A Family Scrapbook: Celebrating Saint Barbara’s 100-Year Legacy

This year we celebrate the centennial of our local patroness having first been ceremonially depicted at Fiesta by a local Native Daughter. Saint Barbara has appeared during Old Spanish Days at a variety of community pageants and festivities dating back to 1926. Let us recall how this iconic portrayal came about. 

Historically chosen by the Reina Del Mar Parlor of Native Daughters of the Golden West, an often young, unmarried woman was selected to portray Santa Barbara’s patron saint and participate in colorful Fiesta receptions, parades, and pageants. Locals and visitors alike have delighted in seeing her in full dress, wearing a velvet robe and golden crown, with chalice and palm frond in hand, standing regally and gazing over the crowds.

Local families, including those whose relatives portrayed Saint Barbara in those early years, still have cherished photographs, dresses, program notes, and souvenirs tucked away in desks, beneath beds, or preserved in scrapbooks such as ours, tracing their loved ones’ participation in those earlier Fiesta days.

Saint Barbara’s first appearance traditionally takes place at the Native Daughters’ Pre-Fiesta Tea, held in advance of the official start of Fiesta Week, most recently at Casa de Guerra downtown. She then appears at the opening night celebration on the Old Mission steps, spotlights ablaze, as the assembled crowds bask in her portrayal of the historic 11th-century saint who was imprisoned in her father’s tower because of her religious conversion until her untimely death at his hand.

Saint Barbara, along with all those who have portrayed her over the last century as the annual representative of our fair city, is featured this year in a finely curated exhibition now on display at the Santa Barbara Historical Museum. Mary Louise Days, parlor historian and herself Saint Barbara in 1965, has lent her own historic memorabilia and images to the exhibition and notes that the display offers a rich look at the history of this beloved Old Spanish Days icon and the women who have brought her to life.