Category Archives: Places
Welcome!
Since 2003, my husband Rob and I have gathered, shared, and preserved stories of neighbors creating community through our project Voices of the Violet Crown. Read about the project and its impact, as published in the Texas Oral History Association Sound Historian in 2023, here. 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 includes: Our blog, augmenting … Read more
Neighbors-in-History, Part 3
Updated September 25, 2023 Copyright 2012-2023 Susan Burneson. All rights reserved. Kindly talk with us before reproducing any website content. Final blog post in this series, in which we introduce a few special neighbors-in-history who have contributed to our sense of place here. (See links for more info.) KOENIG • McCULLOUGH By 1946, Dr. Joseph Samuel Koenig (1885-1951) and Clarence McCullough (1898-1992) developed Section 1 of Violet Crown Heights, between Payne and Ruth in the … Read more
Neighbors-in-History, Part 2
Updated October 18, 2024 Copyright 2012-2024 Susan Burneson. All rights reserved. Kindly talk with us before reproducing any website content. The second in a three-part series, in which we introduce a few neighbors-in-history. (See links for more information.) HANCOCK • WICKS Rubin Hancock (about 1835-1916) was an enslaved person (and possibly a half-brother, according to at least one source) of Austin Judge John Hancock (more about him here). Rubin—and possibly other members of his family, … Read more
Neighbors-in-History, Part 1
Copyright 2012 Susan Burneson. All rights reserved. Kindly talk with us before reproducing any website content. As we researched the history of the Brentwood and Crestview area—in newspapers, abstracts of title, the census, various websites, oral history interviews, and many other sources—we discovered more special Austin neighbors who have contributed to our sense of place here. In the first in a three-part series, we introduce you to just a few of them. We provide links, … Read more
WABAC Machine, Part 2
Copyright 2012-2023 Susan Burneson. All rights reserved. Kindly talk with us before reproducing any website content. We begin our WABAC trip with selections, old and new, from our neighborhood history exhibit and booklet, with links included for more info. (What’s a WABAC Machine? Find out here.) ABOUT 500 B. C. • The Greek poet Theognis is among the earliest writers to describe Athens, Greece, as the City of the Violet Crown. By the 1890s, Texas writers … Read more