THE INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM
INTERVIEW WITH: Jake IVy, Santiago Escobedo
INTERVIEWER: Gilbert Cruz
DATE: September 7, 19B2
PLACE: . I . . Concepc1on M1ss1on
c: The mission of Purissima Concepci6n is one of the most
beautiful and the most stable of all our San Antonio
missions. Today, we're going to discuss a certain
,
structural aspect of Mission de la Purissima Concepcion.
And that is the one associated with the infirmary and its
environs.
I The infirmary at Mission Concepcion i s built right over
the sacristy and for a long time it has been called the
infirmary. The reason for that interpretation is found in
tha fact that it was very common to find similar second
floor structures, such as the infirmary, in different
churches during the medieval period in Spain and the
Colonial period in Mexico.
The infirmary has a tradition that goes back as far as
the time of Phillip II. During the early 17th century we
know that King Phillip II was aging. He lived in a place
outside of Madrid called the Escorial. And there at this
enormous monastery, he had his living quarters when he
IVY/ESCOBEDO 2
C: was infirm, that were very similar to the structure that
~ we see at concepcion.
And from the window overlooking the sanctuary of the
church, the King would attend the celebration of mass and
later on the minister would come up to his room and
administer him the sacraments. This was done on a daily
basis. So the tradition of the infirmary is quite old.
I Here at Concepcion, there is a speculation as to the
extent of the services of the infirmary for those who lived
in the community. It is doubted by some scholars whether
this hospital service, infirmary service, really extended to
the larger community, notably the soldiers, Indians, and
neophytes. A second probable position in the use of the
infirmary is that it was used almost exclusively by the
I clergy and the missionaries who resided at Concepcion.
Today, we have two individuals who have done
considerable in-depth research on the infirmary and its
extensions, particularly to the south. One of our speakers
today is going to be Mr. Jake IVy, who is on the historical
architect staff and Mr. Santiago Escobedo, who is the staff
archeologist.
Now both of these gentlemen are going to give us their
views based on some of the more recent research that they
have done on the infirmary. Let us start first with the
observations of Jake.
Jake, would you mind telling us at what point your
research led you in the direction of thinking of the
IVY/ESCOBEDO 3
C: infirmary really as a sort of extension of a larger
convento or priest's quarters that we find here in so far as
they were built, I understand, over the granary? Would you
give us some of your observations on that?
I: The archaeology I carried out when I was working for
UTSA about a year and a half ago among other things,
located a complex of foundations extending south from the
present standing structure of the sacristy. We were able to
outline fairly well within the limited number of excavations
we could do on the foundations . we were able to outline
fairly well the plan of the structures. Based on its sizes
and other characteristics and historical research into
colonial and more recent Mexican period and even later Anglo
period documents, we were able to say without too much
hesitation that we were looking at the foundations of at
least one of the granaries at Concepcitn.
In the process of examining that structure, we looked
around at some of the surviving fragments of building as
they exist today. We looked at the drawings, photographs,
of the building before it saw any major renovations in the
early 1900's; before the re-building which made the building
the way it looks tOday. There was a number of fragments and
broken areas of wall, some of which extended south and
apparently were the remnants of the ruins of the structure
that we had identified as, tentatively at least, the
granary.
Other things, other characteristics, that we saw in
IVY/ESCOBEDO 4
I: the broken remains of the structure as it survives today
before it was overhauled and rebuilt, led us to look at some
of the other characteristics of the walls that haven't been
particularly altered by reconstruction. Just recently, in
the process of looking through the inventories and looking
back through my notes and digging back through my memories,
I remembered and realized that I had seen some things .
some traces on some of the walls, some of the fragments that
haven't been overhauled, particularly . That indicated that
I might be seeing traces of structures being described in
the inventories .
So Santiago and I came down about a week ago
specifically to do measurements on a couple of things that I
needed to mark onto the plans and to examine some of these
traces on the walls.
What we were looking for particularly were some traces
up on the walls above the stairs leading to what is called
the infirmary. Traces that looked like they were marks
where things had been built against the walls as they
survived. And probably indicated some sort of structure
built into the place which has since disappeared.
E: One of the things that Jake hasn't mentioned yet is that
Concepcion is one of those missions that has had very little
done to it as far as restoration. The other missions have
been modified and re-done over so much that hardly any of
/
the original traces are still left. Concepcion is unique in
that aspect, in that being one of those buildings that has
IVY/ESCOBEDO 5
E: not had that much modification, many remnants and many
traces of architecture still remain from the Spanish
Colonial period.
I: In the area of the stairways leading up to the
"infirmary", much of the outside, the south face, of the
main walls have been rebuilt and finished and buttresses
added to keep them from falling davin [!rom occurring J But
once you get inside the south wall itself, into the area of
the stairs, much of the wall surface retains its original
Colonial plastering. And with examination, you can begin to
separate various episodes of construction.
C: presently, we are standing at the south door of the
sanctuary just before the steps lead up to the second floor.
Can you tell us, both of you, if you look here we see the
mosque architecture; we see the sturdy stone stairs. How
much of this is original and how much of this serves not
only the infirmary over the sanctuary, but any other
possible constructions that might have existed, let's say,
to the south over the granary? And another thing, as we
look up the steps and beyond this mosque design here, we can
see the opening. From our studies, would you speculate that
it was open like this where we could see the trees and the
sky or was there some sort of structure there whereby the
whole stairway was closed?
