Saturday, December 29, 2012

Great-granddaughter of Pio Pico dies at Baldwin Park home

 
BALDWIN PARK - There's an extensive lineage linking generations of descendents to Pio Pico, the last California governor under Mexican rule. Among the closest of familial ties to the historic figure was Adeline Pico Verdugo, one of Pio Pico's two remaining great-granddaughters. The 95-year-old Verdugo passed away at her Baldwin Park home on Christmas day. "She had dementia and she went to sleep and just didn't wake up," said her son Arthur Pico Verdugo. "My mom to me was everything," he added. Adeline, nicknamed Della, was one of 12 children born to Celestino and Ramona Pico and grew up in a little area known as Jimtown, which in the 1860s became part of the former governor's 9,000-acre El Ranchito, according to an article in the Los Angeles Times. The Baldwin Park resident of 50 years was proud of her bloodline and often wanted to visit her great grandfather's mansion at Pio Pico State Park, said her daughter Bonnie Landeros. "I think she loved seeing all of the that stuff there again," Landeros said. "And because she got a lot of attention there. My mother loved attention." Adeline's sister, Bobbie Pico Cabral, 96, died in March of this year at her Los Nietos home. The last of Pio Pico's great-granddaughters, Josephine Pico Marquez, 99, resides in Duarte. In her late teens, Adeline married Ernest John Verdugo and the two had nine children together. John Verdugo died in 1984, their family said.
Close relatives fondly remembered Adeline as a strong woman with a huge heart. "She was a very loving mother," said Landeros, who was Adeline's primary caregiver. "She was such a rich lady. Not rich with money, but rich with her love." The woman was not only good to those who were related by blood, but also helped anybody who needed her, Adeline's family said. "She had a heart for people and she took me in when I was homeless," said Oscar Soto, a Baldwin Park resident and close family friend. The 95-year-old loved sharing stories of her time working on Hollywood movie sets, where she met stars like Leo Carrillo, her family said. At 17 years old, to work as an extra, she had to lie about her age, she told this newspaper earlier this year. "The doorman told me `next time they call you, tell them you are 18' and right away they gave me a job," Adeline said. "I got $2.50 an hour just to get autographs!" But her time in the motion picture industry was limited because her father forced her to quit when he found out, her family said. "She's always talked about the movies that she played in with Leo Carrillo and all the movie stars that she met," Liz Antuna said of her grandmother. Adeline is survived by her sister, four children, 29 grandchildren and 52 great-grandchildren. A rosary in her memory will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. Sunday at Guerra and Gutierrez Mortuary, 6338 Greenleaf Ave., Whittier. A burial mass will take place Monday at Our Lady of Perpetual Help, 8545 S. Norwalk Blvd., Los Nietos.

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