Concepción Argüello

[1] She was born at the Presidio of San Francisco and at 15 she fell in love with Nikolai Rezanov, the visiting head of a Russian expedition to Alaska.

His expedition had hard times in California and his involvement with Argüello was at first motivated by practical considerations, since the Spanish Crown did not permit giving aid to Russians.

Late in her life, she became a Dominican nun at Santa Catalina Monastery and Academy which was founded in Monterey in 1851, where she was given the religious name of Sister Mary Dominica, O.P.

According to another source, Argüello was waiting for the pope's permission to marry Rezanov, as he was a member of the Russian Orthodox Church and not a Roman Catholic.

She learned of Rezanov's death a year later in 1808, when the head of the Russian American Company, Alexander Baranov, wrote to her brother.