I: O. K. We're standing in the main doorway opening out
towards the west, the southernmost end of the church and
sacristy, and the complex. We're facing toward the east,
IVY/ESCOBEDO 6
I: and looking up the stairs. Now at this point, standing
in the arch of this doorway, the arch itself and the doorway
and the door on our right, the south wall, all of this was
original. It has been changed somewhat on the outside, on
the south face, with buttresses added and whatnot, but
largely that was repairs done to areas that had fallen.
As far as we can tell, based on everything that we've
seen, the drawings and examination of the structure as it
exists , this is the original structure all the way over to
this mosque like arch over the stair. On our left, on the
north wall of this little opening, this room, all of the
wall from west side to east side, apparently is original.
The two arches, partial arches, supporting the various
flights of the stairway, apparently are also original. If
you examine right here on the stairway itself, you can see
areas where the plaster has survived and areas where there 's
just a broken, ragged line. Above which there is portions
of repair work that has been done. It would seem that there
was some sort of a balustrade or something running up the
side of the stairs and some fragments of it, at least, have
survived. But they give out about the top of the first
flight.
C: Let me ask you some thing. There's been a lot of
speculation, almost bordering on the folklore, with regard
to these two arches here. This hal f arch that we have here
as we face directly east toward the east wall and the half
arch that we have on, under, the steps, facing south.
IVY/ESCOBEDO 7
C: What are your speculations on these things, Santiago,
Jake, both of you.
I: You can see by the fluting (A channel groove, or furrow,
as on the shaft of a column0 that this was obviously used
as a fireplace for a while. That's a considerable deposit
of ash and soot. So there was some fairly heavy use of
burning up under this area. But there's nothing in the
Colonial period inventories to indicate that this was ever
intended to be any kind of an oven or other (?) operation.
I lean in the direction of thinking that if there was a
specific use for these open arches, it was more likely to
have been more on the lines of a latrine, a water closet, a
bathroom. Indications of the documents concerning both San
I
Jose and mission Espada, show that the fathers frequently at
those two missions built their latrines, their bathrooms,
under the stairs. Some arrows point out red splotches on
the walls where the surviving fragments of frescoing still
exist.
C: This arch here, under the stairs, facing south, can this
possibly be just part of the design of the stairs?
I: There's no . what with the recent flagstone put in
there, there's no way to tell . . . it's purely speculation
as to the fact that this may have been used as a restroom.
E: What we're basing it on is the description that was used
I at the Convento at San Jose, which described .
I: And the same at Espada.
C: Now this is the inventory of what?
IVY/ESCOBEDO 8
I: In San JOs~ it is 1785. The 1785 inventory speaks
specifically of the latrines, the water closets, the places
of common necessity, being under the stairway to the second
floor of the Convento.
At Espada, the 1772 inventory quite explicitly
describes the latrine structure under the stairs to the
second floor of the Convento. To the point of describing
how many feet there were; the fact that they were made, I
think, of oak and they were very nice and decent and they
had a burlap curtain over the front.
E: Now the present day floor that's here is probably built
up a lot higher than what would have originally been here.
I: Yes. It's probably at least six inches higher than the
original surface.
But there's no doubt, if you're going to have stone
stairs and you don't want it to take up too much of the
space, that you have to build arches. So the arches have a
sufficient explanation just as the supporting structure to
the stairs.
Now whether they would have seen a secondary use
because it was space available, is open, is speculation.
C: Before we go upstairs, let me ask you one more thing
that is often discussed. Up on the ceiling, we have these
cedars. At one time was the floor over the serving as
a floor for the second floor was that the same
structure or is there something in the inventory that
indicates that it was made out of more stable material?
IVY/ESCOBEDO 9
I: The inventory itself doesn't say what the material was
of the floor.
E: As you look at the top of the arch itself, going up, you
can see where a different type of material has been used to
fill in; to make this level with what has remained here on
this side.
I: About a foot ; a foot and a half.
E: Above the curve. See that line that goes across there?
That's Portland cement there. Another thing that we know is
that there is exclusive use of this cedar type material
during the WPA reconstruction work. Photographs up to 1925
that I have seen have shown a wooden porch with a wooden
platform etc. as being up there. The earliest drawing that
we have of this area is an 1850 r endi tion by Leukowitz in
which this entire wall over there, with the exception of
this arch, is fallen and the only.
I: The entire wall from this arch towards the east.
E: The arch i s still standing; you can see remnants of
that. But you can also see the steps going up alongside the
wall. Now it does not necessarily mean that they had a
stone railing but they might have had a wooden railing. Up
on the second flight .
I: All you can see is the second flight ..
E: TO prevent the weight.
I: And rubble down here on the lower level .•. you can't
really see. . the wall itself is broken at about the
level of the stairs and you can't see inside of it to see
IVY/ESCOBEDO 10
I : if the stairs are still there . . the first flight.
All you can see is the shattered remnants of the wall itself
standing to the height of seven or eight feet.
If you look, you can see the change in structure up
there and you can see again on the west side, you can see a
change in structure no more than four inches below the
present beams. On the east side the change in structure is
about foot or a foot and a half below its present beams.
We have been led to speculate that there is very little
doubt that the wooden beams themselves are WPA because
they're sitting on top of what appears to be portland
cement. Certainly it's Portland cement on the outside on
the east face of the arch.
E: You see that hole there, that cave, that kind of cave?
I was just wondering . . how would they make it liveable
and I thought why not a square beam going across this way.
I: Yeah. That would do it. That would make it closer to
the level and you'd have a foot slope.
E: It would also take into consideration in this build-up
they have over here on this side.
