Estella Duffy; Scion of 2 Historic Families
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Estella Carrillo del Valle Duffy, descended from both the historic Carrillo family of California and Spain and the Adams clan of revolutionary America, died Tuesday at her home in Hancock Park.
James B. Duffy III, one of her two sons, said his mother had been suffering from Parkinson’s disease. She was 80.
Her grandfather was James Nelson Dowling, a direct descendant of John Adams, while her mother, Clara Dowling, traced her lineage to the Carrillos, the historic family first recognized in 1689 in Spain when they helped finance the exploration of the Straits of Magellan.
Mrs. Duffy’s great-great-great-grandparents were married in the Carmel Mission in 1781 by Father Junipero Serra. The bridegroom, Jose Raimundo Carrillo, had come with Serra to San Diego in 1769 when the Spanish crown ordered the establishment of the Catholic missions.
Over the years the Carrillos flourished. A son of Jose Raimundo was a delegate to the Monterey convention that was to lead to California’s admission to the United States in 1850; the family acquired much of Monterey, Santa Barbara, and Coronado and North islands, and they and their kin--the Bandinis, Reyeses and DeBakers--lived in the finest homes in the state, one of them being where the Pico House in downtown Los Angeles now stands.
They acquired hundreds of acres west of Sepulveda Boulevard that they donated to the government for the use of veterans. A veterans hospital and cemetery stand there now.
Mrs. Duffy was a graduate of the Marlborough school who lived in Los Angeles all her life. She was the widow of James B. Duffy Jr., a retired Navy officer and oil executive.
She also is survived by another son, Peter Carrillo Duffy, and three grandchildren.
A Rosary will be recited tonight at 7 at St. Brendan Catholic Church in Los Angeles, with a Mass there Friday morning at 9:30. Interment will follow at Holy Cross Cemetery.
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