Visiting a Historical Church in Houston, Texas

The Antioch Missionary Baptist Church, the first free African-American church in Houston, Texas, played an important role in the history of the American South and beyond.

Antioch Missionary Baptist Church

The Declaration of Emancipation, signed by President Abraham Lincoln on September 22, 1862, declared that all slaves from states in “active rebellion” during the Civil War be granted freedom. The Declaration, however, did not cover Texas, which while aligned with the Confederacy, did not participate in active rebellion.

This situation continued until after the Civil War ended, when on June 18, 1865, General Grainger of the Union government arrived at Galveston Bay, close to Houston, and ordered all slaves in Texas, the last existing slaves in America, to be set free.

Reverend Jack Yates was born into slavery in Kentucky in 1828. Through self-education, he became knowledgeable in the Bible. In 1865, he moved to Houston and started preaching in a “Brush Arbor,” a church for slaves and freemen under trees.

A great organizer, he was quite successful and in 1868, became ordained as a Baptist Pastor. He convinced his congregation to purchase a piece of land in Freedman’s Town, now a part of downtown Houston, and build a Church on it. Besides worship, he was instrumental in establishing ministries that helped develop educational, economic and social skills.

Rev. Jack Yates

However, he is most known for a movement he started. Determined to honor the day of final emancipation of African Americans, he organized an event which he termed “Juneteenth.” Unfortunately, opposition arose when the City of Houston would not allow celebrations to take place in any of its parks, due to racial opposition.

Undaunted, Rev. Yates organized the community to buy its own park, which he named Emancipation Park, for their festivities. Since then, Juneteenth celebrations are observed in many cities throughout America and even in other countries.

Last year, I had the good fortune to visit the church. I was greeted with wonderful hospitality by the congregants and deacons and attended a presentation on the church’s history. I sat on one of the original hand-carved pews bearing the marks of adzes of the freed men, enjoyed gospel music and the energetic sermon of the pastor. I would encourage all visitors to Houston to explore this wonderful institution.

Mohan Ashtakala is the author of "The Yoga Zapper," published by Books We Love.

Brussel sprout stroganoff and fried grasshoppers... by Sheila Claydon

Is it me or a late onset problem with my wooden spoon, or are recipes just becoming more  complicated and less authentic?

I've eaten meals in many different countries, both in restaurants and in private homes, and because I enjoy trying new foods I have always paid attention to how people from different cultures cook and present their food. I ask questions too, and when I return home I sometimes try to replicate the recipes or incorporate a new technique into my cooking. This means that I can attempt many dishes from around the world as well as regional specialities from across the UK, and if I've been shown how or asked the right questions, I can usually produce something that is both recognisable and edible.

This is not the case with many modern recipes though. Rarely do the pictures match the final result and sometimes the list of ingredients are just plain off!  Much as I like vegetables I'm never going to find spaghetti tossed in a kale and spinach sauce and topped with a fillet of white fish appealing, and the same goes for a Brussel sprout stroganoff! Why even call it a stroganoff when it doesn't have a single authentic ingredient?

Nowadays magazines and newspapers compete with one another to print recipes and there are all those food blogs out there too, many of them supposedly to save us time. The selling point is that if we follow their method we can cook supper in a jiffy without having to wonder what we can produce out of the mix of ingredients in our larder and refrigerator. Sometimes this works but more often it doesn't, either because the ingredient list is too varied and exotic or because the mix of foods is too outlandish. Cauliflower pizza anyone?

Then there are the recipes sent in by the general public. The apple cake I tried because the writer said it was a firm family favourite, where I discovered that the only authentic word was firm because it came out of the oven squat and heavy and only suitable for a doorstop. And the meatloaf turned fish loaf recipe. I couldn't even try that.

Having tried the proliferation of recipes in all forms of the media for a long time, frequently unsuccessfully, I've decided it's my own fault. I have a kitchen shelf full of perfectly good cookbooks whose recipes have been tried and tested over the years, plus the knowledge that comes with preparing family meals day after day after day for what seems like forever, so why do I even read recipes that will never see the light of day in my kitchen. I guess it's because I like food and I'm always up for trying new flavours. After all I didn't expect the fried grasshoppers I ate in China to taste so good, nor the lassi yoghurt drink and the cauliflower curry in India, or the 4 hour cooked Christmas cabbage and rollmop herrings in Denmark. In Germany it was the weisswurst which is Avery unappetising looking but delicious white sausage, in France snails, in Australia alligator, in Scotland haggis and in Wales lava bread which is a special seaweed.  There have been many more but because they are culturally authentic dishes and snacks, lovingly prepared, they have all tasted good. Not so the many recipes that are now out there. Some of them work of course, but so many of them don't, so now I'm going back to basics. After all what is nicer than lemon and garlic chicken, a mushroom risotto or good old spaghetti bolognaise...and there is always steak and fries of course!