I: What he's saying is that he would suspect that there
would be a wooden cross piece above, or next to, the head of
the arch itself. It would be part of the support structure
for the floor.
C: What I'm hearing here is that they used a certain form
of vigas to support the floor.
I: This is probably a replication of the floor structure
IVY/ESCOBEDO
I: that was here but it's not the original. It was
designed apparently to hold up the stairs; not to hold up
the floor.
11
E: What you would do is to run a beam across this way into
the wall so therefore the weight of the floor could be taken
on the walls rather than the arch itself.
C: So the beams really ran north and south; not east and
west as the WPA had .
I: I suspect that.
E: NO •.• the cross beams
I: We have a main cross beam oh, 9 or 10 inches
across. Well, there was probably another one that's in the
center of the floor structure. There's probably another one
just like it across it across at the east end of the floor
structure. There's probably another one just like it across
at the east end of the floor structure. It may have been
cut square.
E: The other one that lay on top of it .. but what I'm
trying to say is that the weight now would be distributed to
the outside walls rather than resting firmly on top of the
arches as it is now.
I: The weight of the floor would be entirely supported by
walls; not by the arch. The arch is designed to support the
weight of the stone stair. Not the stair and the floor and
the stone balustrades and everything else that they've added
on to it since.
In other words, we are made a little nervous looking
IVY/ESCOBEDO 12
I: at this, by how much weight has actually been forced to
be placed on this arch because it probably wasn't designed
to take as much as it's being given now. All of the floor
massiveness and the stone balustrade and the built up of
stone on the stairway themselves are all being supported by
that cross arch.
E: You can see a better example over here.
C: O.K. Let us now go on up to the second floor, Jake,
Santiago. Let's get your observations. As we go up these
steps, we notice that we do come to an open area here.
Santiago, I think you had something you wanted to say here
as we walked in.
E: We have here, as Jake pointed out when we came here the
first time, you can see the formation of stairs, of steps.
You can see a straight line there, goes back up to where
that flagstone is, up again, and up again. Well, it all
comes out even for this arch. You see the build-up of
different stone rubble and Portland cement above the
original arch.
I: What appears to be the last stair, as you can see, is
something like seven, eight inches above the top of the
stone arch structure itself.
E: Which would take in consideration
I: The Portland cement and the stone reconstruction add-on,
the distinct difference is added to the top of the arch.
E: At the same time, it would have to be higher because it
would have to be in consideration of the cross beam. So
IVY/ESCOBEDO 13
E: in other words, it wasn't intended to hold the weight at
all.
I: You've got the stairs going up above the arch that will
take you on to the wooden floor above that wooden foot-thick
cross beam. Without the cross beam, the floor or anything
else, resting on the arch. only the stairway.
Judging from the structure, it would look like.
well, it's almost impossible to say how much survives; is
real. We can't say right off the bat whether this had stone
balustrades or whether it was just a wooden railing or
something like that. (3 voices talking at once.)
C: If we followed this line along the .
I: This is reconstruction from here up.
E: It looks like it's all the way down to here.
I: Yeah.
E: Portland cement is the sand and gravel material they've
been using. I'd go with it right here, Jake.
I: O.K. What happens from there up? This looks like the
original plaster here. At that point you're probably four
inches above my foot on the second step down.
E: O.K. Let's see.
I: The landing is virtually there.
E: It wouldn't show up because where the landing is; it's
just a corner. So you wouldn't see it until you started
back up the stairs again.
I: The third stair up is at the, so close to the level that
I can't tell the difference. right there. So you can
IVY/ESCOBEDO 14
I: have a break line that runs down like that. That's
virtually the top of the second stair right there. So what
it looks like we're seeing is the ghost of a stairway,
showing under the edge of the WPA reconstruction all the way
up from the second landing.
C: What is the elevation of the original steps over the
ones that we have now?
E: You can see that there on the side, Jake.
I: We've been looking at it and we can't be absolutely
certain how much of the stair surfaces are really the way
they are and how much of them are rebuilt. I speculated to
Santiago that the bricks that you see . these look like
pretty good colonial brick-type things .. that they may
represent the actual surface, upper surfaces of the stairs.
In which case, you can see from the intervals as they occur,
that the stairs as they were originally built didn't quite
follow the interval as they survived. Here's one down here,
that far below; the next one there, same distance below; but
the next one up would be quite a step because it is only
half that distance below.
C: We're looking at anywhere between eleven and twelve
inches then, aren't we? The steps over the original?
I: That's again, speculation. The stairways are so small
that you can't really get enough contrast construction to be
sure you're seeing r e al or not.
C: We're standing right now in the midway between the two
steps.
IVY/ESCOBEDO 15
I: Back down. we want t o look from there, back up at
the walls so we can see . We're standing on the second
landing. I' ve got my elbow, in fact, sitting on the east
wall as it stands today. Now, the portion of the south
wall, running eastward from the Moorish arch and the east
wall as I stand here with my elbow on top of it . both
of these are completely reconstruction all the way to the
level of the stairs. We have drawings and photographs, all
of which show the building in various stages of collapse.
The break line occurred more or l e s s down the center of the
structure on the second floor and jogged over to the face of
the Moorish arch and then down, virtually, t o the ground, on
the first floor.
E: type of arch, it's a mixed.
I: Whatever. . mixed lineal. That means mixed line.
that means that's t here more than one curve.
C: What did the reconstruction here that we are witnessing
on the ~ou th wall and on the east wall; what is it based on?
Do you know what they used?
