This week we learned of the May 11 passing of J. D. Harper, 77, owner of Crestview Pharmacy since 1964. His sons Jerry and David manage the longtime neighborhood business today.
In April 2004, historian and Brentwood neighbor John Leffler and I interviewed Mr. Harper in one of the booths at the pharmacy (once part of a popular soda fountain there). We’ve added a new feature on the website, at right, that includes excerpts from our interview. In it, Mr. Harper shares history of his life in Austin and of other people and places in our area.
He worked as a pharmacist for 52 years, 48 of them at Crestview. And, he always was a good neighbor to our community.
As one of the owners of Crestview Shopping Center, Mr. Harper gave his approval to Jean Graham’s mosaic Wall of Welcome project, installed on the center’s private property, and he spoke at the wall dedication in 2008. (The photo at right is of the pharmacy’s tile on the mosaic wall.) He also was committed to sustaining the longtime shopping center, established in 1952 in the Crestview neighborhood, including the pharmacy and all the other businesses there (more about them in next week’s blog).
In 2008, Mr. Harper gave Rob and me permission to show our film A Community Mosaic inside the pharmacy during the Violet Crown Festival, held that October at the shopping center. His only request was that we not set up too early, since a group of longtime neighbors met there every Saturday morning, and he didn’t want them to be disturbed. The men got together “to tell tall tales and ponder world problems over coffee,” according to Mr. Harper’s obituary. (We can only imagine the great stories they shared!) For several years, the pharmacy also helped sell copies of our film.
Visitation with Mr. Harper’s family was held Wednesday, May 16, 2012, 6 to 8 p.m., at Cook-Walden Funeral Home, 6100 North Lamar Boulevard. Mr. Harper’s funeral was held Thursday, May 17, 2012, 2 p.m., at Cook-Walden. Memorials may be sent to Shriners Hospitals for Children, 815 Market Street, Galveston, Texas 77550. Condolences may be posted on Cook-Walden’s website.
Next week on Voices of the Violet Crown, we’ll feature more about the people and businesses of Crestview Shopping Center.
In early 2003, when a small group of us neighbors (soon to become the nonprofit Violet Crown Community Works) envisioned the very first Violet Crown Festival, the heart of the event was clear:
—See Jean Graham’s mosaic Wall of Welcome become a reality.
—Celebrate the Brentwood and Crestview neighborhoods, which we see as sharing many common concerns and goals.
—Bring together all elements of the community—individuals of all ages, schools, neighborhood associations, community groups, churches, and businesses.
—Strengthen our sense of place, by gathering and preserving our neighborhood’s history and community resources and sharing those with festivalgoers.
—Create an event that, like the Wall of Welcome, would reflect the unique spirit of Brentwood and Crestview.
FIRST FESTIVAL: MAY 17, 2003
Few of us planning the first festival got much sleep the night before, and two highlights of that too-early morning stand out especially for me.
The first happened before the festival even began. Domino the Pig escaped from the petting zoo, disappeared into the neighborhood, and six months later resurfaced as someone’s pet, living for a time at Woodrow and Arroyo Seco. (Read more about him here.)
The second became part of something I wrote in 2006. Vision was my view of the festival and of Violet Crown Community Works, as a longtime volunteer and founding board member. Vision also was included in a festival handbook that VCCW board members Shayla Fleshman, Amy McGeady, and I prepared that fall, with the help of students from the UT McCombs School of Business. I continue to update it, and you can read it in its entirety here. All of the indented quotes in this post are from Vision, including this one:
Somehow, even with too little time, too much to do, and too few volunteers to plan it, on the morning of our first festival we were ready. After putting up displays in the Community Tent, we looked out to see if anyone at all would show up. Slowly, young families, older neighbors, and people of every age in-between began to arrive, and they kept coming all day. They looked around as if the festival was something they’d waited for all their lives but didn’t know it until that moment.
Above, from left, Diane Bennett, Jean Graham, Susan Burneson, Sandra Miron, and Shayla Fleshman, at the end of the first festival.
