Juan Alvino and Josefa Romero with four of their children, including Alvino (far right) and Virginia (far left), 1899
The progenitors of the Romero family in California were Felipe Romero and Maria Juana Linan of San Jose del Cabo, Baja. Their son, Juan Maria Romero, was a soldado de cuero originally stationed at the San Diego Presidio in 1782. He was stationed at the Santa Barbara Presidio in 1787, where he became a corporal in 1788.
Juan Maria and his wife, Maria Lugarda Salgado, raised a family of twelve children. Three of the children were born in Loreto, Baja, including their son Jose Antonio Romero. He and his wife, Maria Dorothea Alanis, raised seventeen children in the Santa Barbara area. One of the sons was Pedro de Alcantaro Romero.
Pedro married Maria Josefa Rodriguez, the daughter of another long-time Santa Barbara family, and they raised twelve children. Their son, Juan Alvino Romero, who was born in 1850, and his family are shown in the photo from 1899.
When Alvino and my grandmother, Josefa Lopez, were first married in 1893, he was working as a sheep shearer traveling to the different ranchos. Josefa Lopez was born in 1878 in a one room, dirt-floor adobe in Castaic Junction. She was the fourth of five children.
Alvino and Josefa’s first child, Virginia, was born in Madera, but by 1896, they had settled in Santa Barbara. Although the old censuses did not list addresses, in the 1900 census, they were clearly neighbors of Victor and Paula Cota.
Baptismal record for Virginia Romero, 1895
Baptismal record for Alvino Romero, 1898
Alvino, the baby in the picture, was born in 1898. He served in WWI and invented the mess kit used by the Army, and he also patented a beet harvester. Two more sons were born in Santa Barbara: Lisandro “Lee” Romero and Alexandro “Alex” Sylvester Romero. Lee served in WWI.
In 1903, there was a whooping cough epidemic. Their daughter, Ernestine, died. There was a coroner’s inquest during which Alvino and Josefa were hauled into court. They were absolved of any wrongdoing by the doctor. But shortly thereafter, they moved out of Santa Barbara.