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an everyday life

Tag Archives: Overholser Mansion

Broccoli-Cheese Soup

23 Friday Oct 2009

Posted by Janell in In the Kitchen, Life at Home

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Broccoli-Cheese Soup, Cooking, Everyday Life, Heritage Hills, Home Tours, In the Kitchen, Overholser Mansion, Soups

Guests will be descending into our neighborhood this weekend because, once again, it’s time for the Historic Heritage Hills Home & Garden Tour.  This annual treat offers an inside peak of six private historic residences and the Overholser Mansion with one ticket — the cost is $12 in advance — $15 at the door of any property on the tour.  While Saturday promises to be clear and sunny and Sunday its dreary rainy opposite; the tour will be fabulous no matter what.

Three years ago, when my husband seemed to be taking up residence in Asia, my daughter Kara and I ventured out into a cold rainy Sunday to experience our first Heritage Hills tour.  The rain kept most visitors away that day; but being right next door so to speak, the two of us bundled ourselves up to brave the elements.  Just like an undeterred mailman carrying out his unofficial oath, the weather was not going to keep either of us from our appointed rounds.  But unlike the mailman, we did choose to drive a car rather than travel the short distances by foot.

A few wet hours later, we arrived home in awe, with visions of what historic living could become in its best state.  Truth be told, I also came home a little intimidated.  At that point, I had a month or so to get  my own historic house ready to receive guests as part of Mesta Park’s Holiday Home Tour.  And having just moved in a few months earlier, my house was a mass of painting projects in progress.  Yet the tour did its work in inspiring me toward completion; and in Kara, it sowed a feed seeds that two years later, had her and her new husband living in a historic home of their own.

In awe, we also came home to thaw.  Wet, cold and hungry, I began rummaging through my freezer and cupboards for something quick and nourishing to eat.  My eye lighted on a small bag of frozen chopped broccoli and the staple of storage bags full of  frozen chopped onions and celery, a time-saving tip passed along years ago by my Aunt Jo.  Encourages, I opened the refrigerator to find I had Velveeta Cheese, whipping cream and butter; and my cupboard also proved to have plenty of chicken broth.  It was a mental check, check, check.  Turing around to Kara, I said, “It looks like we have all the ingredients on hand to make a quick Broccoli-Cheese soup.”

This soup has been a family favorite for years, ever since we first tasted the signature soup of Apple’s Way, a little tea room in Lake Jackson, Texas.  My version of the soup is adapted from a recipe of another tea room of my life that once held court in Eureka Springs.  I’m grateful to have their collection of recipes –Victorian Sampler Tea Room Cookbook — that while no longer in print, may be available in a secondary market.

Sitting at the counter that cold October Sunday, Kara watched me like I once watched Mom whip up a miracle meal out of nothing so many times before.  From freezer to table in thirty minutes, we were soon eating our simple but hearty supper with a few saltine crackers.  Whether rain, or sleet or gloom of night, you’ll find this soup just right.  From my life to yours.

Broccoli-Cheese Soup

Serves 4
 
4 Tbsps of butter (1/4 cup)
1/4 cup flour
One quart of vegetarian or chicken broth
1/2 cup diced onion
1/2 cup diced celery
2 cups chopped broccoli, parboiled, then pulsed fine in a food processor (can be cooked in a microwave instead of using stovetop)
16 ounces of Velveeta Cheese, diced 
2 cups of half & half
Fresh Ground Black Pepper

In a bowl, prepare broccoli and set aside.  Sauté celery and onion in butter in a large sauce pan over medium-low heat, until soft and translucent. Next, stir in flour to make a roux, cook for a minute…. then, slowly add broth, continuing to stir until smooth.  Finally, add parboiled, chopped broccoli.  Simmer for twenty minutes.  Reduce heat to low, melt cheese, then add half & half and fresh ground pepper until just mixed.  No salt is usually necessary, but taste before serving and season to personal taste.  Serve with crackers.  Or quiche. Or even a sandwich or salad.

