Solano, The Way It Was

Saturday, May 31, 2008

Vallejo’s Annie Lizzie Gill was a pioneer activist

As I start this series of columns, I have absolutely no idea on how many installments it will take to finish the story of a remarkable lady that lived in Vallejo, Annie Lizzie Gill who was born in 1863 on a farm outside the town of Oblong, Ill.  Her story is a wonderful cavalcade of events and personal anecdotes before arriving in Vallejo in 1918, but since this is a local history column, I’ll stick mostly to her life here in Solano County.

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Sunday, May 25, 2008

California’s pioneer women first recognized in 1900

This is the final installation in my series based on the recollections of pioneer women who arrived in California in the late 1840s.  The San Francisco Chronicle gathered their histories and published them on Sept. 9, 1900, in commemoration of California’s 50th anniversary.

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Saturday, May 17, 2008

Pena descendant was active in local affairs

In 1868 Juan Felipe Pena’s granddaughter, Maria Delores Pena, married John Patton. John’s father, Albert Lyon, first arrived in the Vacaville area in 1847 and settled north of the Pena Adobe. Lyon Road is named after the Lyon family. His son, John Patton, married Maria Delores Pena on June 2, 1868, and they had a son, John Edward Lyon, who married Josephine Hanna Murray. Ramona Urusal Lyon was born 12 May, 1904, in Vacaville to John Edward Lyon and Josephine and is the subject of today’s column.

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Saturday, May 10, 2008

Benicia was known as the ‘Athens of California’

This column continues the story of Frances Anne Cooper Semple and Susan Cooper Wolfskill and life in 1850s Solano County.  Their stories appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle on Sept. 9, 1900 in commemoration of California’s 50th anniversary.

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