COMMUNITY/HISTORY TENT
For the first five May festivals, we had a large tent in the middle of the park. Our intention was to strengthen festivalgoers’ sense of place and roots in the neighborhood. We shared Brentwood and Crestview community resources and history through exhibits and information tables. We held domino tournaments, coordinated by Seth Brower of the North Austin Lions Club. We featured demonstrations and displays by quilters, including Nadine Murphy from Crestview United Methodist Church, and other talented neighbors, including Jean Graham.
I remember especially some of the older neighbors who visited the tent, where there was plenty of shade and a quiet place to sit. Almost all of them stopped at the Welcome Table, talked with us, and signed our guestbook. We handed out 25- and 50-year pins, created by Jean Graham, to neighbors who had lived here that long, and they all were pleased to be acknowledged in that way.
I watched as one older couple walked through the park hand-in-hand, stopped to watch the action at the dunking booth, then strolled into the Community Tent, smiling like teenagers. An older gentleman who lived near the park visited us in the tent, checked out the festival, walked home, then came back again to see us in the afternoon. With each festival, we recognized older neighbors who came back year after year.
FROM JUGGLING TO UNICYCLING
In 2006, we added a popular juggling demonstration between the Community Tent and the kids’ area at the festival. Madi Ward was one of the people who tried their hand at it. Madi’s the youngest person we interviewed for our oral history project, and she’s an avid fan of the Violet Crown Festival. (Her mom, Angie, also helps coordinate the event.) In the video clip below, recorded September 19, 2009, Madi describes how juggling at the festival led her to learn another skill.
Since 2003, no matter what their ages, neighbors have come together to share the common ground of community at the festival. We created it to help raise funds for the mosaic Wall of Welcome, which was completed in March 2008. Today, the annual event is an enduring neighborhood tradition and continues to support worthy neighborhood enhancement projects.
From the first Violet Crown Festival in May 2003, we have seen how powerful creativity can be when its roots are set deep in the community, and its branches reach out to all of our neighbors.
Each of us is like one of the thousands of mosaic pieces on the Wall of Welcome, so unique on its own and yet so much more as part of a greater whole.
Festivals have been held every year since 2003. Spring festivals (in Brentwood Park, except 2011, when it was held at the 6701 Burnet Road Market)—May 17, 2003; May 2, 2004 (rain date); May 7, 2005; May 6, 2006, May 5, 2007, May 2, 2009; May 8, 2010; May 7, 2011; and May 5, 2012. Fall festivals (at Crestview Shopping Center)—October 11, 2008; November 14, 2009. The mosaic Wall of Welcome dedication, coordinated by Violet Crown Community Works and other neighbors and friends, was held at Crestview Shopping Center on March 29, 2008, so there was no Violet Crown Festival that spring.
Join us next time for another installment of Voices of the Violet Crown!
In 2010, we interviewed members of the Friends of Brentwood Park leadership team shortly before the group’s historic planting of 115 trees that November. Among them was Denman Glober, who talked about FOBP’s synergy. She defines it as:
The abilities and interactions between group members that build on each other and lead to accomplishing a greater goal.
Since FOBP officially adopted Brentwood Park in Summer 2009, the group already has accomplished a lot—the tree planting and dedication, a neighborhood survey and park master plan, regular park work days, and a park pavilion (now being built). During times of drought, FOBP members have provided supplemental watering to help keep stressed plants and trees alive. The group also helped support the installation of a purple martin house in the park in memory of neighbor Renald Ferrovecchio. (The April 1, 2012, dedication ceremony was coordinated by neighbor Michele Holt.) Little of this would have been possible without FOBP members’ vision, good energy—and synergy.
FOBP also helped fund Rob’s and my film We Planted 115 Trees and FOBP leaders’ videotaped interviews. You can view the film here and the full interviews on DVD at the Austin History Center. Learn more at FOBP.
And, congratulations to neighbors Rhonda Marple and Kat Correa, for their It’s My Park Day 2012 Best Photo and Best Story. See photo and story at Austin Parks Foundation.
