Family Celebrates 140 Years of Its Local History : Ceremony: The descendants of Don Bruno Orella gather in Santa Barbara to honor a man who arrived during the Gold Rush of the 1850s.

Don Bruno Orella, dead these last 89 years, nevertheless drew together his people in Santa Barbara Saturday.

More than 80 Orella kin, ages 2 to 90, arrived from Ojai and Oslo, from Los Angeles and New Jersey. They unveiled a plaque at the site of Don Bruno’s old adobe home downtown. They celebrated a special family Mass at Our Lady of Sorrows, and they opened a family exhibit that includes portraits and memorabilia at the Santa Barbara Historical Society Museum.

“This is like a life’s dream,” said Tracey Orella of Westfield, N.J., who collaborated with relatives Elizabeth Erro Hvolboll of Santa Barbara and Michael Haines of San Francisco in organizing the event. Orella came west with 2-year-old Christopher, Don Bruno’s great-great-great grandson, who slept through most of the formalities.

Don Bruno, born in Viscaya, Spain, came to California during the Gold Rush of the 1850s. He died in 1901 with a prosperous ranching business, more than 5,000 acres of Santa Barbara County property and 11 grown children.

The Orella clan is not the oldest in Santa Barbara, nor is its name the best known. But in a state of shallow roots and brief histories, the family might be a novelty--a clan that can closely clutch and loudly proclaim 140 years of local history.

Robert F. Erburu, a great-grandson of Don Bruno and chief executive officer and chairman of the board of Times Mirror Inc., the owner of the Los Angeles Times, presided over the State Street ceremonies.

“When I was a little boy, this is where we came to watch the fiesta,” he recalled during a break. His mother, 90-year-old Kathryn Erburu of Ojai, stood nearby. Around him buzzed a dozen more family conversations.

“He’s taken us back to the 15th Century,” said Elizabeth Hvolboll, nodding to Ricardo Perez-Rasilla, a far-flung relative who recently consulted genealogical archives in Spain.

Perez-Rasilla serves as commercial adviser to the Spanish ambassador in Oslo, Norway, but came west for the occasion. He was one of many government officials, local and international, who were enlisted in the day’s reminiscences.

“I’m not a member of the family,” said Ventura County Supervisor John Flynn, a lifelong family friend who joined the throng, “but I tend to follow them all around.”

Other invited guests included the Spanish consul general in Los Angeles, Don Eduardo Garrigues; Santa Barbara Mayor Sheila Lodge; and the Most Rev. G. Patrick Ziemann, auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles.

“When I heard about the fire . . . I wondered if we could still do this,” said Tracey Orella, referring to the blaze that consumed more than 600 residences here last week. “We decided that life goes on . . . but we offer our condolences to all the victims of the fire.”

The family began its day at 1029 State St., the former site of an 1857 adobe where Don Bruno Francisco Orella and Maria Monica de la Merced Gonzalez started their family.

The site now houses an investment company and, next door, Aldo’s Italian Restaurant. The property passed out of family ownership in the 1950s.

But Orella family members on Saturday morning presented the city with a 24-tile, Spanish-style plaque that recites the property’s history. With a family crowd clogging the sidewalk, the auxiliary bishop blessed the building.

The Mass at Our Lady of Sorrows followed, celebrated by the Rev. Virgil Cordano, pastor of the Mission Santa Barbara, with the Rev. Carroll G. Laubacher, pastor at Our Lady of Sorrows, assisting. The homily was delivered beneath a stained glass window donated to the church decades ago in memory of Don Bruno and his wife.

“The Orellas represent an interesting microcosm of old Santa Barbara,” said Laubacher, adding that the California wing of the family began with a Spanish-speaking immigrant who found success despite living in “a largely chauvinistic Anglo-Saxon world.”