EaRTh: Is there anything else that you remember growing up? 

Bill Weber: Actually, my great-great-grandfather married a Miwok Indian. And my great-grandma was half Miwok and half Peralta. And her son was my mother’s father.

EaRTh: She was? Did she teach you anything about her Miwok traditions or cultures? 

Bill Weber: Not too much, no.

EaRTh: So how did they meet? Was it common for a Spanish settler to meet a Miwok person? 

Bill Weber: Well, I guess they met in the foothills when he had the cantina. That's where the Miwok tribe is from, that area.

EaRTh: Then your great-grandmother was Jose Jesus Peralta’s daughter, right? And your mother came from that lineage? 

Bill Weber: Right. My mother was born at Hearst Castle. 

EaRTh: Where is that? 

Bill Weber: Hearst Castle is halfway between here [San Francisco Bay Area] and Los Angeles, where William Randolph Hearst lived. He was a newspaper magnate and one of the richest people in the world. He built a giant castle. We call it San Simeon. My mother’s father was the woodcarver at the castle. And he worked for Hearst for ten years. And my grandma (mother’s mother) was a maid there for ten years between 1920 and 1930.

EaRTh: And this castle still exists, I take it? 

Bill Weber: Yeah. Hearst owned one-fifth of the world's artwork at one time. And he had his own private zoo there. My grandma married the woodcarver, who also did all the landscaping. He had a place in Culver City.

EaRTh: Is your father's side recent, or is their history here in the United States also as old as that of your mother’s family? 

Bill Weber: They're from Wisconsin and came here, I think, in the late 1800s from Germany. 

EaRTh: So, much later than your mother's side of the family. Interesting. And tell us a bit about this artwork [pointing to the wall of artwork behind him]. Did you paint your ancestors? 

Bill Weber: Yeah, these are all paintings I did. I forgot to tell you that Peralta's third great-grandson is Che Guevara [the Argentine Marxist revolutionary who was a major figure in the Cuban revolution]. 

EaRTh: When you say third great, you mean third in terms of generations, right? So, tell us how you knew how to paint Peralta. Did you have another painting of his that you saw? 

Bill Weber: There are no paintings of him, but it was written that he looked exactly like one of his sons, Diego Peralta. And there's a photograph of Diego, so I used Diego's face.

EaRTh: Then I guess you might have done some research into what their uniforms were like? So, you're not directly related to Che Guevara then? He’s from a different branch of your family tree? Are there any other people on this side of the wall that are related to you [pointing to the wall behind Bill Weber, where many of his paintings of his ancestors hang]? 

Bill Weber: Well, my father was a navigator in the Army Air Force. He was the pilot... the navigator on General MacArthur's airplane after World War II. I was born in Tokyo. And since my dad was the navigator on MacArthur's plane, we got to live here in part of the Emperor's Palace in Tokyo. And that's where I lived until I was two years old.

EaRTh: Wow. Do you have a painting of your father? 

Bill Weber: No, but he kind of looked like Alfred Hitchcock. He was bald.

EaRTh: So, you were born in Japan. When did you move to Oakland? To this area? 

Bill Weber: Well, my dad was in the Air Force, so after we came back in 1952, we went to Arizona and a whole bunch of different Air Force bases all over the country. Until finally we settled down in the Bay Area around 1958, I think. I was eight years old. I’ve lived in the Bay Area ever since then. 

EaRTh: And is that when you first got to know your great-grandmother, when you came to live here? 

Bill Weber: Correct, yes.

EaRTh: Were there a lot of other family members from your mother's side still living here when you came? 

Bill Weber: Yeah, my uncle, my great-grandmother's son, and my grandfather. She had two sons. 

EaRTh: What about the other branches of your family? You said Maria Luis Peralta had three sons? 

Bill Weber: No, he had 12 kids. 

EaRTh: Did you know all of those cousins descended from all those children of your ancestor? 

Bill Weber: No, I guess I've met other Peraltas. There are all kinds of Peraltas all over. It was a big family. 

EaRTh: I'm sure it was, yes. Well, thank you so much for this very interesting history. 

Bill Weber: Thank you.