The Peña Adobe Historical Society welcomed residents from the Magnolia Court Senior Living Community in Vacaville to the Peña Adobe!

Visitors were greeted by Darlene Stewart, a fifth generation Peña, in the Peña Adobe, California historical landmark #534, built by Juan Felipe and Isabelle Armijo Peña in 1842.  Darlene talked about her grandmother Rose Peña Coombs, granddaughter of Juan Felipe and Isabelle.  In 1965 Rose donated an odd three-cornered chair, to the Peña Adobe Historical Society. Sitting in the chair on a visit to the Adobe in 1972, Rose recalled how she had sat in the same chair almost ninety years earlier as punishment for a childish misdeed when she was about three years old.

Docent Armando Perez, toured the visitors through the adjacent Mowers-Goheen Museum’s displays of local Native American Patwin artifacts.  The museum collection also includes a century old organ built by the Estey Organ Co. of Brattleboro, Vermont, which stood in the Rockville Stone Chapel until 2008. 

Native American James Tunstall showed visitors the regalia for the Grass or Omaha Dance.  James explained to settle a new area, create an appropriate venue for a tribal meeting, or to secure an arena for a ceremony, high grasses had to be trampled down to ensure visibility.  Scouts would bless and flatten the grass with dance.

After a picnic lunch in the courtyard area of the park, it was time to board the bus for our visitors’ short trip back to Magnolia Court.