20th Century Jesus Moreno de Soza

Maria Jesus Moreno, the third wife of Antonio Campa Soza was born in Los Angeles, California on December 24, 1855. In her 1939 Reminiscences interview, she stated: "My parents were married in California ... We were all born in California, four living and two dead before we left there."¹¹²

What brought her father, Jose Benito Moreno to Los Angeles, California c.1852/3 from Ures, Sonora is unknown. From family oral history, in Ures, Sonora, Jose Benito Moreno married a sister of Leopold Carrillo. A daughter, Petra Carrillo Moreno was born of that union in 1847, and later c.1851, her father would become a widower.

Petra Carrillo Moreno was subsequently brought to Tucson by her uncle Leopold Carrillo, who provided for her support, upbringing and education. With assurance that his daughter Petra was in good hands, Benito migrated to Los Angeles. In California, Benito married Maria del Refugio Villalobos, who had been born in California c.1837.

This migration chronology is important in tracing the path of Jose Benito Moreno; the father of Petra Carrillo Goodwin (nee Moreno) and her sister Maria Jesus Moreno. In 1878, Petra's husband Francisco Goodwin, would be a witness at the wedding of Maria Jesus Moreno to Antonio Sosa at San Agustin Church, Tucson.

Back in California, church records have been diligently and extensively searched, and no trace of marriage vows between Jose Benito Moreno and Maria Refugio Villalobos have been located. Likewise, the baptismal records for their daughter Maria Jesus Moreno, by whose account, was born in Los Angeles on December 24, 1855.

What has been found¹¹³ is baptismal evidence of José Benito and Maria Refugio's children, to wit: