You know who they are. Chances are, one lives next door or maybe across the street. They bring you chicken soup when word gets out that you’re feeling under the weather. They invite you over for coffee and talk about who lived in your house before you. They let you borrow cups of sugar and an egg here and there.
They are the neighborhood ladies who have lived here much longer than most of us – three, four, sometimes five decades or more. They have great stories to tell and delicious recipes to offer. And what better time to find these neighbors, tell them how much we appreciate them – and let them offer their culinary wisdom – than in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving.
These are the stories of four such women, along with their favorite holiday recipes.
Dorothy Honeycutt
Dorothy Honeycutt can be seen just about every morning walking her prized miniature poodle, Cinderella. It gives her a chance to mingle, she says.
“I walk my little dog, and I get to know the neighbors,” she says. “When we have new neighbors move in, I meet them. And I’m glad to get to know them.”
Honeycutt, like all the ladies profiled, thinks the infusion of youth in our neighborhood is a good thing. There are two original homeowners still on her block, she says.
She moved into her own home, just north of the M Streets, in 1973, but has lived in Dallas since 1951. She retired just 12 years ago from a job she held for nearly two decades, in the accounting department of the Baptist Foundation of Texas.
Though she never married or had children, she has family – a sister and nieces and nephews – in Dalhart. And she keeps busy with many hobbies.
“I go to church at First Baptist, downtown,” she says. “I sing in the choir down there. I like to sew. I keep my yard, and I still do my own mowing.”
In fact, Honeycutt, who would rather not reveal her age, has something of a green thumb. In the 1980s, she had a breezeway from her house to her garage enclosed with Plexiglass and now maintains a greenhouse there, mostly filled with houseplants she tends to carefully.
This Thanksgiving, she’ll either go to Dalhart or out to dinner with a friend, she says. Though holidays are pretty quiet for her, she still looks forward to them.
“Thanksgiving, Christmas…,” she says. “I enjoy them all.”
Sweet Potato Casserole:
- 2 large sweet potatoes, boiled until soft
- 1/2 stick of butter
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 1/4 teaspoon each of ground cloves, cinnmon and nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup pecans, chopped
Mash sweet potatoes with butter. Mis well. Add honey, spices and vanilla, and mix thoroughly. Add eggs and stir. Place in greased baking dish. Sprinkle on pecans, and set aside.
Topping:
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup white sugar
- 3/4 cup flour
- 1/2 stick of butter
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
Mix dry ingredients together, then cut butter into mixture until well mixed. Add vanilla and stir. Sprinkle topping over whole dish and bake for 25 minutes at 350 degrees, or until firm.
Frances Addison
Forest Hills Resident Frances Addison says she’s one of the remaining two original homeowners on her block.
“My neighbor across the street has probably been there two or three years less than I have,” She says. “We have mostly young couples now, and they’re all very nice.”
Addison, 78, moved into her house in 1955, and there, with her husband, Dr. J.J. Addison, raised four children. She now has seven grandchildren, and her family is more spread out, with daughters, sons and grandkids in Arlington, Coppell and Tempe, Ariz. Because of that, she says, “it’s kind of hard to get them all together. ”
Which is why she loves the holidays. Every Thanksgiving and Christmas, she spends time with family. This year, she’s going to Arizona for Thanksgiving, but usually she plays host in her neighborhood home, having as many as 16 over to dinner. Her daughter and daughters-in-law help, she says, but she still does her fair share of cooking.
“I usually do the meat and a side dish. It just depends on how I feel, and if I have a burst of energy,” she laughs.
“Being with everybody, and being able to see each other make the holidays a special time,” Addison says, because it means getting to see many of her grandkids at once. she’s lucky to have, “a healthy, well-adjusted family,” she says, “a rarity” these days.
She’s also grateful to have lived in our neighborhood for so long. Thought many of the old neighbors have moved on, the new ones have made a real effort to keep a sense of community going, hosting block parties on Sunday afternoons and dinners in their homes.
“We’ve gotten to know them,” says Addison of her new neighbors. “The young people are so great. They’re very nice to my neighbor and I because we are the oldie-oldies in the neighborhood.”
Macaroni Casserole
- 1 box macaroni cooked and set aside (6 or 8 oz.)
- 1 small can sliced mushrooms, drained
- 1lb. sharp cheddar, grated
- 1 can (10 oz.) small English peas
- 20 saltine crackers, rolled into crumbs
- 1 can stewed tomatoes
- 1 cup tomato juice
- 1/2 pint half-and-half
Butter a large Pyrex bowl. alternate two layers each of macaroni, cheese, peas, and mushrooms. Melt two tablespoons butter and stir into cracker crumbs. Sprinkle crumbs on top of dish. Squeeze stewed tomatoes and set aside juice. Spreading tomato pulp over cracker crumbs. Pour half-and-half over that and, finally, add about one cup of remaining tomato juice. Bake at 250 degrees for 3-4 hours.
Jeanette Howeth Crumpler
A lot of people in our neighborhood already know Jeanette Howeth Crumpler. She’s called “The Tomato Lady” (for obvious reasons), she has written a few books on the area’s history, and she’s an active supporter of the Disciples of Trinity, a well-known neighborhood charity.
