Ramona Lubo

Ramona Lubo (1865–1922) was a Cahuilla basketmaker known as the "real Ramona" who gained popularity from her association with the novel Ramona by Helen Hunt Jackson. and they lived in the area west of Bautista Canyon in California, which is known today as Juan Diego Flats. They had two children who died when they were young. Diego was mentally ill, and, at times, observed to act erratically. In March 1883, Diego took the horse of a white man named Sam Temple in order to ride home from San Jacinto. Temple pursued Diego and shot him 5 times, with Lubo as an eyewitness. Temple reported the death to local Judge Samuel Tripp, Lubo stated that he did not have a knife but she was not permitted to testify at the trial because she was Native. and was not officially repealed until 1955. Temple was acquitted on grounds of "justifiable homicide". George Wharton James showed one of Lubo's baskets at a lecture on "Poetry and the Symbolism of Indian Basketry" in October 1903. Lubo earned money from selling the baskets she made, washing clothes, and harvesting apricots.

Jackson believed that a novel would be more likely to capture people's attention than a work of nonfiction, stating in a letter to her friends in Los Angeles written on November 8, 1883, "I am going to write a novel, in which will be set forth some Indian experiences in a way to move people's hearts." However, this vision was not realized since Jackson died of cancer shortly after Ramona was published and the novel ended up serving more to contribute to a romanticized view of California than it did to draw attention to the experience of Native peoples. while others state that he planned to attend but decided not to after realizing that the popularity was negative. Some people did sympathize with him, however, such as the San Diego Union, which referred to him as a "good fellow in his own way."

Lubo was known to be shy and reluctant to talk about her past. Her friend and neighbor Fanny Contreras said, "When you talk to her and ask her about her past, she didn't want to talk about it, she just would cry. You couldn't get nothing out of her. That was just it, I think she felt so bad."

Death In February 1922 Lubo contracted pneumonia when she appeared at the National Orange Show in San Bernardino to promote the Hemet-San Jacinto Valley. She died five months later on July 20, 1922, at the age of 69. She was buried on the Cahuilla Reservation next to her husband, each grave marked with a small wooden cross. In 1931 the Ramona Pageant Association began an effort to put monuments on the graves, and on April 10, 1938, Lubo's headstone was revealed. It reads "Ramona" and was designed and carved by local residents. Diego's headstone was erected in 1956, reading, "Alessandro, Ramona's martyred spouse".