Lifelong Arbol Verde resident, farmworker, nurse, devout Catholic matriarch

Nellie Villanueva, a lifelong Arbol Verde east barrio resident, farmworker, nurse, devout Catholic matriarch, Padua Hills Theatre Mexican folklorico dancer, beloved mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, great-great-grandmother, sister, aunt, and friend, has died.

Once described by renowned Latina actress Alma Martinez as “the first lady of Claremont,” Villanueva died peacefully on August 2, surrounded by her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and her older sister Mary Gutierrez Ruiz in the Arbol Verde east barrio home where she lived all her life.

Nellie was born May 26, 1932. Her parents, Don Leonardo Gutierrez Villafana and Dona Petra Ornelas Gutierrez Villafana, were Claremont pioneers whose family’s ancestral village was in Jesus del Monte, Guanajuato, Mexico. Leonardo, a full blood Purépecha Native American Indian, was working the citrus groves in Pomona when the Mexican Revolution broke out in 1910. Interviewed in 1978 by the Claremont Courier for “Pioneers,” a profile of the Arbol Verde east barrio by publisher Martin Weinberger, her mother Petra recounted, “These were dangerous times. Women were being raped and murdered during the revolution. My husband left his citrus job in Pomona and retrieved me and my first-born son Peter from Guanajuato, Mexico in 1912 and we escaped the revolution, settling in the ‘Tierra de Nadie’ unincorporated area known as Arbol Verde. For one year, we lived in the Serrano Indian tent encampment just west of the Indian Hill mesa site while our home was being built in the East Barrio.”

The Gutierrez/Villafana family was part of the largest diaspora migration from Mexico to the United States between 1910 and 1920. Millions of persecuted Catholic Indigenous peoples migrated and escaped to the United States. The Mexican Revolution was Marxist-inspired and anti-Catholic, the Catholic Church being the largest landowner in Mexico.

The youngest of ten children, she was born in the Gutierrez east barrio home on the corner of Blanchard Place and Claremont Boulevard. Due to racial restrictive covenants, the newly arriving immigrants of color created a settlement on the riverbed with foundations of river rock from the snowmelt from Joāt, the snowcapped mountain that would later be known as Mt. Baldy.

Her older brother Pete (the only sibling born in Mexico) bought musical instruments for all his younger siblings and paid for music lessons, including her piano lessons, and she became a fluent pianist. “The Gutierrez home was always filled with Mexican music and dancing with the smell of freshly baked flour tortillas emanating from the kitchen,” her family shared. “The Gutierrez household overcame the stressors of abject poverty and institutionalized racism with Mexican traditional music, the spiritual medicine of the heart.”

Because of the institutionalized racism that once existed in Claremont, she was forced to attend de facto segregated schools and was prohibited from interacting with white students at Claremont Grammar School (now Sycamore Elementary School). While her father worked two, sometimes three jobs a week as a citrus worker, she was raised by an older sister, Juanita Dominguez.

“She overcame major adversity in her childhood by relying on her Catholic faith,” her family said. “As a young child, she recalls taking flowers to the blessed Virgin at the historic Sacred Heart Chapel every May. Her father Leonardo helped build Claremont’s first Catholic Church with his own bare hands in 1938.”

While chaperoning her older sister Mary at a Sunday baseball game in Ontario in 1948, she met her future husband Alfonso “Poncho” Villanueva. Alfonso was a gifted athlete and was featured in two books written by Dr. Richard Santillan on the segregated Mexican American baseball leagues.

She became Mrs. Villanueva in 1949. She and Alfonso Sr. had five children. “Unfortunately, the marriage ended in divorce,” her family said. “She never remarried and chose to raise her children as a single mother on state welfare. Her five children attended Upland Schools, but they received all their sacraments at Our Lady of the Assumption Church in Claremont.”

In 1953, she was hired to work with the Mexican Players at Padua Hills Theatre. She recalled etiquette classes taught by Bess Garner at the Garner House (which now houses the offices of Claremont Heritage and the Claremont Courier) in a 2012 Courier Almanac story: “It wasn’t like work. It was sacred fun,” she said. “We were one big family, and it did not seem like work.” She grew up in the east barrio with “Chavela” Martinez, who also worked as a dancer at Padua Hills Theatre. Chavela married Joe Alba and is the grandmother of actress Jessica Alba, who graduated from Claremont High School in 1997 at age 16.

Strong familial relationships were established at the Padua Hills Theatre among the Mexican American workers. Marriages were consummated and large families were formed. Her dance instructors Alice Flores, Mickey Velasquez and Casilda Amador became lifelong friends. Alice and Gilbert Flores (musician, singer and dancer) baptized her daughter Emily, who died in 1987. She worked at the theater from 1953 to 1957, when she became pregnant with her youngest child Steven.