The Violet Crown Festival now is an annual tradition, thanks to all the neighbors who step up to help, in large and small ways. Artist Jean Graham and I were longtime volunteers at the festival, beginning with the first one in 2003. Recently, Jean described how the challenging early years of creating the festival and keeping it going grew into something “powerful and bonding and community-oriented.” That’s what I remember about those times, too. This spring’s festival is on Saturday, May 5, in Brentwood Park. You can learn lots more about the event here.
Volunteers are essential for helping community groups thrive, but the camaraderie—the mutual trust and friendship—illuminates this truth:
What we contribute as neighbors matters.
The Community Links along the right list just a few possibilities for volunteering locally. You can learn about helping with more informal projects—planting and watering along Arroyo Seco and at the fire station, for example—through email lists or through our occasional Calendar, also on the right.
We learned recently from Michele Holt that Meals on Wheels and More has a critical need for volunteers. During the past two years, one hour a week, she and her young son have helped deliver meals for the agency. Find out how you can help.
And, from neighbor Holly Webber, news of the nonprofit Relief Nursery of Central Texas opening in the neighborhood in April. More info here.
Tune in next time for more Voices of the Violet Crown!
When I heard about Crestview Neighborhood Association’s Volunteer Appreciation Party on April 9, it got me thinking about all the different ways people contribute to our community.
Crestview neighbor Bob Harwood volunteered well into his 80s at the local Retirement and Nursing Center and now lives there. For years, he and his wife, Roberta, were active CNA members. A few years ago, I saw Bob outside Crestview Pharmacy, and we talked for a while. Rob and I have known him since the mid-1980s and often visited with him at Violet Crown Festivals. When Bob said goodbye, he added, “Thanks for remembering me.” I thought, “How could I forget you?” We featured Bob on the blog last Veterans Day, in honor of his heroic service during World War II. You can read more about him here.
Don Gresser and his wife, Gladys, had lived in Crestview for 61 years when we interviewed them in March 2009. In telling us about their lives, more than once they mentioned how they volunteered for one project or another. For many years, they helped distribute the CNA monthly newsletter. Gladys was active at Faith Lutheran Church, and Don volunteered with the Lone Star Girl Scout Council for 40 years. He also described how, closer to home, people always helped each other out.
“The neighborhood was such that nobody went out and bought a tool, until they checked with neighbors to see if they could borrow one from whoever had it. That’s the kind of neighborhood it was—still is to a great extent.”
When Don passed away in February 2011, we learned about his accomplishments in his career, in the military, and as a volunteer. He would be remembered, his obituary said, for his sense of humor, his great memory, his generosity—and being a good neighbor.
In that same vein, we also liked Hedrich Michaelsen‘s description of this spring’s It’s My Park Day, coordinated by the Friends of Brentwood Park. While volunteers did lots of mulching, trimming, weeding, and clearing, Hedrich said, something else was even more important:
“The strengthening of community ties to our park, as more than 75 friends and neighbors worked and laughed and enjoyed a beautiful morning together.”
To be continued next week, with “The Kind of Neighborhood It Is, Part 2″ on Voices of the Violet Crown!
“People are the real heart of this neighborhood’s history,” narrator Howard Bennett says in our film A Community Mosaic. “Our community has more stories than there are mosaic pieces on our amazing Wall of Welcome.”
Here are just a few of the stories we’ve gathered about neighbors who participated in the project.
Louise Cooke and Kay Swenson Ramsey loaned early photographs of the neighborhood that inspired some larger wall mosaics. Among them are Louise’s photo (right) including, from left to right, friends Nora Bradley, Ernie Bradley, David Cooke, Diane Cooke, Sylvia (Scooter) Rushing, and Elaine Cooke. One of Kay’s photos (right) is of her standing in front of a Chevy, with her dad, Gladstone Swenson, inside. She remembers riding in the car with her family when they first visited their Ruth Avenue lot, before their house was built.
Another of Louise’s photos that inspired a mosaic is of a tornado (below) seen near the neighborhood in the 1950s, when the family lived on Cullen Avenue. Louise shared with us her vivid memory of what happened that day:
“My husband saw it first. He called me, and I went outside to look. It was about where 183 and North Lamar meet.
“I was scared to death! We didn’t have them where I grew up. I went back in the house and kept folding diapers. I didn’t know what else to do,” Louise said, laughing. “I just had to keep busy!”
Louise’s husband, Glenn, took the photo of the tornado.
Gladys Gresser, whose daughter Diana made a tile for Gladys and her late husband, Don, believes the wall “shows pride in the neighborhood. Each of us has a part ownership in it.”
Barbara King (below) created a tile and helped during the wall installation. “Jean also taught me how to mosaic a birdbath, and it stands proudly in my backyard,” Barbara said. “I owe a lot to her.”
Like most people who made tiles, Wanda and Emory Muehlbrad attended a series of three mosaic classes led by Jean at the North Austin Lions Club. Wanda said it was the first time either she or Emory had ever created anything like that. At the sessions, Emory enjoyed sharing early stories of the neighborhood with what he called “other old-timers.”
Madi Wardcreated a tile with her parents, Angie and Bob Ward. Madi remembers how “working on the wall brought all of us in the neighborhood closer together.”
Bill Williamson, who enjoyed stopping by to help Jean and whose family has two tiles on the wall, told us, “I admire Jean. I’d do anything in the world for her!”
Visit this page for more Wall of Welcome stories, by Mark McNeese, Kristie Zamrazil, and others, and more tile images, featuring Ryder “Red Ryder” Schwartz, Domino the Pig, and more.
And, join us next time for more Voices of the Violet Crown!
We interviewed Louise Cooke on January 25, 2009; Jean Graham and Barbara King in December 2007; Gladys and Don Gresser on March 7, 2009; Wanda and Emory Muehlbrad on February 9, 2008; Kay Swenson Ramsey on January 19, 2009; Madi Ward on September 19, 2009; and Bill Williamson on October 7, 2007.
Seems like only yesterday! Late March is highlighted by anniversaries of a few historic—yet very recent—Brentwood/Crestview milestones.
On the evening of March 25, 2008, with little fanfare, Jean Graham completed the mosaic Wall of Welcome (W.O.W.) on Woodrow Avenue. The dedication celebration was held a few days later, on Saturday, March 29. (That’s the only year there hasn’t been a spring Violet Crown Festival since it began in 2003; instead, there was a fall festival in October 2008 at Crestview Shopping Center.)
Woodrow Avenue was blocked off in front of the wall, and hundreds of neighbors of all ages filled the street and strolled the shopping center. It’s likely that most of them helped with the project in one way or another during the five years it took to make the wall a reality. They may have attended or volunteered at the Violet Crown Festival (which was created to raise funds for the wall), made a tile, assisted Jean during the two-year installation, or supported the project in myriad other ways.
Our film A Community Mosaic premiered that day, with several showings at Mona Lee’s BriteLites Acting Studio. One highlight of the film is Jean’s story of how the wall came to be. Here’s a clip:
Also coming up is the anniversary of the dedication ceremony, held March 27, 2004, for a less-well-known mosaic project. The large mosaic, on a west wall of Brentwood Elementary School, also was created by Jean, with art teacher Linda Anderson, other teachers, and students. (See one of the more than 300 mosaic birds students created for the wall, below.)
The mosaic includes a banner with these words, written by a young Japanese girl:
“I will write peace on your wings, and you will fly all over the world.”
She wished for world peace and health, and she believed in an ancient Japanese legend: If you fold 1000 origami cranes a wish will come true.
The young girl was Sadako Sasaki. She completed 644 cranes before she died near the end of World War II, after the bombing of Hiroshima. In her memory, her friends made all the rest. Each year, Brentwood Elementary students make 1000 origami cranes and send them to Japan in honor of her.
Share your own experience of the Brentwood/Crestview mosaic walls through our comments link, below.
And, don’t miss Part 2 of “Lowdown on the W.O.W. and More,” coming next week on Voices of the Violet Crown!
It’s not too surprising that so much local community activity these days focuses on green growing things. One hundred years ago this area was described as “rich farming lands that once were illimitable prairies.” And, since neighborhoods began to be established here more than 60 years ago, people have continued to plant gardens, trees, and other landscaping, and they’ve worked together to create and enhance Brentwood Park and other public spaces.
