by Richard Senate
Family stories and legends may well hold more knowledge than we think and provide insights into the past. One such legend is that of the young French architect who may well have designed the Olivas Adobe. The story tells how Raymundo, his sons and Vaqueros drove their herds of cattle north to the Gold Camps in the Sierra Nevada Mountains selling them for gold to the hungry miners. It was a cold hard journey but highly profitable.
As they road back they chanced upon a sick Frenchman seeking a warmer climate. Feeling sorry for the man Don Raymundo took him back to his adobe home to recover his health. The family helped to nurse him back to health. Having no money, the Frenchman, who had been trained as an architect in France, offered to help in the expansion of the adobe home.
So the story goes, the kitchen was roofed in curved roof tiles. These were removed and replaced by wooden shingles. The young man helped, lifting the tiles and talking to Raymundo’s daughters, and blowing them kisses as they giggled. Their mother, Teodora, wisely did her best to keep them away from the Frenchman. When the house was done, the Frenchman returned to the gold camps to make his fortune.
It is not known if Raymundo gave him any money to help his prospecting, but it would be like him. He never returned to visit the hacienda. Did he die in the camps? Did he return back to France? It is unknown. We do not even have a name for the young man. Is the story even true? Clearly, something happened to inspire the tale. It does hint that Raymundo could speak French. We know that the house was remodeled with a second floor in 1855. Could that be the year that the Frenchman visited? Maybe we shall never know what happened, but we have this charming story of a scene from the Gold Rush.