There are references to food in many of my books, and in a couple of cases actual recipes, but these are all things I've eaten and enjoyed, not suggestions plucked from a magazine, and when I wrote about them it took me right back to the pleasure of eating them. There is the cake my grandmother always made in Remembering Rose, the wonderful meal I ate in a tiny taverna at the top of a mountain in Italy in Mending Jodie's Heart and then there's the very simple early morning breakfast in a boat off Dolphin Key in Reluctant Date. Visit http://bwlpublishing.ca/authors/claydon-sheila-romance/ to find out more if, like me, you are a hopeful foodie.

                    

You can also find me at Sheila Claydon on facebook

Women Actually Took Part in the Klondike Gold Rush by Joan Donaldson-Yarmey

I had been to the Yukon twice and hiked the Chilkoot Trail in 1997, the hundredth anniversary of the Klondike Gold Rush, so I knew some history of the area before I started my research for my novel Romancing the Klondike. But I didn’t know anything about the north prior to gold being discovered on Rabbit Creek. When I began my reading I learned that there were good sized towns such as Circle City in Alaska and Fortymile in the Northwest Territories (the Yukon Territory was not formed until 1898) with theatres, libraries, schools, stores, and medical doctors. One little known fact, though, was that while most of the residents in the north before the gold rush era were men, there were also many women who lived there with their prospector husbands or who came as nurses, teachers, cooks, dance hall girls, and ladies of the evening.

       One such woman was Ethel Berry who made the trek from California as a newlywed with her husband, Clarence, in 1896. When they heard about gold being found on Rabbit Creek (later named Bonanza Creek) Clarence staked a claim on Eldorado Creek, a tributary, and the couple set up camp in a 12X16 foot long cabin. There was only a dirt floor and a window that was covered with a flour sack. The winter was cold and Ethel spent her time keeping the wood stove going and cooking and cleaning. Clarence’s claim proved to be one of the richest claims in the Klondike and when they returned to Seattle with two hundred thousand dollar’s worth of gold in the summer of 1897, Ethel was dubbed the Bride of the Klondike by the newspapers. In 1898, they crossed over the Chilkoot Pass with thousands of hopeful millionaires and went back to their claim again.

       Another woman who struck it rich in the Klondike was Belinda Mulrooney. She was raised in Pennsylvania and left home at twenty-one. She worked in Chicago and then San Francisco before heading to Juneau, Alaska, in 1896. When she heard about the gold strike in the Klondike she decided to go there. She bought the necessities she would need but she also thought ahead and purchased silk underwear, bolts of cotton cloth, and hot water bottles. These she carried with her over the Chilkoot Pass in the winter of 1896.

       When the ice melted on the Lindeman and Bennett lakes and Yukon River she floated down the river to the new town of Dawson City, reaching in it June of 1987. According to Belinda Mulrooney herself, when she finally reached Dawson and the gold fields after many months of hardship, she tossed a 25-cent piece, her very last coin, into the Yukon River for luck. She was 26 years old and full of confidence. And rightly so for she sold her silk underwear, bolts of cloth, and hot water bottles for six times what she had paid for them.

       With this success, Belinda turned her attention to the prospectors in gold fields. She set up a lunch counter to feed the single men and then added a bunkhouse for those who didn’t have a cabin to stay in. Eventually she built the two story Grand Forks Hotel and Restaurant, with multiple bunk beds on the second floor, at the junction of the Eldorado and Bonanza creeks. The hotel also acted as a trading post, a gold storage, and sometimes as a church. In the back were kennels for the husky dogs used to pull the sleds which were the main transportation in the winter.

       Being the smart woman that she was, Belinda had the floor swept every evening and those sweepings run through a sluice box. This earned her as much as $100 a day from the gold dust that fell from miner’s pockets and clothing. And she began to delve into the gold claims themselves, owning or co-owning fiving mining claims by the end of 1897.

       Belinda turned her entrepreneurial skills to Dawson and bought a lot on the corner of Princess Street and First Avenue. She sold Grand Forks for $24,000 and used her profits to construct the three-story high Fair View Hotel which opened to enthusiastic and impressive reviews on July 27, 1898. This was the most impressive building in Dawson and held thirty guest rooms and a restaurant.

       Impressed by her strong business sense, a local bank asked Belinda to pull the Gold Run Mining Company out of the red. She had the company in the black in 18 months.

       Belinda married and divorced and eventually moved to eastern Washington State and built herself a castle. She and her siblings lived there until her fortune ran out and she began to rent out the castle. She died in Seattle in 1967 at the age of 95.

        These are just two examples of the many women who lived in the north, who took part in the Klondike gold rush, and who are not included in most of the books written.

http://bookswelove.net/authors/donaldson-yarmey-joan/