Since 2003, we have researched local history and gathered stories about neighbors creating community. We share it all through our project Voices of the Violet Crown. While we created and have sustained VVC independently, we have worked with many good friends of the project along the way. We have lived in the Crestview neighborhood of Central Austin since 1985.
Austin’s “violet crown” describes the color of the hills to the west at sunset. These hills were still visible from our neighborhoods when the first residents moved here and began to plant trees on the open land more than 60 years ago. Find some answers to the question “Just What Is a Violet Crown?” here.
Voices of the Violet Crown includes history and genealogy research; community and history exhibits; three films, First Night W/Domino & Friends, A Community Mosaic, and We Planted 115 Trees; oral history interviews; feature articles; presentations; two neighborhood history booklets, From Abercrombie to the Violet Crown and A Green History of Brentwood and Crestview; social media posts (especially The Dazed Group/Austin Edition-Pieces of the Past on Facebook), and this website, launched July 5, 2011.
In 2009, the Texas Oral History Association presented us with the Mary Faye Barnes Award for Excellence in Community History Projects. Susan’s 20-year overview of Voices of the Violet Crown appeared in TOHA’s 2023 Sound Historian journal. We have donated project materials to the Austin History Center periodically since 2008. The finding aid for the Susan and Rob Burneson Recordings and Papers is included in Texas Archival Resources Online.
Voices of the Violet Crown was funded in part by the Richard and Sharon Hanson Charitable Fund (website development); Friends of Brentwood Park (oral history interviews and the film We Planted 115 Trees); Violet Crown Community Works (oral history interviews, the film A Community Mosaic, history booklet duplication, and website development); generous neighbors and friends who purchased copies of A Community Mosaic, We Planted 115 Trees, and our history booklet From Abercrombie to the Violet Crown, and who made direct donations to the project; and local business owners, who sold copies of the film and booklet and provided us space to show our film A Community Mosaic and display our neighborhood history. We have sustained the Voices of the Violet Crown project as volunteers from 2003-2007 and since 2011.
COMMUNITY OUTREACH: MOVING BEYOND THE INTERVIEW
We knew it was worthwhile to gather and preserve neighbors’ stories. We learned it’s also important to continue sharing the stories in new ways. Here’s how we’ve done it:
Community and history exhibits
- Featured at eight spring Violet Crown Festivals (2003-2007, 2009-2010, and 2012), two fall Violet Crown Arts Festivals (2008 and 2009), Wall of Welcome dedication (March 2008), Crestview Neighborhood Association Ice Cream Social (2009, 2012, 2015, and 2016), and 60th anniversary of Crestview United Methodist Church (November and December 2013). See photos of the 2015 display—two, six-foot-long, laminated panels spanning events from 500 B.C. to today—above and below.
- Most of the information from our exhibits has been incorporated into this website, and we are happy to loan the displays for community events. For more information, please contact us.
Oral history interviews
- DVDs of each interview and transcriptions archived at the Austin History Center, where they are available to researchers.
- Each interviewee received a DVD copy of his or her oral history.
- Video clips, still images, and excerpts incorporated into the Voices of the Violet Crown website; three films; feature articles; community/history exhibits; and the neighborhood history booklet.
Brentwood and Crestview history
- incorporated into articles by Michael Barnes in the Austin American-Statesman, 2012-2014; into the City of Austin Community Character in a Box project, along with neighborhood photos, 2014; into the Preservation Austin 24th Annual Historic Homes Tour booklet, 2016; into the Brentwood and Crestview neighborhood associations’ websites, 2016; into the City of Austin Art-on-the-Corridor project for Burnet Road, 2020; into a Brentwood Elementary fifth-grade neighborhood history project, 2021; into the KUT ATXplained Live project, 2023.
Writing
- Articles published in newsletters, magazines, and journals, including Brentwood and Crestview neighborhood associations (more than 20 articles beginning in 2008); Texas Oral History Association, 2009; the Association of Professional Genealogists, Oral History Association, Society of American Archivists Oral History Section, and Texas State Genealogical Society, Inc., 2012; and the Texas Oral History Association Sound Historian, 2023. News of our project also has appeared in publications of the Association of Professional Genealogists and Texas Oral History Association, in the Austin American-Statesman, and on the website of the Austin Film Society.
- A history of Hancock Creek, the area’s main waterway, to help Crestview become a City of Austin Certified Green Neighborhood in 2010.
- Ongoing updates on the Voices of the Violet Crown website, social media sites, and local email lists.
Films
- First Night W/ Domino & Friends (2006), A Community Mosaic (2008), and We Planted 115 Trees (2011) screened at community, church, and school gatherings beginning in 2006.
- A Community Mosaic screened at the Baylor University Institute for Oral History Future Perfect seminar in 2009, City of Austin Faces of Austin multimedia program and the Austin Public Library Lights.Camera.Austin film program in 2010, and First Night Austin celebration in December 2010 and 2011.
Presentations
- “The Art of Oral History,” at the Thomas Baker Slick Memorial Library, Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, Texas, February 14, 2013.
- Gullett Elementary School Virtual Career Day, March 2021. Susan produced a video in which she shared information about her work as a professional genealogist, archive researcher, and community historian.
Donations
- A Community Mosaic, history booklet, oral histories, transcriptions, and project papers to the Austin History Center, where they are available to researchers.
- A Community Mosaic to the Austin Public Library, where it can be checked out; Baylor University Institute for Oral History; Hot Springs Documentary Film Institute Library; and local elementary, middle, and high school libraries. Brentwood Elementary School has incorporated ACM and the history booklet into its third grade social studies curriculum on community.
- We Planted 115 Trees to the Austin Public Library, Austin Parks and Recreation Department, and Austin Parks Foundation (courtesy of Friends of Brentwood Park).
- From Abercrombie to the Violet Crown history booklet to the Retirement and Nursing Center (along with a copy of ACM) and North Central Caregivers in Austin, both of which provide services to older neighbors, and to local elementary, middle, and high school libraries.
Read more about “moving beyond the interview,” theme of the 2009 Oral History Association Annual Meeting, here.