Their Mission: a Worthy Fete

It was in 1797 that Father Fermin Lasuen laid the first adobe bricks for a mission in what is now the San Fernando Valley. So this year local officials will mark the 200th anniversary of the day Lasuen inaugurated California’s 17th mission by raising a large cross and saying Mass at Mission San Fernando Rey de Espana.

But church officials and the San Fernando Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau also want to recognize the September day with more than a Mass. The question is: How?

They have talked about a street fair or “gala� dinner and have even toyed with the idea of inviting one of the members of Spain’s royal family to be master of ceremonies. Nothing has been decided, though.

What is agreed upon is that the mission played a pivotal role in the region’s history and is worthy of celebration.

“There will definitely be some kind of celebration,� said Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcon, whose district includes the site, in the appropriately named Mission Hills.

“It’s still being decided what that will be, but it’s going to happen.�

Alarcon used to play near the mission as a boy, and his sister was married there. Recently, he helped organize the volunteer group that restored the Memory Garden in Brand Park, once mission property.

“The mission is one of the pearls of the San Fernando Valley,� he said. “[And] we need to know our past in order to move into our future.�

Msgr. Francis J. Weber, the mission’s director, said Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, archbishop of the Los Angeles archdiocese, will officiate at the Mass in September.

The mission will also be celebrating the restoration of its Convento building, which was almost destroyed by the 1994 Northridge earthquake. The repairs are expected to be completed in March.

Weber ruled out a street fair or anything like it for the bicentennial because of the red tape involved. “It has become such a pain in the neck to get all the licenses you need to sell food,� he said.

A quarter-century ago, the city of San Gabriel staged a weeklong celebration of its mission’s 200th anniversary. Helen Nelson, the mission’s curator, said 1,000 volunteers helped with a 350-person dinner party, sold a commemorative book and staged an outdoor Mass attended by more than 650 people. “It’s a special time, a time to remember how California was created,� she said.

But Weber noted that San Gabriel Mission had a parish and the San Fernando Mission doesn’t, meaning there are not enough people to do that sort of work.

Although the Valley had long been inhabited by Native Americans, the mission was the first settlement in the area by Europeans. Like other California missions, its origins start with Father Junipero Serra, who was chosen by the king of Spain to build settlements along the California coast to claim the territory. Serra planned to build missions a day’s walk from one another on the 650-mile El Camino Real.

Lasuen selected the site of the San Fernando Mission because there was more water available and the Native Americans in the area were friendly. Those natives not only helped build the mission--2,000 were buried in its cemetery.

Before the priests abandoned it in 1835, the mission was home to a successful cattle ranch and vineyard. In later years, it was an army barracks, a hotel and a pig farm.

The mission again became a working church in 1923. Its chapel was destroyed in the 1971 Sylmar earthquake and was rebuilt.

“It’s important because it was here first, survived earthquakes and other natural disasters and is still here with us,� said Maxine Zewiey, a member of the Mission Hills Chamber of Commerce.