Arcadia Bandini de Stearns Baker

Like many californias of her time, Arcadia Bandini provided to her Anglo husbands opportunities for entrance into and alliances within the established californio elite society."[8] In addition to being social elites, the Bandinis were one of the richest landholding families in the area, which made the three daughters very attractive potential marriage partners to ambitious men seeking land and status in the californio community.They lived together in a home called El Palacio (The Palace; also known as the Don Abel Stearns House), built in 1859 in the Pueblo de Los Angeles.This large adobe home, which surrounded an extensive courtyard and patio,[11] was a major site for Los Angeles high society.[5] de Stearns Baker's grand-nephew Ricardo Bandini Johnson told a reporter from the Santa Monica Mirror that Abel was "often away" from home and thus "did not pay a lot of attention to Arcadia.”[13] The couple did not have any children.Though she married two Anglo-American men and during her lifetime California came under control of the United States, de Stearns Baker reportedly never spoke English, but rather did business in Castilian Spanish."[5] The warehouse operated as one of the four most significant trading ports in the West during this time period[5] and was connected from San Pedro to Los Angeles via a stagecoach line.[13] Even when de Stearns Baker had moved to Santa Monica, she remained a powerful presence in Los Angeles society and charity work.[1] Arcadia de Stearns Baker was known as the "godmother of Santa Monica" and a "great benefactress" for her contributions to and vision for the formation and development of the city.[13] She donated a great deal of her land – for example, to the city of Santa Monica for Palisades Park; to the government to form a National Home for Disabled Veterans (now the Veterans' Administration); to the government to create the first experimental forestry station in the United States; and to schools, churches, and clubs (like the Bay City Women's Club).In 1897, de Stearns Baker and Jones founded the Santa Monica Land and Water Company, which "subdivided and developed about 50,000 acres in West Los Angeles.[1] Arcadia Bandini de Stearns Baker died in 1912, at age 85,[6] and was interred between her husbands at Calvary Cemetery, East Los Angeles.