Frances Evelyn (Mickey) Pease Bauer is one of the few people still living here who remembers what it was like before there were neighborhoods. Except for a short time in the 50s when her husband, Jim, served in the Navy, Mickey has lived within a few miles of the Pease family farm for more than 75 years. She has been here longer than anyone else we have interviewed for our Voices of the Violet Crown project.
Mickey’s father, known as Frank E. Pease, was named for his heroic Civil War ancestor Franklin Edmond Pease. Born in Washington State, with family in Wisconsin and Michigan, Frank moved to Texas as a young man and lived in Lockhart and Dallas before settling in Austin.
In 1936,Frank (with his sons, above) purchased 14 acres along the part of Upper Georgetown Road that is now Burnet Lane in Brentwood. The land backed up to Hancock Creek (Arroyo Seco) on the east and was surrounded only by a few other farms.
Mickey always had heard that she was related to Elisha Marshall Pease, a wealthy Austin landowner and early Texas governor. After doing some research, I discovered that the two families had common ancestors in New England. In 1835, E. M. Pease moved to Texas when it was still part of Mexico and later settled just west of the city limits of Austin. His large estate and the land around it eventually became what is known today as Austin’s Old Enfield neighborhood.
Compared to E. M. Pease’s estate and our neighborhood today, life on the Pease farm, north of the city limits—then 45th Street—might have seemed primitive, especially at first.
“It’s funny to look back at those times. It sounds like a fairy tale,” Mickey remembers. The family hauled water from a neighbor’s well and used lanterns for lighting. It was a few years before the house had electricity, running water, and indoor plumbing. Mickey started school nearby at Esperanza, an early county school (more about it here). As the family grew, Frank added rooms on to the small house (the new living room and porch are shown above).
In time, the farm became almost completely self-sufficient. Frank had worked in the dairy industry for many years, so the farm had cows, which provided milk and butter, as well as pigs and chickens. The family grew a large vegetable garden and peach and pecan trees, and they preserved the harvest. “We really didn’t have to go to the store too much to buy anything.” Despite the challenges, Mickey remembers it as “good clean living,” growing up on the farm with her five sisters and brothers (shown in the photo below). Mickey and several generations of her family have been active members of St. Louis Catholic Church for many years (more about it here).
By the early 50s, when the neighborhood began to be developed, Frank sold some of the land so that Brentwood Elementary and nearby homes could be built there. In the late 70s the rest of the property was sold, and lumber from the house was recycled by Mickey’s brothers.
Since then, the open lot where the Pease home once stood, across Burnet Lane from the 6701 Burnet Road Market, has remained undeveloped. You still can see some of the trees that Mickey herself planted there. She’s happy about that.
In the video clip below, Mickey vividly describes how her mother, Evelyn, tried something new with canning one year, before an unexpected, bitterly cold winter.
We interviewed Jim and Mickey Bauer on May 15, 2010.
Even the most seasoned meteorologists missed it. A dry winter was predicted at the end of 2011, which was the driest year on record in Texas. Instead, surprise winter rains have brought some long-absent green back to Brentwood and Crestview.
It’s still early, but spring’s on its way, and we’re turning more of our attention to our local greenscape. Community events by Friends of Brentwood Park, Sunshine Community Gardens, and Urban Patchwork Neighborhood Farms are coming up soon, too. All are worthwhile projects that need our support—even more so with the drought continuing and certain to have a long-term impact on Central Texas.
In the late 1940s, Austin was in the throes of another years-long drought. Gladstone Swenson purchased one of the extra-deep lots on the north side of Ruth Avenue in Brentwood and built one of the first houses in the area. Having grown up working on the family farm near Kimbro, Texas, he wanted plenty of room around his new home to do some planting.
Gladstone, his wife Erna, and their daughter Kay moved into the house in 1950. Over the years, he worked the rugged soil and grew a large vegetable garden; peach, pear, and plum trees; pecan trees; and flowers—dahlias, Easter lilies, gladiolas, and bluebonnets. (The photo of Kay and her mother, right, inspired one of the large mosaics on the Wall of Welcome.) Today, new owners of the Swenson home are growing their own gardens there.
