Wednesday, July 3, 2024
In his 50 professional years, Tumbleweed has interviewed some true Texas characters and assembled the largest private collection of oral history in the United States. He writes a syndicated weekly newspaper column and teaches broadcasting at the university level.
For 33 years, Stanton has had a soup cook-off to raise funds for the restoration of the city’s historic monastery and convent complex. I have been privileged to judge it a few times and have always had a good time there. It costs nothing to enter the contest. Attendees pay $5, and that gives them the privilege to sample the soups and vote in the People’s Choice category. The winners get handsome wooden plaques in the shape of Texas.
Stanton residents bring in cakes, pies and cookies and auctioneer Matt Kiker uses his skill to sell them to the highest bidders. One cake brought $3,000. The final tally for the action was nearly $27,000. Not bad for a town with a population of 3,000.
I tasted all 23 entries. After the judging, I went around and asked the cooks to tell me what kind of soup they made. Many of the entries were creamy soups with ingredients ranging from the usual potatoes, celery and bacon to a French onion soup made with Texas onions. One was made with Wagyu meat, and one was made with beer. One entrant said the secret ingredient was love.
Stanton’s Volunteer Fire Department claimed the judge’s first prize for an andouille-potato soup. Second place was a soup called cheeseburger in paradise. A lasagna soup placed third. The People’s Choice Award went to Robbie Gibb for his jalapeno-crawfish chowder.
Restoration of the monastery/convent has been a 50-year effort, and it has finally got to the point where the public can tour it and hold weddings and other events there. Reginia Hunt has been hired as the first executive director. “In 1882, Carmelite Monks arrived with a vision of creating a German-Catholic community here,” she says. “They finished the monastery in 1884.”
It was just a tiny railroad section station called Grelton, and because of the Catholic settlers, the railroad changed the name to Marianfield (Field of Mary). In 1890, as the town grew and more protestants moved in, the name was changed to Stanton to honor Lincoln’s Secretary of War.
A severe drought in 1886 followed by blizzards the following year brought hard times to both the monastery and the community. Many people left. In 1891, only five priests were in residence. The end of that year, an order of nuns, The Sisters of Mercy, rented the monastery and later turned it into a convent. The Sisters bought it in 1896 and left in 1938 following a tornado that damaged some buildings.
When the complex was vacated, it began to turn into an eyesore. Over the years, it was used for many things, including private residences, a restaurant and a haunted house. But restoration is continuing. “Over the years, the soup cook-off is our largest fundraiser,” says Reginia, “but we do clay shoots, get donations from individual donors and grants. People in West Texas are very generous.”