I: Apparently what all they did was simply cap all the
fragments as they survived. In the southwestern corner,
there's fairly high fragment standing almost to the heigh t of
Santiago. But that doesn't seem to show too well the
reconstruction. They may have removed a portion of it. Why
they built to the height they did, I don't know. There was
no doubt, however, we have documentary evidence, we have
drawings, that show the second floor completely enclosed.
IVY/ESCOBEDO 16
I: In other words, there was a major failure and a collapse
of the southeastern corner of the stairway area. It didn't
take down the stairs apparently. But it did take down all of
the upper, say 25 or 30 feet of the walls of the corner.
It's been reconstructed for some reason with the wall
stopping about fifteen feet above the ground and open air
from there on up and the roof supported by a wooden post
. like a telephone pole or some such. Just left open.
C: Is there anything else we have to say at this mid-level
of the stairs?
I: You need to look back behind you, Gil, and see the
colonial plaster surfaces on the wall. If you look way up
above your head, just immediately to your right, at your
shoulder, is a stub of wall sticking out. This has been
repaired and ref aced somewhat but it is actually the fragment
of the last surviving fragment of the wall of the second
floor as it started out around this southeastern corner. And
at the top of that fragment, you can see patches where things
had been built against the wall which are no longer there.
You can see the two foot wide patch where the wall itself
continued on up and has since separated. By the way, the
fact that that patch looks like that) kind of indicates that
this wall was built on later than the construction of the
sacristy and the second floor structure. This is like a butt
joint rather than a tied joint.
C: Just right above me, we see a horizontal line, a streak,
running between the two plastered sections up and below it.
IVY/ESCOBEDO 17
C: What does that signify?
I: That's the thing we came to measure when we came down
here a week ago. On other occasions a streak like that has
indicated prior construction which has since disappeared.
The collapse of the southeastern corner would have taken off
anything else that was up there that was supported by it.
What we concluded was the streak was where something
had been built. What we came back to find out was, was it
something that I thought I was seeing in the inventory.
Now we can go on up to the second level here. I'll
give you what it is I'm trying to talk about.
C: O.K. We're now in the quartel area of the infirmary;
the open area, where to the west of us is the mosque window
and just to the north of us is the small door to the
infirmary room and to the south of us, we have the open
spaces which after a considerable amount of research and
in-depth speculation on the part of Jake and Santiago, we
have some interesting observations on this being possibly an
open air quartel where the Franciscan fathers meditated and
from which they made their observations of daily activities
of the mission Indians.
I'd like these two fellows to give us an elaboration.
Why don't we start off with Santiago here.
E: Gil, I want you to notice something right now. You're
standing a lot higher than I am. That was not the original
floor.
C: From what you say is that where I am standing reflects
IVY/ESCOBEDO 18
C: a considerable amount of reconstruction, restoration of
some sort leading us to believe the original floor is where
you are which is almost two feet lower than where Jake and I
are standing. Is that correct?
E: That's right.
I: Somewhere in that range. At least nine inches and
possible as much as a foot and a half, two feet.
E: The first thing that we noticed about this, when we came
up here, was not only the differences in the floor sizes as
the way it's reconstructed now as opposed to what it would
have been originally, but was the use of formal sculpture.
And by formal sculpture, I mean one actually taking the
time ....
I: And sculpturing a surface in this case
E: Rather than just making it a wall or a rubble wall for
it or something that just happened by chance. What you have
here is a L-shaped form which was indicative of things like
doorways and such. But you also have down below, this sort
of like a base floor .
I: Yeah, or something, I don't know what you call it.
E: What immediately comes to mind is that it was done for
the sole reason of some sort of entrance-way of some sort.
I: What he's talking about is the remains of the original
walls which forms the south wall of the second floor porch
area. Gil, you'll notice if you move back this way a little
bit, you can see the beginning of a spring line of an arch.
C: Yes, Very much so.
IVY/ESCOBEDO 19
I: NOw we have, our drawings that survive; drawings that
were done before the period when the southeastern corner
collapsed, which show that as a complete door with an arch
top. The doorway, when you measure it out, you find that
you get a perfectly acceptable door size with the center
line, the vertical line of the door, on the exact center of
the end of the structure. That is to say, if you measure
the structure from east to west and then divide it in half,
it falls on a point just about here and gives you, over the
curves and everything, a doorway opening of about 3 1/2 to 4
feet, something like that.
In fact , if you look on the outside, you can see the
notch carving in the outside surface of the wall. And there
is a large opening above the top of the curve which looks
like a place where a cross beam of some kind to help support
the weight of the wall above the doorway may have been set
into the wall.
And the drawings that I' ve seen , it looks like a place
where a beam had been.
E: I might shed some light on that. Seth Eastman's
I rendition of Concepcion shows a trifoil in a stone block
above this doorway.
I: I haven't seen that.
E: Yeah.
I: It's as though we have a thing like that or is it just a
curve?
E: You don't see the doorway. What you see is above the
IVY/ESCOBEDO 20
E: doorway. And even then, you just get two and a quarter
of the trifoil. You can see that it's been carved in a
block of stone and it's set above where the doorway is. And
this was done in 1846, the drawing was done in 1846,
indicating that there was a very elaborate opening for some
kind of .. sunlight, I guess.
I: The research we did in 1981 had indicated a presence of
this doorway opening out to the south from the second floor
level. Once we confirmed the presence of foundations in the
ground showing a fairly complex set of structures on the
ground level, it became a rather obvious deduction that this
opening had to have opened out about on to the roof of
whatever was standing there. This would be typical of
colonial convento type structures in San Antonio.
