In honor of Women's History Month, let us look at the first lady of Rancho San Pablo: María Gabriéla Berryessa de Castro.

Imagine marrying at age 14 and having that same number of children!

María Gabriéla Berryessa was the daughter and first born of Nicolás Antonio Berryessa and María Gertrudis Peralta. Her parents came from two pioneer families of Alta California, Nueva España. Her father, Nicholas came north with the De Anza Expedition in 1776, at the age of fourteen, as did his wife, Gertrudis as a nine-year-old child.

On 16 February 1795, at Misión de Santa Clara, 14-year-old Gabriéla married Don Francisco María Castro, grantee of Rancho San Pablo, then known as “Rancho de los Cuchiyunes” situated along San Pablo Bay extending out to San Francisco Bay. Don Francisco and Gabriéla initially made their home in San José and had fourteen children between 1796 to 1824. When he retired from public life, the family moved to an existing Rancho Cuchiyunes adobe on his property at San Pablo.

Don Francisco died in 1831 and ownership of the Rancho was divided half to his wife, Gabriéla and the remainder to their surviving children. Gabriéla was now a widow at fifty-one years old and continued to live in the old adobe with all seven of her surviving sons, three daughters, two daughters-in-law, and seven little grandchildren. The adobe was very small for so large a family even with a few additions added on later. For Gabriéla, food for her family was plentiful but unsophisticated. She had tough beef, beans, onions, peppers, eggs, poultry and local wines with fruits in season added. The women’s lives revolved around church celebrations, baptisms, marriages and other events.

Gabriéla and her family continued to live together for another five years after Don Francisco’s death. The sons eventually started to build their own homes and the rancho was filled with building activity for the ten years that followed. Sometime later in 1843 her youngest son, Jesús María Castro became engaged and hired carpenters to build a small adobe that had 3 rooms for his future bride. He married Josefa Alviso in November 1845, and a year later moved into his unfinished adobe at Rancho San Pablo with his new wife, his mother, Gabriéla and a younger brother, Alvino.

By 1850 most of Gabriéla’s children had died, so their portion of the inheritance reverted back to her. In August of 1851 lawyers were quietly called in and Gabriéla signed a deed giving her entire share to her daughter Martina. It would be sometime before the brothers became aware of this transaction. Late in November of 1851, Gabriéla was attending a birthday celebration of her son, Joaquin when she had a stroke and fell to the ground unconscious. Joaquin hurried by boat to San Francisco to bring Dr. Jacob Tewksbury to attend to her. About three weeks after, Gabriéla died in December of that year just before Christmas. She was buried a few weeks later alongside her husband at Mission San José in Fremont. The cost of her medical expenses and funeral were a substantial amount, perhaps indicating a very elaborate funeral. Certainly, it was appropriate that her Mass was said in the chapel of the mission which was built by the settlers who came with the Anza expedition in 1776.