She was a farmworker growing up, traversing the “pisca” (corn harvest) every summer in the San Joaquin Valley, the agricultural breadbasket of California. She and her children did the hard labor of picking fruit and vegetables during the summer months in order to buy school clothes for the upcoming academic year. Her son Alfonso Jr. remembers, “My brothers and sisters would wake up at 4:30 a.m. to the smells of fresh handmade tortillas and beans and potatoes that would sustain us when we worked in 100 degree heat in Fresno and Merced. It was backbreaking work. We lived in large barns and had no running water or flush toilets.”

In 1966, she took advantage of then Governor Ronald Reagan’s “workfare” program. Designed to replace state welfare in California, she secured employment at General Dynamics in Pomona. She later decided to continue her formal education and received an associate of arts degree in nursing at Citrus College. “She retired with dignity, working as a licensed vocational nurse in 2004,” her family said.

“A devout Catholic, she served the historic Sacred Heart Chapel in the east barrio and Our Lady of the Assumption Church community with a sacred and holy commitment,” her family said. Her close friend was the late Monsignor William Barry, who served as a surrogate father for her son Al when her husband was incarcerated in state prison. “Father Barry would always stop by and break bread with the Villanueva family whenever one of her children received a new sacrament at OLA,” her family said. She served as a Eucharistic minister, sacristan and belonged to three prayer warrior groups. She and her son Al became Eucharistic apostles for divine mercy under the tutelage of Father Chris Troxell. They visited the sick and dying in local hospitals. She was a daily communicant along with her son Al until her health prevented her from attending daily Mass.

She involved herself with the Chicano movement of the mid-1960s, following the footsteps of her son Alfonso Jr., the founder of El Barrio Park Committee, El Barrio Park, and the Arbol Verde Preservation Committee, which celebrated its 50 year anniversary in July 2023.

During Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty and Great Society programs of the mid-1960s, she worked as a coordinator for Neighborhood Youth Corps, helping young Chicanos from the east barrio find summer jobs. She attended direct actions with Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, Rodolpho “Corky” Gonzales, and the United Farm Workers Union. She was also active in the San Gabriel Valley Latino Roundtable with community leader Jose Calderon, attending the first Cesar Chavez breakfast in 2004. She was also involved in Club De Damas and the Well Baby Clinic.

“Nellie emphasized the value of education to all her children,” her family said. “In 1960, when all the Mexican American families in the east barrio were busy buying color television sets for their children, Nellie worked as a nanny for wealthy white women and saved enough money to buy her children a new set of 1960 World Book Encyclopedias. She was proud of the fact that her sons Al and Ronnie received full academic scholarships to Stanford University and Pomona College, respectively.”

In May 2012 during the commemoration of the Arbol Verde east barrio’s 100th anniversary at El Barrio Park, she was honored by state Senator Gloria McLeod and LA County Supervisor Gloria Molina for community service to the Arbol Verde east barrio.

She participated in the Padua Hills Theatre workshop as a Padua Hills alumnus at the Claremont Helen Renwick Public Library in 2007, which was sponsored by the Arbol Verde Preservation Committee and Claremont Heritage.

Her true love of her life was spending time with her children, nephews and nieces, and her grandchildren. “Lena Villanueva Serrato, Nellie’s grandchild, described her grandmother ‘as my lifelong beautiful little angel and spiritual guide,’” her family said.

She enjoyed playing tennis at the Claremont Colleges and was a gifted, avid bowler. Her favorite passion was dancing. She and her son Al were ballroom dance partners for more than 30 years. Their last dance was a cha-cha at Father Charles Ramirez’s OLA retirement party one year ago.

“She walked in humility and had a shy passive smile,” her family said. In 2012, she was baptized by Deacon Bob Steighner at OLA.

She and her son Al embarked on two religious pilgrimages to the Holy Land in 2013, and to Our Lady of Guadalupe Basilica Shrine in Mexico City in 2015. “She befriended Los Angeles Catholic Archbishop José Gomez during the two pilgrimages and was accordingly adopted by him,” her family said. She visited her ancestral village in Jesus del Monte, Guanajuato, Mexico in 2016.

She was preceded in death by her beloved daughter Emily in 1987.

She is survived by her children Yolanda, Al, and Steven of Claremont’s east barrio, and Rolando (Ronnie) of Rancho Cucamonga; eight grandchildren; nineteen great-grandchildren; two great-great-grandchildren; sisters Lupe of Montclair, and Mary of Ontario; and various nephews and nieces.

A public viewing and recital of the rosary will be held from 5:30 to 8 p.m. Sunday, August 11 at Todd Memorial Chapel, 570 N. Garey Ave., Pomona 91767. A funeral Mass of the Resurrection will be held at 9:30 a.m. Monday, August 12 at Our Lady of the Assumption Catholic Church, 435 Berkeley Ave., Claremont 91711. Interment will follow at Oak Park Cemetery, 410 Sycamore Ave., Claremont 91711.

The Villanueva family requests that in lieu of flowers donations be made to your favorite charity.