“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.”
Curious to learn more about Brentwood and Crestview, we began gathering stories from neighbors through our project Voices of the Violet Crown. We’re grateful to all who shared them, especially those who had helped with the mosaic wall. (Check out more of them here—“Red Ryder,” Domino the Pig, and Tile Stories.)
Louise Cooke and Kay Swenson Ramsey loaned early photographs of the neighborhood that inspired Jean to create some of the larger mosaics on the wall. 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. In one of Kay’s photos (right), she is 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 Ward created 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!”
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, 2008; Madi Ward on September 19, 2009; and Bill Williamson on October 7, 2007.
Join us next time for more Voices of the Violet Crown!