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Note: de la Croix From Letters Written by Thomas Knight Mathewson
10/18/1933
Hettie has the map of Spain on her face. I know what she (Juana de la Croix) looked like because Mama says that her father told her that she is the most like her grandmother than any of his children.
8/8/1938
The Croix family were from Lille in France, on the border of Flanders. As one of the Privy Council of King Carlos I, Croix had something to do with the starting of Magellan on his astounding voyage. This may be a close as to how the Croix family came to Spain.
It is said that a prominent member of the Croix family went to Spain to help eject the Moors from Spain.
From "Conqueror of the Seas"
The story of Hernando Magellan and King Carlos I of Spain. Carlos' mother was a daughter of Queen Isabella and Ferdinand. He also ruled the low country. He went to Spain from Flanders as king in 1516. The four members of his Privy Council were Cardinal Fonsecca, Bishop of Burgos (?), the only Spanish member; Cardinal Adrian of Utrecht, afterward Pope Adrian VI; GUILLAUME de la CROIX, the monarch's sometime tutor, and Sauvage Niederlauder, the Chancellor.
From Chapman's "History of California"
Under Viceroy Burcareli (after 1771) the Commandante General of the northern frontier provinces (including California) was Teodor de la Croix, nephew of the Viceroy Francisco de la Croix. Teodoro was afterward Viceroy of Peru in Lima. It quotes a letter, in France, that Viceroy Francisco de la Croix wrote to his brother, Marques D"D'Huichin of Prevote, new Lille, France.
In A Letter From Thomas Knight Mathewson:
Juana de la Croix and Dr. Walker lived in London after their marriage. The Croix had been in Spain for three or four generations when Juana was born.
Juana was born of the nobility of Spain. She married a commoner and was disowned by her family. Portraits which people have seen of her showed her to be rather beautiful--dark and full figured.
In a letter from Australia to Thomas Knight Mathewson, January 8, 1935, Hettie Wooster (a daughter of either Robert or Charles Walker, grandsons of Juana de la Croix) sent the following information about Juana Walker: "My mother and aunt say that Grandmother Walker had always been surround with the idea of wealth, and her sons always contended there was money due them. Once when Grandfather Walker was away, two 'gentlemen' called and gave Grandmother a sum of money to sign a paper. When Grandfather returned he said that Grandmother had signed away her fortune."
From Thomas Knight Mathewson's letter to Nellie Brede Hall, January 13, 1933:
"Mama has told me of the house in London. After Grandmother Walker died noises could be heard in her room. One night it was still. No wind, but they heard the window blown open violently in Grandmother's room, and noises. They went up there and found the curtains of her four poster-bed off and thrown on the floor, but nothing taken! The Walkers couldn't stand any more and moved to another house. Her character was strong and energetic..." (Mary Mathewson remembers reading this story in "The Catholic Digest" between 1967 and 1972).
From a letter from Jennie Ellen Hall, daughter of Nellie Brede, granddaughter of Edith Pridmore Walker and great great granddaughter of Juana de la Croix: "They story that I remember Bab telling me about Juana de la Croix is that after marrying Dr. Walker, and moving to London from Madrid (?), she got the plague and died. Whether it was her ghost, or she came to him in a dream, her husband felt something wasn't right, so he had her coffin dug up; and when it was opened. he discovered fingernail scratches on the inside of the lid of the coffin, and her body was turned on its side."
Her ancestor is said to be Don Francisco, Marques de la Croix, Viceroy of Mexico from 1766-1771. He was from in France. He also signed the order for the founding of the San Gabriel Mission in California. In May 1770, Monterey Bay, having been located by Portola's second land expedition and a sea expedition of which Fr. Serra was a member, Viceroy Carlos Francisco de la Croix ordered survey of San Sonora, Mexico to Monterey; he was there to recruit troops and take them and their families to San Francisco to colonize that region and protect the mission it was proposed to found there. His order were faithfully carried out. The Viceroy founded San Francisco. His nephew was a viceroy of Peru.
There is a town called Croix about 4 miles from Lille in northern France, on the border of Flanders.
From a letter from Thomas Knight Mathewson 10/18/1933
Don Francisco, Marquis de Croix, was Viceroy of Mexico 1766-1771. He was a good viceroy. He had the finest wine cellar in the Mexico City, and he set a good table. Some people said he was a drunkard.
"But he was a better man drunk than most men sober," Bancroft says. Hurrah for Uncle Frank. When he returned to Spain he was made Viceroy of Valencia. He was fifty years in the service of Spain, but he was born in Lille in northern France. The Spanish branch of the family, OUR branch, were Spaniards, but had not been so long in Spain. Three or four generations maybe, when Grandmother was born in Madrid in 1817. About four miles from Lille is Croix, where our folks came from.
Sometime in 1903's
Grandmother Walker couldn't sign her name. Made an "X". And she was the bluest of blood of Spain and France. Marquises. A Spanish viceroy of Mexico and one in Peru. Born in Madrid, Spain 1817. The year Uncle Archibald was born. Juana de la Croix. They had servants to do their writing for them. In those days, it was rather looked down on. Vulgar to write.
source of the above information: Thomas Walker Mathewson and Connie Mathewson.
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