Mission Fieldtrip Highlights
Presented by the students of
Harvey Green School
Fremont, CA
Looking at the Mission, two white buildings can be seen. The one of theleft is the church.
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The building on the right is the gift shop and museum but it originally was the convento where the priests used to live. These two buildings were connected before the earthquake of 1868. Restoration of the missing part of the convento is a part of another phase of rebuilding. Money for the restoration mainly comes from the annual Mission Days festival, now held one weekend in June.
A visit to the Mission begins in the gift shop.
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For the museum take a turn to the right, walk through a low doorway and see:
* Stone grinding tools and other artifacts from the pre-mission Ohlone Indians.
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* A room set up to resemble a padre's room. It has a not very comfortable bed, a table where writing took place as well as religious items a padre would use daily.
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* A padre's beautiful robe and other sacred church items he used.
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* The organ which was actually played in the Mission church. Mission San Jose was famous for its music and its Indian orchestra!
Other rooms in the museum show Indian life at the mission, life during the rancho days and statues and other artifacts from St. Joseph's church (1869). One room shows the mission restoration work which went on from 1981 through 1985.
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For the patio, church, and graveyard take a turn left turn out of the gift shop.
The patio has yet to be restored. There are some graves within it. A few olive trees still grow there from the days when many olives were collected for their oil. (Mission San Jose produced the most olive oil of all of the missions!) A few heavy beams are on the ground. They were once trees thatwere hauled in from the Oakland hills - more than 20 miles - and cut and shaped to hold up the covered walkway!
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The church is on one side of the patio. It's adobe walls are thick. On the outside it is is plain white. Inside it looks really grand and royal because of the decorations on the walls. They were restored to look the way Davila, the artist from Mexico, had painted them in the early 1800's.
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At one end is the main altar which has a statue is of St. Joseph. It was carved in the 15th century. The statue of Mary is from the 18th century.
A side door leads to the cemetery. Stone grave markers can be seen.
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The oldest sites, however, are marked pieces of wood. Ohlone Indians are not buried here. There is an Ohlone Indian cemetery not too far away.
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