CARMEL VALLEY — Next to St. Therese of Carmel Catholic Church off of state Route 56, an old plot of land is the resting place for dozens of individuals who were part of North County’s original farmworker community.
Many of the people buried here were part of La Colonia de Eden Gardens, one of Solana Beach’s oldest neighborhoods, founded in 1920 by the families of Mexican farmers who worked in the nearby lima bean fields and Rancho Santa Fe.
Over the decades, grave markers in the cemetery have disappeared or been vandalized, making the exact location of certain decedents lost to time. A group of La Colonia residents have been working since 2015 to maintain the cemetery and, when possible, erect new grave markers.
Michael Beltran, a board member with La Colonia Community Foundation and one of the leaders of this effort, said that by connecting with families with roots in the area, they have added about half a dozen markers.
“More families are getting involved and remembering ‘hey, I had family there too at one time, but we can no longer find the spot,’” said Beltran. “With them and us working together, we said, ‘well, let’s create a new gravestone for the family, so that way your family and our families can come down and visit them.’”
The church recorded Burials at the site, with Diocese Death Register records accounting for 83 recorded burials, the last recorded in 1980. However, the Solana Beach Civic and Historical Society said the true number of burials is likely over 100, as burials around the turn of the century may not have been recorded.
For years, Beltran has wanted to find a way to identify other unmarked graves to honor the dead who are buried there. He has worked with Armand Olvera, a member of St. Therese and the Knights of Columbus, who initially stumbled upon the graveyard around 20 years ago while walking through the brush behind the church.
Olvera connected Beltran with individuals from UC San Diego who might be able to help, and the parties went back and forth without any real plans. Things were finally set into motion last month when an archaeologist with Michael Baker International agreed to help — at no charge.
Using ground penetrating radar technology, MBI senior archaeologist Jimmy Daniels of Oceanside has identified anomalies in the ground that could signify burial sites. From there, La Colonia members plan to mark these areas to help commemorate the dead, even if they don’t know who they are.
Daniels said he uses the machine — which, to the uninitiated, resembles a lawn mower with a screen attached — to scan 50-centimeter sections of the ground. When he sees signs of an anomaly, he lays down a pink flag and analyzes the data later to determine what it could be.
“When you’re running the GPR, it basically gives you a signal that there’s something beneath the surface that’s different than the surrounding soil matrix. If there is an intact coffin, it will give a relatively strong signature,” he said.
When he visited the cemetery in early November, Daniels laid down around 40 flags indicating anomalies. While still looking at the data, he can confirm that a handful are burial sites.
“It’s kind of reading through the noise associated with gopher dens and tree roots and things like that, and marking the ones that are clear burials, so that at some point in the near future, we’d be able to go back out and put a marker out for those unmarked burials,” Daniels said.
Lisa Montes, president of the Solana Beach Civic and Historical Society and a La Colonia resident, said it means the world to identify these burial sites and honor those buried there. Seeing so many flags laid down in a row was exciting, she said.
“I prayed they would find something, and then they found 12 all in a row,” said Montes. “We may not know their names, and we still have work to do, but honoring your ancestors is so huge.”
Both Montes and Beltran have personal connections to the cemetery. In 2015, Beltran discovered that his father’s grandmother had been buried there after she died in 1941.
Beltran said his father Joe, 96, had been serving in Japan when his grandmother died, and he assumed for years she had been buried in Arizona. However, 74 years later, during a visit to the St. Therese cemetery, they discovered that she had actually been buried there all along.
“I could see in my dad’s eyes and his expression, because he knew her, he grew up with her … To get that back, that closure, he was pretty happy about that,” Beltran said.
Montes has childhood memories of visiting the cemetery where her grandmother and uncle are buried. She remembers family members having to dig the holes themselves for the caskets and holding the funerals at their family homes.
“I used to go with my grandfather. I remember us taking the water over there, and flowers to leave,” she said.
Catholics and Protestants are buried on opposite sides of the cemetery, which has allowed La Colonia members to narrow down the area where their relatives may be buried.
The Beltrans, Knights of Columbus and other residents gather biannually for cleanups at the cemetery. Without maintenance, the brush can grow several feet and obscure the gravestones.
Beltran said some new participants join each time, eager to help restore their families’ resting place and set a new gravestone for them.
“It’s a field, with no proper irrigation or landscaping or anything,” Beltran said. “Now, people can spend time in a fairly maintained and clean cemetery and say ‘Hey, it looks great down there.’”
Going forward, Daniels hopes to make final determinations about potential grave sites in the coming month and work with La Colonia members to match them with real people buried there.
For some of the anomalies, it may be impossible to determine what lies beneath the ground. However, Daniels said he plans to provide the geospatial data and the site of the markers to La Colonia leaders for potential use down the road.
