mansa and La Placita, across from each other along the Santa Ana River, were the first non-native settlements in the San Bernardino Valley and had the first church and school. These villages were the largest settlement between New Mexico, and Los Angeles during the 1840s. Agua Mansa lasted until January 1862; La Placita ceased being a community in 1926.
2. Don Juan Bandini, owner of the Jurupa Rancho, donated parts of his rancho to a group of New Mexican colonists in 1845 on the understanding that they would aid in repelling Indian raids on his stock.
3. Out of the 2,000 deceased that are buried at Aqua Mansa Pioneer Cemetery, 1,000 have been identified...but grave markings indicate only 115 burial spots.
4. Today, negotiations are nearing completion for the acquisition of the Aqua Mansa Pioneer Cemetery site by the San Bernardino County Museum; it will hopefully include the graveyard and chapel site.
