El Campo Santo Cemetery is the second oldest cemetery in California and it’s surprisingly quiet given the number of tourists that pass by. Few actually enter the cemetery — most head for Old San Diego or one of the many Mexican restaurants that line the busy street.
This little cemetery is like something straight out of an episode of the Addams Family with a bit of cowboy movie blended in. Gothic revival wrought iron fences and simple white crosses mark the dusty red ground. Not much life can be found in the way of plants and flowers and those that exist are scrubby and rough.
The cemetery is hot… very very hot and a lone tree casts shade throughout the day.
The short stone wall that surrounds El Campo Santo isn’t the boundary, but rather circles a small portion of the original cemetery; there are more graves under the street and sidewalk. In 1993, officials used radar to determine exactly the location of bodies and added small plaques to mark their location. Urban legend has it that folks who park over any one of these graves later have difficulty starting their car or their car alarm goes off for no apparent reason.
The grave of Anita Gillis was the most fascinating to La Niña.
Anita Gillis
I remember the funeral procession of little Anita Gillis as it would across the Plaza on its way to the old church. The child lay in a tiny white coffin, which rested on a small white table. The cover was off, and the coffin and table were filled with flowers. Six little girls dressed in white with wreaths on their heads carried the table. The priest and two boys carrying crosses walked ahead, the mourners behind.
In early times, musicians playing the violin and accordion, and boys firing off firecrackers brought up the rear of the procession.
She was carried to the church. The coffin was placed under a small, white catafalque, draped in Spanish lace and surrounded by candles. A simple, solemn mass was said. She was carried to the old cemetery nearby and buried and a simple white wooden cross bearing her name etc was erected at the head of her grave.
— Tales from California’s Oldest Town by Lilian Whaley
Not common knowledge, but Anita – a childhood playmate of Lillian Whaley, passed away from scarlet fever within the first six months of 1873, one of three young children of Constable George Gillis and his wife Guadalupe, to pass away in that time frame, all possibly due to scarlet fever. The three Gillis children are probably buried immediately adjacent to one another, though Anita has the sole marked “Gillis” grave, which may not actually be in that particular spot – there are about 300 souls buried in El Campo Santo; the majority of these graves are unmarked and some, like those of Antonio Garra and Yankee Jim Robinson – and possibly Anita, are “honorary” in regard to public interest. Anita, because what may be the sole narrative of her funeral procession was recorded by Lillian Whaley (in her journals written in her adult years). Infants and children, Native Americans and criminals were buried at or near the boundary walls – individuals considered to be elevated social status were buried in the center. It’s highly probable that Garra and Robinson, both executed, are buried at the rear (east) boundary of El Campo Santo along with Juan Verdugo and William Marshall, who were executed in conjunction with the Garra insurrection and not at the front (west) wall where their modern markers are located. They were buried in the earliest years of the cemetery operation, so there was plenty of room at the rear boundary for all of them at the time. There was no reason at the time to bury executed people at opposite ends at the same time. To provide spatial context, Anita and her siblings were buried 20 years later. Anita’s mother Guadalupe was the “natural” daughter of General Andres Pico, brother of Pio Pico, the former governor of California under Mexican rule. Andres Pico never married but sired several children. It’s unfortunate that none of this information is more widely known, and/or provided at Anita’s grave. Lillian Whaley caught scarlet fever from Anita, and passed this to the entire Whaley family, with the exception of her oldest sister Nannie (Anna Amelia), who at age 14, cared for the entire family during their illness, the second time their home was quarantined for that reason.