In the video clip below, Kay talks about some of the vegetables her father grew and how the family worked together to preserve the harvest. We interviewed Kay on January 19, 2008.
Stay tuned! In our next blog we’ll share more stories of neighbors “blooming where they’re planted.”
Some of us don’t attend local churches. Still, they continue to be a vital part of our neighborhood’s history and sense of community.
I first gathered information about the churches for exhibits at the Violet Crown Festival here in Austin. More recently, Rob and I discovered that many of the people we interviewed for our oral history project have longtime connections with churches here. They have been among the people most willing to share their stories with us, and we include a few of them below. The churches’ mosaic tiles are part of the Wall of Welcome at 7100 Woodrow Avenue in Austin. (Church names also are links to their websites.)
North Central Caregivers, which offers services to older neighbors in North Central Austin, and other organizations have offices in the church, and a variety of community meetings and classes also are held there.
Al Kirby remembers that Keith Bailey built the original church, the small white building facing Morrow, now called the Bailey Building. Al joined Crestview Baptist after being a member of Northwest Baptist and Walnut Creek Baptist for many years. We interviewed Al in March 2009.
New this year, Paragon Primary School’s third and fourth grade classes are being held in five classrooms and in the gymnasium.
Judy and John Carlson, Louise Cooke, and Beverly Lester and her parents are among those we’ve interviewed who have been members of this church. We interviewed Judy and John in September 2009, Louise in January 2009, and Beverly in February 2008.
John has held leadership roles there, including coordinating many church work days. He also has used his formidable carpentry skills to create cabinets, bookcases, glass showcases, and many other handcrafted pieces for the church. “You can’t touch anything at the church without his being connected to it in some way,” his wife Judy added. Judy and John also have helped with large, community-wide garage sales at the church. One sale raised over $5,000 for the Austin Children’s Hospital. Other sales have benefited the Capital Area Food Bank and Salvation Army.
Longtime church members Wanda and Emory Muehlbrad remember when their church had no air conditioning in the summer, and streets weren’t paved. “Cars would be crunchin’ on that gravel while you were in church,” Emory said, “and you had a decision to make. Close the windows, keep the noise out, and burn up, or open the windows, stay cooler, and have the crunchin’ out there!”
In addition to raising four of their own children, Wanda and Emory have fostered more than 400 others, often more than one at a time. Many have special needs. The family seldom missed a Sunday at church, and with children and foster children they often filled an entire pew. Emory taught two Bible classes for 13 years and did lay preaching. He is proud of his church and of his two brothers and father who were ministers. Wanda has been involved for many years in the Child Development Center, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2011. We interviewed Wanda and Emory in February 2008.
Kay Swenson Ramsey grew up attending Faith Lutheran with her parents Erna and Gladstone Swenson. The family lived for many years on Ruth Avenue across from the church. Gladstone, a popular local mailman, served on the church council and as Sunday School superintendent.
Kay remembers Woodrow was called “Church Row,” and people walked to church on Sunday. She went all through school with friends who also went to her church. The photo of Kay at right was taken on the family’s front porch on Easter. We interviewed Kay in January 2008.
The church celebrated its 60th anniversary in September 2010. You can read more about the event here.
Longtime Crestview neighbor Bill Williamson remembers helping build this Wooten neighborhood church. He also taught Sunday School there for many years. Among his students were his three children and Crestview Minimax IGA’s Ronnie Prellop and his brother and two sisters. We interviewed Bill in October 2007.
In August 1954, Mickey and Jim Bauer were married in the original stone building near today’s St. Joseph Boulevard (at the time there were no Morrow and St. Joseph streets). They were only the second couple to be married at the brand-new church. Within weeks they moved to Hawaii, where Jim was stationed in the Navy. For more than 50 years, they’ve lived a few miles from the Burnet Lane home where her family first moved in 1936. We interviewed Mickey and Jim in May 2010.
Meetings of the Crestview Neighborhood Association are held in the church’s Wozniak Hall.
