Come to a Talk or Walk

I love giving talks and leading walks about all the HerStories and OtherStories I’ve created on this website, along with other presentations that I’ve developed. My walks and talks are free; I often offer participants the option of donating to great local organizations I’ve selected.

Folks who came to my three Native History Walks along the San Gabriel River donated nearly $1,000 toward bringing back the Georgetown Powwow, an amazing community jewel led by Lisa and Ben Nava. (Please come to the powwow on September 28 at the Georgetown Boys & Girls Club, 1100 Thousand Oaks Blvd., from 11 am to 5 pm.) I’ve raised about $1,000 more to give to groups including the Wilco League of Women Voters and the Round Rock Black History Organization.

Check out the fun and good change-making, and make sure you’re on my list for future talks and walks. Here’s an overview of past talks and walks. If you’re in an organization who’d like me to talk or walk, message me, thanks!

Jessie Daniel Ames

This awesome Georgetown woman who led Wilco’s suffrage battle and then went on to form an anti-lynching organization in southern states gets a lot of deserved attention on this website. And my inaugural presentation about her at Georgetown’s supercool women-owned bookstore Lark & Owl was superb! So many folks showed up (80-plus) that it was hard to pack them in.

Love the huge and enthusiastic crowd for Jessie at Lark & Owl!

After the presentation we celebrated with suffrage cake (thanks, Sugar Mommy’s!).

This gala was on Jessie’s birthday, Nov. 2. We were thrilled to announce that day was proclaimed Jessie Daniel Ames Day by both the City of Georgetown and County of Williamson! Thanks to our legislators including Williamson County Commissioner Terry Cook and City Councilmember Amanda Parr for speaking at Lark & Owl.

I also presented about Jessie with members of the Williamson County AAUW. The Wilco chapter of the American Association of University Women is named after Jessie Daniel Ames, who co-founded the local chapter. These awesome women have fundraised over $50,000 in scholarships for young women over the years.

I also presented about Jessie at the Georgetown Public Library, on the invitation of County Judge Bill Gravell. Thanks to our awesome library for wonderful programming and services!

And I was thrilled to present about Jessie at BookWoman, the best feminist bookstore in the world that happens to be handily located in Austin! Thanks to the intrepid Susan Post, BookWoman founder, and to Alan Campbell for recording my talk for KOOP Radio!

Women Who Made Georgetown Thrive

I enjoy singing the praises of women who have and continue to keep our foundational institutions thriving, such as healthcare, education, arts, libraries, and more. I talked about these women for Preservation Georgetown and for the Georgetown Woman’s Club. Learn more here about the many women who preserved Georgetown’s history and about women’s clubs and individuals who keep on bolstering and running organizations for children, the elderly, and the economically disadvantaged.

Amazing Women of Wilco

My biggest challenge with presentations is narrowing down the awesome women who’ve done so much to make our community thrive! I hate to leave some out, but talks have time limits.

Here’s just one of my favorites from my sampling of women in towns all over Wilco who deserve their spot in herstory. Meet Magnolia Palestine Fowler-Dickey, who with the women in the Welfare Workers Club (still going strong) did so much to improve life for African-American people in Taylor.

You might and should also know about her more famous husband Dr. James Dickey, who worked hard to better the health for Black Taylorites. But Magnolia should also be remembered and lauded. I presented on Wilco women at the Williamson Museum for their Salon series.

Native History Walks

The two forks of the San Gabriel River that meet and flow through Georgetown were the site of regular settlements of Native people, primarily the Tonkawa people. In fact, a large site near the downtown Georgetown junction of the river branches was known as the “Indian Village” in local newspaper accounts of the 1800s.

People were eager to learn about this little-noted Native heritage as we walked along the banks of the San Gabriel. And many were surprised to know that the peoples who lived here are thriving today, including the Lipan Apache, Tonkawa, Comanche, Delaware, and more. The three tours I did filled quickly! (I’m leading another Native History walk and doing a presentation at UT in November for OLLI, the University of Texas’ Lifelong Learning organization for members only.)

Chayton and Joseph drumming and singing at the Native History walk and taco sale; photo courtesy of Andy Sharp and the *Williamson County Sun*

Walkers also enjoyed food after their history walk. The Nava family, who presented awesome annual powwows at Southwestern University in Georgetown for 16 years, held a delicious Indian frybread taco sale. And Joseph Nava and Chayton Hoskins drummed as folks ate.

Before my first Native History tour, I went to the Waelder ranch of the inspiring Lucille Contreras, a Lipan Apache woman who started the Texas Tribal Buffalo Project. I bought a bunch of her ground buffalo as the centerpiece of a meal using foods that Native people foraged, hunted, and cooked: buffalo tacos; Three Sisters stew (beans, corn, and squash); cornbread made with mesquite flour; nopales from prickly-pear cactus pads and pink drink from the tunas; and pecan cookies.

Poppy Women Walks

If you’re tuned into Georgetown, you know that we’re the Red Poppy Capital of Texas. When the poppies are popping, I lead Poppy Women Walks throughout the beautiful poppies of Old Town. But my focus is on the women who contributed to the emergence of our Poppy Capital status and the annual Red Poppy Festival that draws throngs of tourists and brings millions to our economy.

Come next spring if you want to learn more about women including Maggie (she actually planted and distributed poppy seeds her son Okra sent from the WWI Belgium front); Esther (she and other women pushed the poppy promotion the city eventually adopted); and more who made sure we’d enjoy the poppy beauty and extravaganzas now!

Juanita J. Craft

Juanita is known as the Martin Luther King, Jr., of Dallas for the decades of tireless racial justice work she did. She also spent most of her childhood and teen years in Round Rock. I love shining more light on this phenomenal woman that every Texan should know about, and I did that at two talks at the Round Rock Public Library.

And I am happy to have brought attention to the fact that for years, she has not had a headstone that told about her where she is buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Austin. Thanks to the work of the Friends of Juanita Craft Civil Rights House and Museum in Dallas, Juanita got a beautiful new headstone on Aug. 3, 2024!