At Espada, for example, this second floor convento room
didn't extend the length of the first floor convento and
there was an area which served as a porch where the fathers
could go out onto and stand and take the air or sit.
(
The earlier period at San Jose there was only one or
two rooms on the second floor and most of the rest of the
surface, upper surface, of the first floor, served as a
porch that was accessible from the second floor.
So having a second floor porch area associated with the
convento, or i n thi s case, this is kind of a convento
structure, having a porch area accessible is not at all
unreasonable. In fact, considering the structural evidence,
we have no doubt that that was the case.
IVY/ESCOBEDO 21
I: NOw, by '72, by 1772, in the inventory of 1772, if the
structure running south from the sacristy was indeed the
granary, which by the way, I have no doubt, then by 1772, it
was no longer useable as a porch area accessible from this
opening because thy had suffered some leakage, some damage
to the roof and they had built a second roof, a peaked roof,
a pitched roof, with grass and wooden beam supports and what
not. The simple structure itself would have covered this
doorway. So that there would no longer be access, this
doorway would have given you access into like an attic or
some thing; it wouldn't have given you access out on to an
open porch .
C: So you believe the zenith period of this structure was
at an earlier age. Let's say around 1750's.
I: No. The granary would probably have been. This whole
complex would have been completed more or less in its final
form by 1759, '60. So I would see the period when that was
useable as a porch being between about 1760 and about, oh,
late '60's.
E: One of the things that has come to mind now. , . ­I:
I would feel like I'd call that the zenith.
E: When we come t o the changes in roof type, there is much
to debate, an argument that me and Jake have had quite a few
times concerning the prototypes .
I: Right.
E: We know that Pizzaro, in his conquest of South America,
did exactly as Cortez did in his conquest of Mexico .
IVY/ESCOBEDO 22
E: taking Blacks, putting them in front of the attacking
troops because the native Americans used to be afraid of
Blacks.
Well, in looking at this. Jake expressed in his
argument that the documents express that there was trouble
with leakage. Now, if the missionaries came to San Antonio
and used the type of structure they had used in Nuevo
Mexico, Arizona and Mexico itself, the flat urban type of
roofs, and these northern areas are not subject to rain as
much as it is here in San Antonio. It would be more
reasonable to have a gabled or pitched roof which is
something they would learn through adaptation or being here
for certain periods of time.
I: Right built originally as flat roof and after a
period of years found that the rainfall was high enough that
it just wasn't going to work right and started converting
things to pitched roofs.
E: The idea of using the prototype, seeing hOvl that works
in an area and then modifying it.
I: Modification, adaptation. . that seems to be the key
set of words for the fathers' activities in San Antonio.
C: All right. Now with regards to the open air porch type
of situation that the padres were enjoying over the granary,
you say that it was not an angle roof; i t ,~as a pitched roof
with the arch .
a.'}
I: Yes, but~it was originally constructed, the roof of the
granary was flat.
IVY/ESCOBEDO 23
C: Adobe type
I: Vigas with adobe over it . right.
E: Similar to what you have in the Indian quarters at San
Jose.
I: Right. In fact in '72, the structure is still there;
the flat roof. I will even now read it to you.
C: Good. please do that. This is from the inventory of
1772 that we are going to receive a quotation.
I: This is the translation that was done by Leutenneger.
This was a manuscript on file at Texas Historical Commission
that has not yet been published but they intend to publish
it eventually . The granary is described in this inventory
as being 20 varas long, divided into two sections in its
width. Each one of them 5 varas wide. I'll read it
specifically from there on. "It is made of roughly worked
stone. The roof is of beams and boards and for greater
protection for the grain, it has a loft," which is
Leutenneger's translation of the word desv£n, which
actually means something like attic or an over-roof or an
over-structure, of tule, which is grass. And the father who
wrote this thing estimated that the granary could hold up to
200 vanegas of corn.
So in other words, in 1772, the original roof structure
of beams and boards is still there but he makes it quite
clear that there is an additional structure, a desv£n of
grass has been built over it.
C: By this time its use as a porch by the Franciscan
IVY/ESCOBEDO 24
C: fathers is continued or discontinued?
I: If it has a peaked roof structure, there's no way you
can be using it as a porch.
E: The peak roof would block this doorway here.
I: If nothing else, the peak itself would cover this
doorway. Since this is speculation, I should point out to
you the counter viewpoint. The roof is described in this
thing as being of beams and boards .. it doesn't say of
beams and mescla or earth anyth ing like that. It is
possible when the phrase beams and boards is used they are,
indeed, speaking of a shingled roof. In which case, the
structure under the tule would also be a peaked roof.
There are indications that such a description of
buildings at San Juan, for example, does explicitly indicate
a peaked roof with shingles. So whether or not there was a
surviving flat roof under the tule can be open to question.
C: How do we interpret this as a pitched roof when the term
here is used "the roof is made of beams and boards".
I: I have intended all along to interpret any reference to
beams and boards as indicating a flat roof. It wasn't until
~h~
I was working with ~ '72 inventory for San Juan that I began
to realize at least in the case of some of the bui ldings at
San Juan) that the only reasonable translation of the
description was that the man was describing a peaked roof of
wooden shingles. So that makes it open a question as to
whe ther a roof of beams and boards is a flat roof or is a
peaked, shingled roof.
IVY/ESCOBEDO 25
I
I: In this case, the desvan of tule virtually has to be a
peaked structure because when you come right down to it,
there's no rational sense to layout a flat roof of grass.