If you’ve lived here any time at all, you’ve noticed all the churches in the Brentwood/Crestview area. We’ve counted more than a dozen of them. Many were built more than 55 years ago, as the two neighborhoods were being established. A few—Faith Lutheran and First Unitarian Universalist—already have celebrated 60th anniversaries.
For longtime members John and Judy Carlson, Crestview Methodist has been more than a place to attend Sunday service. “Church has been a vital part of our lives,” John said when we interviewed them in September 2009. “I don’t know where we’d be without it.” They have made lasting friendships and attended many happy events there. “It’s also been a place,” John added, “where if you hit a low spot in life, if you hit rock bottom, there always is someone there to pick you up and be there for you.”
While membership is decreasing at many of the churches, most continue to be actively involved locally and in the wider community, in addition to holding services and other programs for their own members.
Last fall, Episcopal Church of the Resurrection collected and delivered 3000 boxes of clothing and household items to survivors of the Bastrop-area Labor Day fires.
One of Crestview Methodist’s ongoing community efforts is the Rachel Project, which makes comfort bags for children being transported by the police. It’s named for Georgetown resident Rachel Cooke, who has been missing since 2002; Rachel’s grandparents Louise and Glenn Cooke attend the church and live nearby. The mosaic detail at right is from the Wall of Welcome. (You can learn more about Rachel and her family here.)
Area churches also provide meeting and office space to nonprofit and community groups and offer child development and educational programs for children and adults.
Some local churches have tiles on the Wall of Welcome, including First Cumberland Presbyterian. In September 2009, we interviewed then-pastor Mark McNeese at the wall. In the video clip below, Mark talks about the tiles made by two church elders, Louis Jeannet (who passed away in January 2010) and Jim Thrower, and why he believes the mosaic wall is important.
In 2003, a group of us neighbors created the Violet Crown Festival to help raise funds for the wall. Our vision for the “heart of the festival” was to bring together all elements of the community—individuals of all ages, schools, neighborhood associations, community groups, businesses, and churches. Many churches responded to our invitation, and since then local church members have coordinated children’s activities, held cakewalks, provided food, loaned tables and other needed items, demonstrated quilting, and served as general volunteers. Their contributions have been invaluable to the success of the event.
Beginning in 2008, Rob and I looked for neighborhood venues where we could screen our films A Community Mosaic (2008) and We Planted 115 Trees (2011). Several churches—including Austin Bible, Crestview Baptist, Crestview Methodist, Faith Lutheran, Liveoak Bible, and St. Louis Catholic—graciously provided free space and, when they could, equipment.
Stay tuned for next week’s blog! You’ll find more info about the churches, with stories of longtime members who participated in our oral history project and photos of the churches’ Wall of Welcome mosaics. The detail at right also is from the wall.
Since 2003, we’ve gathered, preserved, and shared stories of community spirit in Central Austin. Being a good neighbor is a creative process, whether you've lived somewhere 75 years or just moved in. It's all part of a continuum of community that began here more than half a century ago, and we see no sign of it slowing down a bit.
—Susan and Rob Burneson
P. S. Send an email if you'd like to receive updates!
Richard and Sharon Hanson Charitable Fund; Texas Oral History Association; Allison Supancic, Regional Foundation Library; Friends of Brentwood Park; Crestview Neighborhood Association; Austin History Center; Oral History Association; Violet Crown Community Works; family, neighbors, and friends, who have so generously shared stories and offered support over the years; and Sherry Scott at Resource Connection, for web expertise.
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Voices of the Violet Crown
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This week we learned of the May 11 passing of J. D. Harper, 77, owner of Crestview Pharmacy since 1964. His sons Jerry and David manage the longtime neighborhood business today.
As one of the owners of Crestview Shopping Center, Mr. Harper gave his approval to Jean Graham’s mosaic Wall of Welcome project, installed on the center’s private property, and he spoke at the wall dedication in 2008. (The photo at right is of the pharmacy’s tile on the mosaic wall.) He also was committed to sustaining the longtime shopping center, established in 1952 in the Crestview neighborhood, including the pharmacy and all the other businesses there (more about them in next week’s blog).
