Estepona emigrants in Hawaii (1911-1913): The Vílchez brothers

ENGLISH VERSION - GOOGLE TRANSLATE

Starting in 1907, several campaigns to recruit farmers were carried out in Spain and Portugal, especially in Castilla, Extremadura and Andalusia (mainly Málaga and Granada), to work sugar cane in Hawaiian plantations.

Some 8,000 Spanish compatriots responded to these calls with the false promise of a substantial improvement in their living conditions. Part of the contingent was made up of families and citizens of Estepona.

Based on the records available, it is estimated that around 300 people left this town. Many of the participating families were intimately related to each other, so we could speak of them moving to Hawaii, or being constituted, thanks to the trip, authentic groups, clans, family members. An example of this is the Aguilar - de Hoyos families, the Vílchez brothers and the Caravaca - Infante families.

Much of the information about the Vílchez brothers and their family comes from D. Joey V. Nardone, grandson of José Vílchez Gil.

Francisco, Antonio and José Vílchez Gil were the sons of Bartolomé Vílchez Troyano and Francisca Gil López; his paternal grandparents Antonio Vílchez Rocha, son of Bartolomé and Bárbara, and María del Pilar Troyano Herrera, daughter of Nicolás and Catalina, and maternal Juan Gil Crespo, son of Francisco and Josefa, and Isabel López Montoya, daughter of Juan and Ana.

Francisca Gil López died young and Bartolomé Vílchez remarried María Ruiz Sánchez, who went to Hawaii aboard the S.S. Willesden in 1913.

José Vílchez Gil (Estepona, 04/21/1891 (1) – Redwood City, California, 1954), aged 20, embarked in 1911 on the SS Willesden with his brother Antonio, two years (2) older than him, both singles. A third brother, Francisco, remained in Spain and it seems that he died from a discharge while working on a power line in Melilla. 

The Vílchez brothers (? on the left): Antonio (center) y José (rigth).
Fuente; Joey V. Nardone

From the press of the time we have the following news about Francisco Vílchez Gil, the brother who did not travel to Hawaii: 

Newspaper El telegrama del Rif. Melilla 9/11/1912

From this announcement it can be deduced that it is very likely that Francisco Vílchez Gil knew Adolfo Chacón de la Mata, a famous politician and Freemason.

Newspaper El telegrama del Rif. Melilla 26/05/1913 

The two Vílchez brothers, Antonio and José, emigrated on the SS Wilender in 1911, and in March 1917, they left with their families for California aboard the SS Great Northern. They were accompanied by their father, Bartolomé Vílchez Troyano and wife, and José's brothers-in-law: Diego and Francisco Aguilar de Hoyos.

Antonio Vílchez Gil married in Honomu (Hawaii) on January 1, 1916 with Hormecinda Oncina Tendero, born in Monóvar (Alicante) in approx. 1896, daughter of Pablo Oncina Payá and Remedios Tendero Quiles and who arrived in Hawaii aboard the Harpalion .

Source: Ancestry

Hormecinda died shortly after getting married and Antonio Víchez married Emilia Expósito Sánchez, a native of Órgiva (Granada) and a few years older than him, with whom he had four children.

The 1920 US Census records that Antonio Vilchez (Bilche) worked in the fields, lived on Wattem's St in Washington, Alameda, CA, with his wife Emilia (Emily) and four children: María (Mary), 5 years old, Encarnación (Carnation), 3, Antonio (Antony) 1 and José (Joseph) months.

According to Joey V. Nardone, Mary was the daughter of Emilia Expósito, from a previous marriage, and Antonio raised her as if she were his own.

From the 1930 census we know that Antonio Vílchez Gil continued to work in the fields as a pruner, had his own home on Railroad Ave. in Rocklin, Placer, CA, and had a fifth son named Juan (John), age 6.

Antonio Vílchez Gil and familiy. Source: Joey V. Nardone

Antonio died on January 18, 1942 in Rocklin, Placer County and his wife Emilia on July 12, 1971.

Fuente: Find a Grave

José Vílchez Gil, who lived in Hilo, Hawaii, married Isabel Aguilar de Hoyos (Estepona, 1893 – Mountain View, California, 1979) in Honomu in 1916.