She has lived here since 1953, and has been in her Gastonwood/Coronado Hills home since 1960, so she’s something of a fixture in her own corner of the community.
“If I walk through the neighborhood, everybody waves at me whether they know me or not,” she says. “It’s really a friendly, great place.”
In fact, Crumpler can hardly say enough nice things about our neighborhood.
“It was a wonderful neighborhood to raise a family in, and it still is,” says Crumpler, 70, whose own two sons have both passed away.
“It’s great to see these young people moving in. I love it. I love seeing the young people, seeing them walking with families, the dogs. It’s really revitalized the neighborhood.”
The only complaint she really has is for the “occasional McMansion.” But even those who don’t bother her too much.
“What I see is that the neighborhood around me is kept up and much improved in many ways,” she says. “People here take a great interest in landscaping and adding onto their houses.”
Born in Oklahoma, Crumpler moved to Wichita Falls with her family when she was but three years old.
“I’ve been a Texan ever since,” she says proudly. In 1948, the Howeths came to Dallas.
“It was so big,” she says, recalling her first impressions. “I was driving when I was 14 years old, and learning to get around in Dallas was quite a challenge.”
Though she has lost her family, she still looks forward to the holidays and her wonderful memories of past Thanksgivings. An avid gardener, Crumpler uses the opportunity to harvest fresh herbs and cook with them. “My children always enjoyed cutting the herbs for me and watching how I prepared the turkey,” she says. “Then we’d walk through the neighborhood and cut flowers and gather leaves for the table decorations.”
This years, she’ll be spending the holiday with some of her many friends. Asked what she’s most grateful for in her life, the ebullient Crumpler has a characteristically long list.
“I’m very grateful for having had a family and for being able to live in this neighborhood. I still think it’s the best neighborhood in Dallas. I”m grateful to have a joy of living, to be very busy and very interested in a lot of things.
“I enjoy each day,” she adds enthusiastically. “Let me tell you I do.”
Herb Casserole Bread (Makes 1 loaf)
- 4 3/4 cups flour (self-rising or regular)
- 2 tablespoons of sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
- 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh basil
- 1 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano or sage
- 1/2 teaspoon chopped fresh savory or tarragon
- 1 package dry yeast
- 1 cup water
- 1 cup milk
- 2 tablespoons oleo or butter
- 1 egg white
- 1 tablespoon cold water
In large bowl, combine 2 cups of flour, sugar, salt, basil, oregano or sage, savory or tarragon and dry yeast. Heat milk, water and butter just to scald, then cool to lukewarm. Add to dry ingredients, beating two minutes on high speed. Add 1/2 cup of flour and beat two more minutes. Stir in remaining flour to make a stiff batter. Cover and let rise in warm place until double in size, about one hour.
Stir batter down again and beat vigorously with spoon about one-half minute, then turn into greased two-quart casserole. Cover and let rise about 30 minutes.
Beat egg white and cold water till foamy and brush on loaf. Sprinkle with dried onion or dried onion mix. Bake at 375 degrees about 45 to 50 minutes. Let cool a few minutes then turn out onto wine rack to finish cooling right side up.
Bernice Jones
At 85, Jones has lived in the neighborhood longer than any of the four women profiled here. She moved in to her present house in 1957, but she was born in Dallas and grew up on the 6100 block of Goliad, though she says it didn’t look anything like it does now.
“I remember my daddy milking the cows,” she says. “The street wasn’t paved, we didn’t have any neighbors around, and we didn’t have a car.”
She married Roy Jones, a Navy man, in 1943. After a brief stint in Cape Canaveral, Fla., they built the house Bernice still lives in today, in the Wilshire Heights neighborhood, just south of Mockingbird. A black-and-white photo of the area at the time shows one other house in the distance, surrounded by acres of rural land.
“We were one of the first houses on the street,” she says.
Though she lost her husband 25 years ago, Jones is still surrounded by family. She has two daughters, nine grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren. Every year, the gang comes to her house to celebrate. Last Thanksgiving, she had 27 family members over.
“I really had a crowd,” she says. The festivities, she adds, “take a lot of planning.” She still prepares the turkey – “at least a 20-pounder”- along with three or four side dishes.
“I feel so grateful they all still make an effort to be here. I know there’s a time when I’m going to have to turn it over to them,” she says, but adds that time hasn’t quite come yet.
“It’s nice to be able to look back on,” she says of holiday time spent with her family. “And I hope my family will enjoy looking back on it, too.”
Cornbread Dressing
- 3 cups dry Pepperidge Farm stuffing mix
- 1 cup chopped onions
- 1 cup chopped celery
- 1 1/2 cans chicken broth
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1 teaspoon sage
- 1 teaspoon poultry seasoning
- salt and pepper to taste
Cornbread:
- 1 cup yellow cornmeal
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 4 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup milk
- 1 egg
- 1/4 vegetable oil
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Beat all ingredients for one minute. Bake in greased, 8-by-8 pan for 20 to 25 minutes. Cool completely.
After crumbling cooled cornbread, combine with seasonings and stuffing mix in large bowl. Melt butter and saute onions and celery until tender. Add to dry mixture. Pour in chicken broth and toss lightly. Place mixture in 9-by-13 casserole dish and bake for 30 minutes at 375 degrees.