Hi-Lo and Ritz

31 Monday Aug 2009

Posted by Janell in Life at Home, Soul Care

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Everyday Life, Fireflies, Holy Communion, Mesta Park, Overholser Mansion, Soul Care

Each week brings highs and lows that keep everyday life from growing stale.    

And last week’s high arrived as low flying sparklers at the Overholser Mansion.  I wanted to shout — Hip, hip hooray!  —  the fireflies are back.  Because after a two year absence, the east lawn of the Overholser Mansion had once again become the best neighborhood spot for firefly gazing.  By sheer happenstance, we caught two repeat performances of their latest firefly ballet.  And it was worth the wait.  I was captivated; I could have parked myself in their midst and watched their flickering lights pirouette across the dark expanse for several encore performances. 

But sometimes we’re moved to be still and sometimes we’re moved just to move.  And when it comes to church these days — the scene of my most recent low-life moment —  we do both.  One Sunday we’re on the move, off visiting some local church, while the next we stay put at our current church home.  This alternating practice serves to cleanse our palate  —  in the way crackers cleanse the palate for wine tasting — by allowing us to sample new worship experiences without one running into another.  Last Sunday was our Sunday to stay put — and without need of wine or crackers —  my husband and I came home to Holy Communion.  

Our church usually serves this sacramant by intinction — where communicants dip a small portion of bread into a communal cup of grape juice —  which typically takes 20 to 30 minutes to serve.  But last week, the service had us moving between a standing line for bread to the kneeling rail for thimble-size containers of grape juice.  And with a thousand communicants facing a church altar built for forty kneelers,  the communion rail quickly became a bottleneck, which sent sinners in a Christian-like free-for-all as we jostled for an open space at the rail. 

Perhaps this new method of distribution was chosen to minimize the spread of infectious diseases. I don’t know.  But what I do know is that I observed one woman take her thimble of juice to go, just like she was going through a McDonald’s drive-through window.  Meanwhile, my husband and I joustled amongst the masses for an open spot at the kneeler, where we stayed only long enough to drink our juice.  Figuring God could hear our prayers just fine from our seats, we were making our way back when, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a few souls leaving the sanctuary early.  Questions began whirling through my mind.   Had they decided to fast?  Had they chosen to eat and run?  And then came the question to end all questions:  Who am I to ask these questions?  Then, in a flash, I  knew who I was.  I was one who was ready to join their exodus; and with the taste of grape juice still on my tongue, I looked at my husband and whispered, “Let’s go.” 

The irony that my low point should come in the midst of Holy Communion is not lost on me; nor for that matter, that my week’s high should come from low flying bugs.  I fumble within the mystery and the hi-los of it all.  What was it about the firefly dances that made me want to stay and what was it about Holy Communion that made me want to flee?     

Whatever it was, my reaction has more to say about me than it does about either event.  For some unknown reason, I did not experience God in Holy Communion.  Maybe because I was preoccupied by looking for room at the inn altar.  Maybe because I felt lost in the sea of humanity washing up on the communion rail.  And for Christ’s sake, where was the lighthouse to keep us from crashing into one another? 

At the Overholsers there was no need for a lighthouse.  There was plenty of space and light for all who wished to partake of this lowly unconventional means of grace.   And for me, this lowly means of grace was just what I needed last week.  Maybe because I had just expressed a longing to again gaze on firefies.  One moment it was a wish.  And then all of a sudden, here they were.  Just like that.  Just  light that.

And just light that, God was there too.  And there on a dusk-tinted lawn — with no bread, no crackers, no wine, no juice, no confusion, no sea of humanity, no rails to rail me in — stood me and God in a sea of fireflies “puttin’ on the ritz where fashion once sat.”  Just light that.      

Chasing Fireflies

13 Thursday Aug 2009

Posted by Janell in In the Garden, Mesta Park, Soul Care, The Great Outdoors

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Tags

Everyday Life, Fireflies, Heritage Hills, Mesta Park, Oklahoma City, Overholser Mansion

Once upon a time, attending a local firefly dance was as easy as taking a few steps into a warm summer’s evening.   fireflyjarAnd in this old neighborhood where I am grateful to live, the grandest dance of all  took place on the grounds of the Overholser Mansion.

