Search Results for: Petmecky

Oral History: Ben Petmecky • May 24, 2009

Added January 21, 2024 Interview of Ben Petmecky (Benjamin Joseph Petmecky Jr.), conducted May 24, 2009, in San Marcos, Texas, by Susan Burneson, interviewer, and Rob Burneson, videographer, for Voices of the Violet Crown. Ben lived on Joe Sayers in the Brentwood neighborhood of Austin in the mid-1950s. The interview DVD and transcript are archived at the Austin History Center. Copyright 2009 Susan Burneson. All rights reserved. Kindly talk with us before reproducing any website … Read more

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Welcome!

Since 2003, my husband Rob and I have gathered, shared, and preserved stories of neighbors creating community. For us, community is a continuum of past, present, and future. We believe that being a good neighbor is a creative process—one that matters. Our project, Voices of the Violet Crown, includes: Our blog. The website, regularly updated, also includes features, films, photos, and community resources (right) and more information about our project (top). Our community/history exhibits. Described … Read more

Posted in Community, Events, People, Places, Streets

Oral History Interviews

Susan and Rob Burneson conducted oral history interviews between 2007 and 2011 for the film A Community Mosaic and the Voices of the Violet Crown project. They also interviewed Friends of Brentwood Park Leadership Team members and honorees and donors of dedicated trees in 2010 and 2011 for the film We Planted 115 Trees. Original residents, noted below, moved to Brentwood or Crestview in the early 1950s or before. Dates in parentheses indicate year of … Read more

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A Voice of the Violet Crown

Updated September 19, 2023 I had a friend, Coleen Grant Hardin, who was fascinated with genealogy, just as I am. She once told me the story of her great-grandmother, Dr. Elizabeth Durbin Irby Crow Smith, one of the first woman physicians in Northern Louisiana. As Elizabeth passed away at age 73, she said to those around her: It’s a shame for me to die and take all this knowledge with me. Few of us will … Read more

Posted in Community, People

Some Good Neighbors Remembered

Updated January 30, 2024 Copyright 2011-2024 Susan Burneson. All rights reserved. Kindly talk with us before reproducing any website content. We dedicated the blog post “A Voice of the Violet Crown” in memory of some of the good neighbors we have known. Here’s more about each of them. Photo of the gate image, below left, from the “Local” series by Brentwood neighbor Al Evans, 1946-2022, and reprinted with his permission. More about Al below, in … Read more

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More Voices of the Violet Crown

In late 2009, we took video clips from some of our later oral history interviews and put them together into five different themes. We screened the clips inside BriteLites Studio at the Crestview Shopping Center in November 2009, during a fall Violet Crown Arts Festival. (To learn more about many of the people we’ve interviewed, you can type their names into the search box at the top of the page.) We interviewed Carmen Canann in September … Read more

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Sense of Place, Part 2

More good stories from our neighbors who add to our sense of place here . . . WANDA AND EMORY MUEHLBRAD, whose grandparents were born in Germany, looked at each other and chuckled when we asked them to tell us their full names, during our interview with them in 2008: Wanda: My name is Wandalie Wilhelmine Hohertz Muehlbrad. Emory: I’m Emory Emil Wilhelm Muehlbrad. We come from German stock! BEN PETMECKY probably led a more … Read more

Posted in Community, People, Places

Let There Be Luminarias!

Updated in December 2023 Since 1994, luminarias have been a highlight of the holidays in our neighborhood, and this year is no exception. Thanks to the generosity of many Brentwood and Crestview neighbors, Arroyo Seco once again will glow with candlelight on the evenings of December 22-25, 2023. Brentwood neighbors started the luminaria project to celebrate the 1993 planting of more than 250 trees along Arroyo Seco and Hancock Creek between Koenig and Justin. (More … Read more

Posted in Events, People

A Salute to Violet Crown Veterans, Part 2

Updated 2018 Our special series for Veterans Day concludes with stories about Bob Harwood, Ben Petmecky, and Emory Muehlbrad and video clips of John Carlson and Bill Williamson talking about veterans settling in Crestview as it was being developed in the late 1940s and early 1950s. BOB HARWOOD Bob was awarded the Silver Star and Purple Heart for his service in the Army during World War II. He enlisted in February 1942 and served in … Read more

Posted in Events, People