C: Most thatched roofs are ..
I: To make a thatched roof, you have to make it with enough
slope that the water will run off. Otherwise, you just get
a puddle of rotting grass on top of a flat building. The
deduction we're making is that if it's a thatched roof, then
you must have some form of angle for drainage of water.
,
I: Exactly. The desvan of tule is at least, a peaked
structure. We don't know how far we can press the evidence
of the earlier, the earlier under-structure of beams and
boards.
E: Now the way I understood the sequence up here was that
this started off as an office for the Father Superior. Once
the angle roof is put in, then the scar that we had talked
about earlier now becomes the loft. with a wooden stairway
leading up to it.
I: We don't know enough about the time sequence yet to know
whether it follows that.
E: However, what we're going by is that if the door is
blocked off to the point where you can't go out on the porch
anymore, then the door becomes unuseable.
I: An extraneous structure on the south wall.
O.K., in '72, in the area where •.• the infirmary,
the room that's described as the infirmary, is described
simply as a celda, a cell. The translation says, "there is a
IVY/ESCOREDO 26
I: high cell above the sacristy. . 8 1/2 varas long and
5 1/2 wide, with an alcove, a stall, and a door that leads
to the tribunita. (Leutenneger translates that as a "little
raised area".) A tribunita is a small pulpit. In this
case, this is a perfectly normal construction whereby you
have a pulpit from which the father delivers whatever
lectures and sermons he feels like. With an access from the
second floor opening.
Traditionally, the second floor opening from the
"infirmary" has been said to be the spot through which the
fathers listened to the services being carried out in the
church.
The inventory of '72 is making it quite clear that that
is not what that opening is. What it is, the doorway
opening out on to the access to the little pulpit. From
which the fathers delivered a sermon.
C: All right. This is a sort of speculation that's also
carried on very strongly with regard to San JOs~ and its
opening over the sanctuary. That both of these outlets led
to some form of a pulpit from which homilies and other
instructions were made to the people.
From what you say here, with the word "tribunita," that
the little pulpit is what we see being the object or the end
to which this doorway leads?
I: Right. Now, it goes on to say. . it describes the
contents of the room there • . we'll go on to some of the
details of the cell . . especially the reference to
IVY/ESCOBEDO 27
I: an alcove in a moment.
E: Another thing that I'd like to point out, too, that we
haven't addressed is religious ceremonies of that
period of time included two men, one who had his back to the
congregation during the celebration of mass while another
probably stood at the pulpit and led the congregation in the
recital, and prayers, and the songs, etc. etc.
C: Catechistical instructions? We're moving over to the
second part of the tape. I'm going to have to flip the
cassette a little. We're running short of time. And then
we'll continue our interview.
END OF TAPE I, Side 1, 45 minutes
TAPE I, Side 2
c: .. interview on the second floor of the area located
over the sanctuary. Jake, continue on the report from the
inventory of 1772.
I: O.K. The first thing here on the porch, we find
that ... I've got to find it here
E: different terms. • you all keep saying
sanctuary and I keep saying sacristy.
[jumble of words. . defining the two words J
C: What precisely is the room right over the sanctuary
being a little north of the sacristy on the first floor?
I: We can look out the opening, the old pulpit opening,
IVY/ESCOBEDO 28
I: and see the sanctuary area from here.
The scars showing on the wall plaster here; the reason
we came back to measure them was because from reading the
'72 inventory, I find reference to the term using in
the Spanish is tapanco. l There is no immediately,
accessible translation for that. In my Velasquez
dictionary, for example, it is translated as a bamboo
awning. Leutenneger usually translates that as stall. But
what it apparently means is a loft; a structure added into
the stone structure, supported by cross vigas and having a
wooden floor raised just enough off the floor that you can
walk under it without hitting your head. But still far
enough below the ceiling that there is plenty of room up
there for all sorts of storage. Making use of a lot of the
left-over space in these high rooms that aren't useable for
anything else. By building in the topanco loft structure,
you can store a lot more stuff in a room without actually
covering the floor with it.
Looking at the inventory, we find the area that we're
standing i n out here apparently had among other things, it
had a gun rack with four g uns. The phrasing implies that
that is kind of in the cell, inside, what's called the
infirmary. It says, "Outside the cell, there's a small
1. Tapanco (de tapar). Toldo (awning) abovedado (arched or
vaulted) hecho con tiras de cana de bambu, que se usa en
algunas embarcaciones filipinas.
Real Academia Espano la. Diccionario de l a L€ng ua
/ / Castellana(Decimocuarta Edi cion ) ,Madri d : l mprenta de los
Sucesores de He rna ndo , 19 14
IVY/ESCOBEDO
I: porch," where we're standing , with two book shelves
"where two book shelves stand", says Leutenneger.
29
And then the document goes on to say also out here is a
stall or, it' s Leutenneger's word, "a loft where cotton is
kept." And that there is about 60 arrobas of cotton. And it
adds there's a small stairway to reach the said stall.
Now based on those references, we came back to look at
the scars on the wall above the porch area, above the
stairs, to see if that could be interpretable as the marks
left by the loft. And sure e nough, the scar running
horizontally l ooks like it's about. • it's the same size
as would be a mark left by a beam of about six inches square
as is the beam inside the s toreroom down in the convento
first floo r structures. There is also a large pit in the
wall filled with Portland cement and chunks of raw stone,
unsurfaced stone, which apparently is the socket from which
the cross viga supported the ends of the beams of the loft
into which the cross vigas set .
