Family Histories: Aguilar

Aguilar Family Oct. 8, 1995

Dear Father Sherry;

Here's hoping that the 125th anniversary celebration will be a big success; On the Aguilar family history, Jacob had everything written down, so I will copy it:

Family history of Jacobo Juan Carlos Villanueva Aguilar Born in Florence, Arizona on June the second of the year 1913, son of Manuela Villanueva and Juan Aguilar; My parents were both born in Florence, Az.; My father married sisters, Refugia Villanueva, mother of three girls, Juanita, Stella & Sofia. After Refugia's death, four years later, my father married my mother Manuela; She was the youngest of Seven Children: Guadalupe who married Jake Jones (My mothers best friend whom I was named after), Maria Jesus who married Casimero Arvizu AKA Billy Good, Francisca who married Francisco Terran, Refugia & Manuela who married Dad, Jose who married Liza VanHaren, Chrisanto who married Lucia Rodriguez. My father was a merchant, he had a grocery store in the American Legion Hall Building and also where Murphy's is now, it was called The Peoples Store, he also farmed. There were two boys born to my mother Manuela and my Dad; Marshall who died very young and myself. My mother died in child birth, I was two years old. My sister Stella and my aunts helped raise me. My father died when I was seventeen, I lived with the Lucas Leos Family and also with the Dugald Stewart Family, Dugald Stewart was my guardian. My grandparents on my mothers side settled at Adamsville AKA Sanford in 1851, Grandfather Chrisanto Villanueva married my grandmother in Sonora, Mexico, in 1850; Grandfather originally was from northern Spain, migrated to Mexico as a young man of 19 in 1846; He was a cattle drover and it was during his cattle drive through a small town of Imuris, Sonora he met grandma in 1850 and was married in this little town, he was 24 years old and grandma was 13. He drove his small herd of cattle to Blue Water and sold them to the US Government soldiers, who were encamped there. Mr. Adams offered grandad a job at the flourmill situated there and he settled in Adamsville in 1851. On the other side of my family, my fathers side, Manuel Aguilar, my grandfather also migrated from Spain in the first part of 1800,1 know little of what he did, other than he was some sort of a merchant turned farmer; He farmed land somewhere between the old coke ovens and Florence on or near the Gila River. He married a widow of another settler of this part of the country by the name of Delci; Grandma Felicita had two sons by Modesto Delci: Modesto Jr and Elario Delci; She also had two children from my grandfather Manuel Aguilar: Carmen Aguilar and my father Juan Aguilar. My aunt Carmen died quite young and never married. Grandmas maiden name was Romero and I know very little of where she came from or her parents or relations except that she was also born in Imuris, Son. and settled in or around the Florence area at the turn of the century in 1843 after she met granpa Manuel.

Jacob married twice, he had four children from his first marriage; Stella, Jacob Marshall, Barbara and Antonette. He married Eleanor Lopez on Oct. 20, 1956, they didn't have any children and he died on April 3, 1994.

Sincerely, Eleanor Aguilar