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    Have a better idea?

    Looking to legends to bring some rain: The end of one drought brought Texas bluebonnets

    Terry St. John
    Aug 23, 2011 | 8:24 am
    News_Bluebonnet_field_rolling_hills
    The next morning when She-Who-Is-Alone and the villagers awoke, they saw that the hills were covered with beautiful blue flowers, the same color as the doll’s feathers. They knew it was a sign from the Great Spirit. Soon it began to rain, and the drought was ended.
    Photo via Real Texas

    Emails from MoveOn.org urge me to help make Texas a blue state.

    That's hard to do, because we all know Texas is a red state in more than just politics these days. The weather graphic of the state looks like a blistering hot frying pan.

    Texas is cocooned by something the weather folks call a high pressure level, which repels any significant moisture. As someone who can barely identify a cumulus cloud from a cirrus one, it’s still a mystery to me. What can we do except pray, hope, cope and watch our green lawns wither to brown?

    What did our ancestors do? They prayed, hoped, coped and watched their crops turn brown. And without the knowledge of modern meteorology, sometimes it was logical to blame the drought on the gods.

    What can we do except pray, hope, cope and watch our green lawns wither to brown?

    A multitude of legends have been spawned by a society’s attempts to convince these fickle gods to send a little downpour their way. In desperation, people promised to sacrifice their most prized possessions —sometimes a virgin or a prized animal or a piece of valued property.

    In the good legends, the skies open up just before the horrible deed, and the verdant landscape returns, the crops are saved and the people rejoice. You usually don’t hear about those sacrifices that didn’t work. Not good folklore.

    My favorite legend is still one that J. Frank Dobie recorded in his Tales of Old Time Texas and one that I shyly recited to my first-grade classmates at Eastwood Elementary School (now Dora B. Lantrip Elementary). It goes like this:

    She-Who-Is-Alone was a young Comanche orphan living in Texas a long time ago. Her parents and her entire family had died during the drought. There was no rain to grow the crops. The people were sick and dying, and the horses and buffalo were suffering. The leaders prayed to the Great Spirits, played the drums and danced asking for help.

    Finally one of the leaders said that the Great Spirits wanted them to make a sacrifice. Everyone had to give up their most valuable possession.

    She-Who-Is-Alone had only one thing that she loved — the little doll her grandmother had made for her out of buffalo skin. The face was painted with berry juice, and beautiful blue bird feathers adorned its head. It was the only thing she had left from her family.

    But she knew what she had to do. That night she crept out from her teepee, bringing her doll with her to the fire. She kissed her doll and said, “O Great Spirit, here is the only thing I have. It is very special. Please send the rain.”

    She threw her doll into the fire and watched as the fire consumed it. When the fire grew cold, she scooped up some ashes and threw them to the winds.

    The next morning when She-Who-Is-Alone and the villagers awoke, they saw that the hills were covered with beautiful blue flowers, the same color as the doll’s feathers. They knew it was a sign from the Great Spirit. Soon it began to rain, and the drought was ended.

    The villagers changed She-Who-Is-Alone’s name to One-Who-Dearly Loves-Her-People. And each spring when the fields are covered with bluebonnets, we are reminded of the little’s maiden’s sacrifice.

    Terry St. John is a Houston native who's never seen a summer as hot as this one.

    She-Who-Is-Alone kissed her doll and said, “O Great Spirit, here is the only thing I have. It is very special. Please send the rain.”

    News_The Legend of the Bluebonnet
      
    Illustration by Tomie DePaola
    She-Who-Is-Alone kissed her doll and said, “O Great Spirit, here is the only thing I have. It is very special. Please send the rain.”
    unspecified
    news/city-life

    telling stories

    Black-owned Houston bookstore opens new home in historic Third Ward space

    Craig D. Lindsey
    May 13, 2025 | 2:45 pm
    Kindred Stories bookshore Eldorado Ballroom
    Photo by Craig D. Lindsey
    Kindred Stories has moved to its new location.

    Even though its grand reopening will be held this Saturday, May 17, Third Ward bookstore Kindred Stories has already begun a soft opening at its new location inside the Eldorado Ballroom at 2310 Elgin Street.

    Since September 2021, the Black-owned bookstore was located on Stuart St., one of many businesses that came to life thanks to Project Row Houses’ Incubation Program. Last year, the nonprofit informed Kindred and the other business that they had to vacate their premises at the end of this month to allow new businesses to occupy the spaces.

    Thankfully, Kindred already had its eye on the Eldorado location, next to neighborhood eatery The Rado Market (which has a collection of cookbooks curated by Kindred). It’s a space previously held by Hogan Brown Gallery, which abruptly closed in December. “I had caught wind that this space might be available,” Kindred founder/owner Terri Hamm tells CultureMap.

    Hamm turned the moving process into a fun little event for her and her loyal customers. “Last Tuesday, we invited about 20 of our top community members that, you know, are always in the store and have really supported us all of the year,” she says. “We packed up all the books in the space in an hour and, then, we moved everything in an hour. So it was like the beautiful way to close out that space in the midst of the community that has really supported us throughout three-and-a-half years there. And we spent the last four days kind of unboxing and just getting all set up.”

    Hamm says the new location is certainly roomier (around 1200 square feet) than their previous spot, which was only 450 square feet.

    “There's more room to just spend time in the store,” she says. “I feel like that's the ideal bookstore experience, when you can go in and really take your time. I feel like in the other space, it was so small, people kind of felt like they were in a rush.”

    Although Kindred is open and ready to welcome anyone looking for Black-and-proud literature, Hamm insists they’re only 90 percent done. More light fixtures need to be installed. Plants and furniture have to be brought. They even have custom-made wallpaper that needs to be installed.

    “So, we have a few little things that need to happen,” says Hamm, “And, then, I feel like the space will be really, really ready – probably in another six months.”

    In the meantime, it’s business as usual. This month’s calendar of events includes various appearances from authors as well as a couple of book clubs. Hamm is looking forward to new bookworms coming in and discovering what Kindred Stories has to offer.

    “The bestsellers are selling,” she says, “But I feel like, in this space, people are going to get to discover a lot of under-the-radar titles, just because there's more space to see the books and explore.”

    kindred storieseldorado ballroomshoppingbooksbookstoresopenings
    news/city-life
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