By Daily Press staff
MID-CITY The history of a name virtually synonymous with Santa’s Monica’s origins can now be written in full.
With the passing last week of Ysidro Reyes IV, a legacy that began with his great-great grandfather’s being awarded Boca de Santa Monica rancho in 1824, for service to the king of Spain in settling Alta California, has reached its end.
Reyes IV had no sons to carry on his familiar namesake.
His grandfather, Ysidro Reyes II, was born in an adobe near — what is today — Seventh Street and Adelaide Drive in 1842, and the moniker remained a constant in the burgeoning city by the sea up until the death of Reyes IV on Sunday, Sept. 9.
“When I die, I’m taking it all with me,” Reyes IV had joked, referring to his name.
Reyes IV, founder of the California Ambulance Service, worked as a mortician by trade, retiring in 2003. A funeral mass will be held for him today at Joan of Arc Catholic Church in Los Angeles.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 15, 2007. Read the original PDF.