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Chapter History |
The Estudillo Chapter was organized on March 12, 1940, with twenty-eight charter members. A gavel was presented to the chapter by our Organizing Regent at our first meeting. This gavel has been used to open and close every meeting since the chapter's inception. The gavel has two lovely brass plates. One plate states: "Estudillo Chapter Daughters of the American Revolution 1940." The other plate says: "Presented by Alice Caldwell Mathers, Organizing Regent and First Chapter Regent."
The 1940s were dominated by World War II. European artists and intellectuals fled Hitler and the Holocaust, bringing new ideas created in disillusionment. War production pulled us out of the Great Depression. Women were needed to replace men who had gone off to war, and so the first great exodus of women from the home to the workplace began. Rationing affected the food we ate, the clothes we wore, the toys with which children played.
Hemet-Ryan Airport hosted an Army pilot-training school from 1940 to 1944. A student named Chuck Yeager - then Cadet Chuck Yeager and now General Chuck Yeager - was in the class of 1942. General Chuck Yeager, unquestionably the most famous test pilot of all time, is the pilot who broke the sound barrier in 1947.
Ryan Air Attack Base is named after the late Claude T. Ryan, who is most famous for having designed the Spirit of St. Louis airplane, and who began the Ryan School of Aeronautics in Hemet during World War II. Through contract with the federal government, 14,000 army cadets were trained to fly.
The chapter was named for the Estudillo family whose members were prominent Hispanic pioneers. This family obtained their land through a Mexican Land Grant containing much of what is now the San Jacinto Valley and beyond, an area which includes Hemet, Riverside County, CA. Unlike most Land Grant families, the Estudillo family continued to play an active role in our valley for more than a century after California became a part of the United States.
Francisco Estudillo (1844 - 1921) became one of the chief developers of this area. He ran successfully for a term on the Board of Supervisors, served on the local school board, and was the second mayor of San Jacinto. His home was built in 1884 and is now called The Estudillo Mansion. It was the grandest home of its day in our valley and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and the California Register of Historic Resources.