This past weekend on my way back to Cardiff from Idyllwild I drove through Anza; on my way through I noticed the Cahuilla cemetary next to the casino. I'd never noticed it before so I decided to check it out. To my surprise I found the graves of Ramona who died in 1922 and Alessandro who died in 1883. I was surprised because as far as I know Ramona and Alessandro were fictional characters from the story "Ramona" written by Helen Hunt Jackson that was then adapted into the Ramona Pageant. In the story Alessandro does die before Ramona; the couple move to the San Bernadino mountains and then Alessandro goes crazy and steals a horse. The man he steals the horse from hunts him down and shoots him. However, the rest of the story is that Ramona then marries another man and they move to Mexico, so why would she now be buried next to Alessandro in the San Bernadino mountains? I'm not sure what the story is behind these graves, but I am intrigued.