Although they migrated as farmers, some of those who moved to California did not initially engage in farm work. José Vilchez Gil, the grandfather of Joey Vílchez Nardone, was employed in San Francisco with the Southern Pacific Railroad.

José Vílchez and Isabel Aguilar had two children. The first, a boy, died in childbirth. The second was a girl, she was born on July 16, 1923 in San Lorenzo (Ca) and they named her Frances Mary Vílchez Aguilar. They lived in the Visitation Valley area of San Francisco, where the young woman studied. In elementary school she received the prestigious American Legion Award, which is very commendable considering that her parents were Spanish emigrants. She subsequently attended high school, graduating from Balboa High School in 1942 and being the Secretary of her High class. Frances continued her career attended college, secretarial and stenographer school. She was as a top executive with the J. Theodore Erlin Company d.b.a. San Francisco Warehouse Company from 1942 to 1982. They would later leave San Francisco and move 25 miles south on the peninsula, where Frances would marry Zola Joseph Nardone on October 11, 1958. born July 11, 1909 in Manhattan, New York. Although he was nearly 15 years her senior and of Italian descent, from Puglia, they met at the Methodist Church in Redwood City, CA. In San Francisco, on October 24, 1959, his son Joseph E Nardone (Joey Vílchez Nardone) would be born. 

José Vílchez Gil

Isabel Aguilar de Hoyos and her daughter Frances

Frances Vílchez Aguilar

José Vílchez Gil en la plantación

José Vílchez y su hija en el Valle de la Visitación de S. Francisco

José Víchez con su esposa y unos amigos salmantinos (Los Sánchez). A la derecha de Isabel un hermano menor, Francisco Aguilar de Hoyos; luego su cuñado Eduardo López y su esposa,  María Aguilar de Hoyos (María López), la única hermana de Isabel Aguilar Hoyos (Isabel Vílchez) y Francisco Aguilar Hoyos en esta foto.

We are aware of the applications for nationalization of José and Isabel:

Fuente: Ancestry

According to these requests, José was born in Estepona on May 10, 1891, and Isabel on March 4, 1893. They were married in Honolulu on July 8, 1916.

According to the testimony of the grandson, Joey V. Nardone, the family of José Vílchez Gil lived well, they had good jobs. Their daughter, Frances, went to school and earned the American Legion Award in elementary school and went to college, and her son also went to college and earned an MBA.

         Joey Vílchez Nardone has worked in the pharmaceutical industry for many years. He is a multi-talented man, known as a singer, songwriter, actor, and radio podcast host.

REFERENCES:

  (1) Date of the birth certificate of José Vilchez Gil in the Civil Registry of Estepona. Pages 298-299 of the book by F. J. Albertos “Spanish immigrants in Hawaii”.

(2) According to Mr. Joey V. Nardone, grandson of José Vilchez Gil, his great-uncle Antonio was two to four years older than his brother José.

GRATITUDE:

To Mr. Joey V. Nardone for his collaboration and contribution of photographs.

NOTE:

Most of the information and images are courtesy of Joey V. Nardone, thanks to the fact that his grandmother, as the matriarch of the family, kept the documentation and photographs of all of them and later passed them on to her daughter and grandson her.

For the elaboration of the biographical reviews he used the following sources and resources:

Albertos Carrasco, Francisco Javier. "Inmigrantes Españoles en Hawaii". Editorial Amazon.

Ancestry. Web para la elaboración de árboles genealógicos.

 https://www.ancestry.com/

Archivo Histórico Municipal de Estepona. AHME.

Family Search. Web para la elaboración de árboles genealógicos. 

https://www.familysearch.org/eurona/feed/home 

Find a Grave. Recopilación de tumbas del mundo. 

https://es.findagrave.com/ 

Hawaiian Spaniards. Grupo de Facebook. 

https://www.facebook.com/HawaiianSpaniard/ 

ODT. Obituary Daily Times. 

https://sites.rootsweb.com/~obituary/using_db.html 

Pérez Martín, José. "Emigración Española a Hawái". Editorial Alhulia.