Weathervane Wednesday ~ Above a Texas Mission

Weathervane Wednesday is an on-going series of photographs I post weekly.  I started out by publishing only weather vanes from the Londonderry area, but now I've been finding interesting weather vanes from all over New England.  Sometimes these weather vanes are whimsical, or historical, but all are very unique.  Often, my readers tip me off to some very special and unusual weather vanes.

Today's weather vane is from somewhere in Texas.

Do you know the location of weather vane #261?  Scroll down to see the answer...

Today's weathervane was photographed above the mission church at the Mission San Jose in San Antonio, Texas.   This walled community was built over 250 years ago and restored in the 1930s by the Works Projects Administration during the Great Depression.  It is now a National Historical Park, showing how the community would have looked during it's origins during colonial Spanish rule.

This National Historic Park's visitor center is located at 6701 San Jose Drive in San Antonio, Texas.  The mission church, San Jose y San Miguel de Aguayo,  was built starting in 1720.  The current building was started in 1768.  It was known as "Queen of the Missions" and was the largest in Texas.

This is a very fancy wrought iron filigreed cross weathervane.  The weathervane is very difficult to see because it seems so tiny compared to the size of the enormous church building. You will need a zoom lens or binoculars to really get a good look.


For the Truly Curious:

San Antonio Missions, National Historical Park   https://www.nps.gov/saan/planyourvisit/sanjose.htm

Wikipedia   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_San_Jos%C3%A9_(Texas)


Click here to see the entire series of Weathervane Wednesday posts!   

-------------------------------


Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Weathervane Wednesday ~ Above a Texas Mission", Nutfield Genealogy, posted May 18, 2016, (  http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2016/05/weathervane-wednesday-above-texas.html: accessed [access date]).

Tombstone Tuesday ~ Juan Huisar, buried at the San Jose Mission in San Antonio, Texas

This tombstone was photographed at the National Historical Park of the San Jose Mission in San Antonio, Texas, next to the mission church.

E. D. P. 

JUAN HUISAR

Fallecio

el dia 30 Marco 1893

A LA EDAD DE

59 Anos.

translation:

R. I. P. [E.D.P. translates to "in peace, rest" or "en paz, descanse"]

Juan Huisar

Died

on the day 30 March 1893

At the age of

59 years

This gravestone is in the small burial plot by the front door of the mission church of San Jose and San Miguel inside the Mission San Jose in San Antonio, Texas.  This small plot is all that is left when the mission was restored by Works Progress Administration workers during the Great Depression.  The dead buried here long ago were removed to another location during the restoration, but two grave markers remain to mark the burial ground.  One is unmarked except for an iron cross, and the other is this stone for Juan Huisar.

The famous Rose Window inside the mission church was created by Native American Pedro Huizar.  The gravestone of Juan Huizar is believed to be the grandson of the stained glass window artist.  According to a tree found at Ancestry.com, Juan Huizar was born 8 March 1833 in Texas, son of Serefino Huizar (b. 1807) and Olalia Flores Trinidad Garcia*.  He was the grandson of Jose Antonio Pedro Huzar (1740 – 1798) and Maria Francisca Teodora Guerrero.   “Pedro, according to the Bexar archives, 1789, was Spanish Alcalde of the Concepcion Mission in 1795.  His survey for irrigation from the San Antonio River is mentioned in the Nacogdoches Archives, March 26, 1791.  The Census reports for 1792 and 1793, Bexar Archives, mention Pedro Huizar, the carpenter, who was born in 1740, at Aguascalientes…” [from With the Makers of San Antonio, Genealogies of the early Latin, Anglo-American, and German Families,  1937, page 137, available to read online at Ancestry.com]  

Juan Huisar married Justa Gomez Aguilar in Bexar County, Texas on 12 February 1854.  They had three daughters:  Trinidad, Melchora and Catarina.  Records of the Confederate Civil War Soldiers in Texas show a Juan Huisa mustered in as a private in Ragsdale’s Battalion of the Texas Cavalry.  This might be the same man.

“San Antonio Missions preserve Native American history in Texas’s first World Heritage Site”, by Tracy L. Barnett, March 10, 2016, Washington Post  accessed April 1, 2016  https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/travel/san-antonio-missions-preserve-native-american-history-at-the-nations-newest-world-heritage-site/2016/03/10/69356002-deed-11e5-8d98-4b3d9215ade1_story.html

* UPDATED 9 October 2016 - see the comment below by "EC"


-------------------------------

Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Tombstone Tuesday ~ Juan Huisar, buried at the San Jose Mission in San Antonio, Texas", Nutfield Genealogy, posted April 26, 2016, (  http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2016/04/tombstone-tuesday-juan-huisar-buried-at.html: accessed [access date]).