"More than three hundred people attended yesterday 7th March 2013, in the Casa de Pilatos, the presentation of the book, "El Jardín de los tilos", by José Luis Olaizola, which recreates the life of Blessed Rafaela Ybarra Arambarri, the "Holy Grandmother", as she is known to her long line of descendants. The event was opened by the President of the Ducal House of Medinaceli Foundation, the Duke of Segorbe, who briefly evoked the figure of his great-grandmother, beatified in 1984 by John Paul II. Rodrigo Vilallonga, Director of the Fundación Beata Rafaela Ybarra continued, who, in addition to recalling the Blessed who founded the Congregation of the Holy Guardian Angels, spoke of the vast descendants who, from Bilbao, came to Seville. Finally, Don José Luis Olaizola outlined the complex personality of Rafaela Ybarra who, born into a singularly wealthy environment in nineteenth-century Bilbao, devoted her life, in addition to her large family, to rescuing from the trap of prostitution the many emigrants who, to work as domestic servants, arrived in the Biscayan capital attracted by the rapid process of industrialisation that the city was undergoing".