The many keepers of Oklahoma City history record that the Overholser’s were known for their grand and gracious entertaining.  Going even further, some say that Henry and the lovely young Anna were the hub of early Oklahoma City’s high society.

Henry was one of the first to purchase property  in the subdivision north of downtown, that is now the heart of the historic preservation district of Heritage Hills.  The story is fondly told of how Henry purchased three residential lots, which bordered Hudson Avenue and Northwest Fifteenth Street, when the land was nothing more than a cornfield.

Henry’s cornfield cum mansion grounds reminds me of another cornfield cum baseball diamond and that mysterious whisper that repeatedly urged…

…”If you build it, he will come.”

As the story was told on the silver screen, the cornfield cut diamond went on to host the ghosts of some famous boys of summers past, most notably “Shoeless” Joe Jackson and his teammates who were caught up in 1919 World Series “Black Sox Scandal.”

overholserThe Overholser Mansion is not host to any scandals of note, though apparently the Mansion is  no stranger to ghosts.  With more than a few reports of paranormal activity floating on the Internet these days, who knows but that maybe Henry heard his own mysterious voice while looking across his own field of dreams; for sooner rather than later, this “Father of Oklahoma City” built his dream mansion…and the invited citizens of Oklahoma City came.

In the book, Oklahoma City, Land Run to Statehood, one local historian notes that,

“Mrs. Overholser gave her first party in 1904 to 400 lucky guests. The Times-Journal society column reported that as guests entered the home, they were greeted by a string quartet playing on the second floor turret landing, hidden by a blanket of palm and fern.”

firefly

It’s been two dry summers since I last attended a firefly dance at the Overholsers, though not for wont of trying.  Many evenings I have put on tennis shoes for a short walk down Hudson Avenue, hopeful of crashing headlong into a firefly ball.

Previous rendezvous have taught me that these shy little social-lights never gathered on the front lawn proper.  Rather the fireflies gravitate to the east side-yard,blog_DSC01705a where they danced above dusk-tinted lawn between an old Model “T” clothes line and the tree-lined sidewalk.

Like a curious child chasing fireflies, I used the net to discover where the fireflies have flown.   The answers I caught at firefly.org knocked me for a loop though;  unless something changes their fate, these charming bugs of summer will soon be ghosts; or in the words of the website, “glowing, glowing, gone.”  Just as sad for this drylocked Oklahoma gal is to know that fireflies prefer life in the warm humid wetlands, the sort of place where tall grass hits water.

Our typical carefully groomed neighborhood lawns, along with other regions of Oklahoma, must have resembled a wetland two years ago, as our rainy month of June left us with non-mowable yards wallowing in standing water.  But it’s interesting that with so many neighborhood wetland yards to choose from, the Overholser place still held a monopoly on firefly dances.

Blog_DSC01713aAnd why not?  There’s simply no better place in the neighborhood to gather than this place that has long been listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  And just as fireflies are anything but a typical guest of an Oklahoma summer, the Overholser place is anything but a typical house museum.  As noted by the Heritage Hills website,

“The Overholser Mansion still contains all of the original furnishings and belongings of the Overholser family, making it one of the rarest house museums in the world. The silverware, dishes, drapes, carpets, furniture – even little Henry Ione Overholser’s doll collection and other toys remain with the home providing a rare snapshot of life at the turn of the 20th Century.

Though I didn’t know it at the time, the Overhoser’s firefly dances of 2007 provided me with “a rare snapshot” of summertime life in Oklahoma.  That little bit of white magic on a former Oklahoma cornfield was something infinitely precious, and though blind, I now see it was a bit of amazing grace served up by a rare summer monsoon followed by a little firefly chaser.

“Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? — every, every minute?”

-- Thornton Wilder, "Our Town"

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