Page 21 - hssc1929parks
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154 Historical Society of Southern California
land by exacting from Templito a blanket mortgage on all
of his ranches and downtown as well as the ranches
property
and
of his father-in-law his intimate friend, J. M. Sanchez.
Rehabilitation of the Bank was impossible, even with the
funds secured from Baldwin. Endeavoring desperately to
prevent the ruin of himself and Don Julian, even with public
he
faith undiminished, yet saw all the fruits of his life's work
vanish into nothing. He had not even a rooftree left of his
own, but sheltered his family and lived the few remaining
at Rancho La Merced.
years of his life on his wife's property
How Rancho La Puente, the old homestead where he had
lived now for 34 years, could be involved in the holocaust
the
who had scarcely
shocked and bewildered aging Workman,
visited the Bank in which he was a partner. On May 17,
1876, he ended his life by suicide at the homestead where
he had lived his best and happiest years.
The homestead reserve of 75 acres which escaped the
general ruin passed into the hands of Don Julian's grand-
children
; Francis, Jr., and William and John Harrison Temple
successive owners. John Harrison bought William's
becoming
interest in the Homestead about 1889. Then at last the old
homestead itself was lost on a mortgage.
In 1919 prosperity returned to the remainder of Don
Julian's family. Walter P. Temple, youngest son of Tem-
plito, a baby of five when his father and grandfather
died,
dream. He bought
was enabled to carry out a long-cherished
back the old homestead and restored to his sons the heritage of
their proud old English great-grandsire, their well-beloved
and
grandfather
"Templito."
Rancho La Merced
The unstrained quality of Juan Matías Sánchez' friend-
ship for William Workman and his son-in-law, which led
him to risk and lose his whole earthly possession in an effort
to sustain their honor, evidently dated back to early days at
Rancho La Puente. The census of 1850 reveals that Sanchez
was resident there then and majordomo of the Rancho.
About a year before this Francisco P. F. Temple and
his wife Doña Antonia Margarita Workman de Temple, had