NOW the other end of the cross viga would have set into
the south wall which, of course , is gone. We 're just looking
into the open air now.
The stairway running up t o this area, since the doorway
into the cell is in the south wall of the church, in the
sacris t y structure . . • the stairway would have probably run
up about where we're standing, close to the south wall of the
porch area. From the general angles and wha t not, it looks
like the stairway would have obscured the arched opening
IVY/ESCOBEDO 30
I: running out south, looking out on to what would have been
the roof of the granary. So this would lead you to believe
that the loft was added after the opening out onto the
granary went out of use because of the peaked roof addition
to the granary.
On the other hand, since we don't have any details about
where the stairway was; since there's enough room here for
the stairway to start up immediately at the head of the stone
stairs; there's no necessity for that having occurred. It's
perfectly possible that the loft and stairway going to it
would have been, could have been, in use from the beginning
of the construction of this whole area.
Something that Santiago and I noticed while we were
measuring scars that are apparently the marks left by the
walk, we noticed that there is a considerable amount of
fresco, of colored wall paintings, still surviving on this
room. There's large patches of orange paint and when these
are examined closely, we find that we can see the scribe
marks still on the plaster and this gives us a band of red
paint up to about waist level; about three feet above the
ground all the way around this porch area and then a stripe
of white and then another stripe of red. The stripe of white
would be about 3 1/2 to 4 inches broad and the stripe of red
above it would have been another 3 or 4 inches broad.
There's a scribe line there and you can see traces of the
scribe line at the edge of the red and then there's a zone of
white and another zone of red. You can't see the scribe
IVY/ESCOBEDO 31
I: lines on either side of the red line here but back in
this corner, there's a faint survival underneath the more
recent white wash; faint survivals of the red. And there's
actually a scribe line there, too. And a measurement of the
height shows that this is the same all the way around as
that.
C: Very interesting.
I: So, in other words, this porch area was decorated as
fescoes on the wall; we can't tell if there is any more
decorative stuff but there was, at least, a simple decoration
on the walls of this area.
C: How open can we believe this to have been? You call it a
porch and yet .
I: Of course, it was enclosed at that time; would have had
this window to the west, would have had this arched opening
opening out somehow or another, at least part of the time, to
the south; and there's no reason to believe there were any
other openings here. It would have been solidly enclosed
other than that.
Of course, on the east side, there would have been the
stone stairs up and another stairway going up to the tapanco
at a higher level.
E: Essentially, it was an enclosed porch.
I: Yes. In other words, it wouldn't have been a porch.
"Outside of the cell is a small porch." That's the way they
describe it but in Spanish it's portalito. That's a little
portal, a little entrance way.
IVY/ESCOBEDO 32
C: . as opposed to a .
I: Portarilla. Portarilla is a formal entrance space. A
portal is just an arch or an entrance way. As opposed to a
portarilla. portarilla. This is a portalito, a little arch
or entrance way.
Now we can go into the cell itself.
E: . to the archway.
I: This is primarily serving as an entrance into this room.
Rather than a major room in its own right. The cell here, as
I read to you earlier, is described as being a cell rather
than the infirmary. Now, interestingly enough, there is some
indication of an infirmary operation associated with this
place but it's not sufficient to call this an infirmary.
In '72, this place is described as a cell with all the
standard fixtures and furnishings of a cell • . a painting
of Our Lady of Sorrows; it has a table with a drawer and a
key; it has a bed with two blankets and pillows; it has six
chairs; a small chest with towels for shaving, and razors;
wash basin for the same purpose. In other words, you could
call it a barberia just as easily as an infirmary.
In that cell, that goes on the inventory; in that cell
was a large cedar chest with five bed sheets and four shirts
for the sick, for the infirm.
And, for the refectory, there are four sets of
tablecloths, twelve napkins, twelve metal spoons and so on
and so on. A whole bunch of supplies for the refectory. You
could call it the refectory store room just as well you
IVY/ESCOBEDO 33
I: could call it the infirmary.
To go on with the description of this room, it says this
cell had such and such a set of measurements; it had an
alcove; and it had a stall and a door that leads to what we
were talking about before, to the little pulpit. Again, the
word stall is Leutenniger's translation of the word tapanco.
So this is apparently saying that there is a tapanco, some
sort of a loft structure, built into this room, this large
room, the "infirmary" as well as one outside.
The traces of wall division, dividing the alcove from
the rest of the room are still apparent on the wall. You can
see just a few inches to the east of the opening that would
have led to the pulpit. Looks like it's slightly less than a
foot thick. On the other wall, the south wall of this room,
you can see the same set of marks. Also about a foot thick.
And the markings in the plaster itself seem to indicate that
those were wooden beams; that we're seeing marks of wooden
beams pressed against the plaster. You can trace this most
of the way up. As a matter of fact, you can't trace it most
of the way up. You can trace to where there are apparently
two cirular scars in the wall as though the alcove structure
was only beneath the loft. The loft itself was open to the
rest of the cell. And underneath it, was this little alcove
which enclosed the doorway opening up the pulpit. See what I
mean? You can see the mark running up to here then you see
the circular scar in the wall surface. And you don't r eally
see a mark going up any higher than that.
IVY/ESCOBEDO 34
I: The same thing over there. You see nice straight lines
like wood grain effect running up to that particular scar .
And above that, you don't see. . you see cracks, and you
s ee patches, but you don't see, again, that distinct impress
in the area there.
