Maria de la Concepción Arguello, daughter of Don Jose Arguello, Comandante of the Presidio in San Francisco, and the first native-born Californian to become a nun. Her early life reads like a romance novel. In 1806, at the age of fifteen she fell in love with 43-year-old Count Nikolai Rezanov, founder of The Russian-American Company. The Count was an adventurer and a widower whose first wife had been 15 when they wed. He had traveled 90 miles from the Russian Fort Ross to negotiate a trade agreement with Concepcion’s father. Rezanov was charming and decorated with medals on his impressive uniform and sash. No doubt, he relayed the fairytale stories of life in the Russian royal court. He offered a glittering, cosmopolitan world that must have swept the young girl off her feet. Promising marriage, the Count took his leave and headed for St. Petersburg to report to the Czar and to get papal dispensation for his marriage to the 15-year-old Catholic girl. He died enroute to St. Petersburg. Concepción remained true to him and never married. Years passed before she learned of his death. Her piety and charitable works earned her the name, The Blessed One or La Beata. When the Dominicans came to California, she joined the order and helped to establish the convent in Benicia. She became Sister Mary Dominica and died on December 23, 1857, at the age of 67. Her grave is in St. Dominic’s Cemetery in Benicia. The ill-fated love story is the basis of a popular Russian rock opera, Juno and Avos. This mural depicts Concepcion as a young girl and as an adult nun. The man with the Russian medal, a St. George cross and military sash is the Count.