Event

Ramona returns to the Adobe Chapel

Celebrate Valentines Day through the weekend and nestle up with one of our most romantic 19th-Century love stories, Helen Hunt Jackson's Ramona.

The novel's sentimental portrayal of Mexican colonial life contributed to establishing the unique cultural identity of the region; its influence on the culture and image of Southern California was considerable. Coinciding with the arrival of major railroad lines to the region, tourists wanted to see the locations depicted in the national best selling novel. Old Town San Diego leaped at the opportunity to exploit the story and help bring prosperity back to the community and Old Town has been a tourist Mecca ever since. While John D. Spreckels dubbed the Estudillo House, which he owned, as Ramona's Marriage Place at the time, it was in actuality the Old Adobe Chapel that was the true marriage place described by Helen Hunt Jackson.

Set in a post-Mexican-American War Southern California, racial and class tensions prove penetrable by the undeniable love between Alessandro, son of a tribal chief, and the beautiful, mixed-race foster child, Ramona. So bring your Valentine or come by yourself and fall in love with Ramona all over again.

A short presentation on the history of the Adobe Chapel and its relation to the characters in the novel precedes the 20-minute viewing of the silent film version of Ramona.