C: We mentioned some of the silver; some of the other things
that were here for dining purposes. It could very well be
that this was sort of a store room under the careful eye of
the Franciscan fathers. And here, in times of danger, their
more prized possessions could be more carefully cared for.
E: Another thing too, Gil, you might look at is that one of
the problems we have here is the capillary action that we've
talked about water coming up the walls and so forth.
If we're trying to keep those articles high and dry
I: This is the best place to store anything that you don't
want to have any water damage at all.
However, Gil,. . this is a long list . "large
cedar chest," all these sheets, all these napkins, "spoons,
two ounces of saffron, two ounces of pepper and cloves, one
small kettle and a stirrer for chocolate, two cups of polvo,
two metal plates, arroba of chocolate, a brazier, a copper
basin, a chamber pot and a basin made of copper." All that
stuff, that could all very easily have been stored on the
loft. The cedar chest, the big chest, could have been in the
loft area. In other words, in spite of all that stock, it
still wouldn't have obscured the actual useable floor.
something else of interest here about all this is it
IVY/ESCOBEDO 35
I: goes on to describe that up in this area there was a
chest as the archives of the mission. And in that chest was
the deed of the founding of the mission and an agreement
between concepci6n and Mission Rosario about dividing up a
group of Indians among them. Also stored in this chest was a
number of promissory notes, drafts, checks between the
mission and various persons.
And then it goes on to say that there is a desk in
here . I believe it referred to the desk earlier
anyway, there's a desk up in this room a nd it describes this
desk with its key, "serves as the archives for the presidency
containing the following documents." And i t has a
considerable list of documents de aling with all sorts of
agreeme nts about the missions in general and various
arrangements b e tween them and the Islanders, the Canary
Islanders.
Now that phras e , "the archives for the presidency,"
"archivo de la presidencia" would imply, at least for some
period of time, this cell served as the office for the
president of the Queretaran missions in Texas. And this desk
was the archive, was the desk that he worked at, and these
are his archival collection of all the primary,
principle documents for the Queretaran operation in the San
Antonio area. Tha t's the implication of the phrase. So, in
other words, this is not j ust a . if that proves to be
the case, this is not just simply anothe r cell . this
impression that we have of it being somewhat separate,
IVY/ESCOBEDO 36
I: somewhat distinct from the other cells. . the common
cells. Looking out over the miss ion operation and down,
monitoring the operations of the church. It's not an
accident that this is actually intended to be the principle
office for the Quertaran operation in the San Antonio area.
That would be both of great interest and sufficient
explanation for the peculiarities of the place.
As you see, we arrived here to measure some scars on the
wall above the stairway so see if that would fit the idea of
being a tapanco, a loft, and from there that got us to
noticing all the other things. And we went from measuring
simple scars on plaster to a whole re-evaluation and new
potential, at least, understanding of what this complex of
rooms and structures above the sacristy may have served as.
In other words, there's no end to it sometimes. It
keeps on going forever.
C: It sounds very interesting as we bring our concluding
comments here. Santiago, do you want to give us your
concludng comments?
E: Sure. Come over here, Gil. . I want to show you
something.
I: Oh yes , the floor.
E: Now we don't know when this brick floor was placed. You
can see by the pipe that goes through it, somewhere or other ,
there's water there.
I: We have no idea where it goes to.
E: Once the sand is removed, you have underneath it, ~
IVY/ESCOBEDO
E: the original plastered floor.
I: A bed of sand was put down and the bricks were laid
down.
37
E: If you want to, we can go downstairs and we can show you
what the effect these bricks are having on the roof of the
sacristy.
I: If this is about a tapanco, one of the reasons we
suspected this one here, the loft here , is because we started
out , among other things, measuring some cross vigas in one of
the rooms of the first floor convento structures . We came
down to measure those, also , to see if they correspond to
another tapanco, or loft, which was supposed to have been in
that room according to whether or not we had the order of
rooms correct in our interpretation of how the man doing the
inventory actually went through. Those beams correspond very
nicely to being the loft as described for that room. So the
size and construction of that lends itself quite clearly to
be more or less as the same thing we're seeing here.
C: We are not located within the sanctuary which is
underneath the floor, underneath the second floor, and we are
in the sacristy. Now the sacristy is well preserved and what
we're going to do here is continue our speculation on the
structural nature of the second floor and some of its
functions. We are now looking at it from the sacristy
upward, in the direction of the ceiling. Santiago , do you
want to give us some comments now as we look at the second
floor from this point of view?
IVY/ESCOBEDO 38
E: We are in the center of the sacristy and we're looking up
into the main line of the barreled vault. The barreled vault
runs east/west and what I'm showing Jake is a slide that I
took in 1981 of the sacristy wall. You might want to look at
it, Gil. What it shows is one single crack going along the
top of the sacristy. As you look at it now, you can see that
there have been quite a few . six major cracks now
beginning to occur. Now this is directly underneath the cell
that's located upstairs, the so-called infirmary, etc. What
is happening, it appears, that the weight of the brick that
was used as f l ooring, etc., are beginning to have the ir
stress on this part of the Spanish Colonial material. This
is the original construction. We want to point this out to
the Catholic church and hope that they can do something.
If we have to come in and take over the upper cell, one
of our recommendations would be remove the brick floor and
try to relieve as much weight as possible. Not only on the
decorative arch outside that is over the stairway but over
the vault inside the sacristy itself. This is a major
revamping of the structure itself and one that has not been
addressed because this is fairly new. This is something that
we're just now beginning to notice in t~last two years.
C: Thank you .
END OF TAPE I, Side 2, 20 minutes