Even before women could vote, or serve on a jury, or be a CEO, or wear pants, there was The Junior League. Specifically, there was The Junior League of New York, which started a movement in 1901 when one Barnard College student organized a group of her peers to volunteer outside of their homes, independent of their husbands, to address the social issues they saw around them.
From there, Junior Leagues sprang up across the country. In 1923, there were 63 of them, plus dozens of women’s service organizations applying for the designation. These Junior Leagues were progressive before their time: The St. Louis League fought for women’s suffrage, organizing a march outside of the 1916 Democratic Convention. The Brooklyn League created what became the model for free school lunches across the country. In 1923, The Junior League of Dallas published a Junior League Cook Book, an entirely new way of fundraising.
And in 1925, 12 Houston women started The Junior League of Houston (JLH).
Originally, Houston’s League focused on a well-baby clinic, which, founded in 1927, eventually became the Junior League Health Care Clinic at Texas Children's Hospital. Since then, the League has partnered with hundreds of Houston organizations, providing thousands of trained volunteers and millions of dollars in funding – all in service of building a better community.
Those 12 founders would have had no inkling of the impact their organization would have in Houston. In 2000, for its 75th anniversary, the League collaborated with Baylor College of Medicine, Texas Children’s Hospital, the City of Houston, HISD, and Harris County Hospital District to launch a new generation of well-baby clinics: the SuperKids Pediatric Mobile Clinic. (This writer fondly remembers sitting on the floor of another volunteer’s home, two tiny babies in carriers with us, working on the publicity for the SuperKids Clinic.) This year, to celebrate 100 years, the League raised $2 million to fund the new Junior League of Houston Volunteer Services Building at DePelchin Children’s Center. Through it all, the League has set the standard for preparing women to be effective volunteers and leaders in the community.
Those 12 founders also could never have dreamt that their recipes and the recipes of volunteers to come, celebrated in the four Junior League of Houston cookbooks, would be the center of holiday traditions for so many families, and for so many generations.
Peggy Roe, a nonprofit consultant, joined The Junior League of Houston when she was 34. “I’ve been a member for 46 years,” she says, recalling that she’s been president of the Sustaining Club (the volunteers who have completed their active years and remain active in the League socially and philanthropically) and, more recently, served on the Centennial Campaign Cabinet, helping with fundraising.
“I grew up in Oklahoma, and my husband and I moved to Texas for him to go to grad school at UT,” Peggy says. She joined the League because, “I knew it would open doors for me all over Houston.”
And that it did. “We went all over the city and learned about all these wonderful projects. It was our job to be volunteers,” Peggy says. “I never would have known so much about our community. And it sparked a curiosity for me about what made Houston tick. Why was it such a philanthropic community? Honestly, I think it’s because people in Houston never took for granted what they had been given. They wanted others to feel the benefits of their good fortune. In Houston, it’s gratitude that generates generosity.
“The League taught me how to be a good fundraiser, and to be a good leader.” Since her active days in the League, Peggy has led several nonprofits in different capacities. “Sitting on the board of the Junior League, learning the bylaws and proper meeting protocols, realizing the importance of being good stewards of other people’s money – those lessons have played into my life as a nonprofit consultant and fundraiser ever since.”
Peggy was on the committees for both the Star of Texas Cookbook and Stop and Smell the Rosemary. Her family’s Christmas breakfast always includes the Moncrief Monkey Bread and Sour Cream Coffee Cake from The Junior League Cook Book, published in 1968 and referred to by Peggy and her friends as “Old Yeller.” “My daddy loved that bread,” Peggy says. “When he and my mother would come over, he would take not just a piece, but a big handful of it. That gave me so much joy.”
From Stop and Smell the Rosemary, Roasted Red Pepper Soup and the Wild Rice Medley both star at the Roes’ Christmas dinner. “I like that the soup is colorful and looks Christmas-y,” she says, laughing about the time she brought it, frozen, on the plane to Christmas in Washington, DC, where two of her three children and their families live. “They confiscated my luggage, because it wouldn’t go through security,” she says. “I thought, you’ll take that over my dead body! Thank goodness I got it back.”
Peggy Roe always makes the Sour Cream Coffee Cake from The Junior League Cook Book for her family's Christmas celebration. (Photo: lawellphoto.com)
Sour Cream Coffee Cake, from The Junior League Cook Book
½ pound butter
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups sifted flour
¼-½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons cinnamon
4-5 tablespoons brown sugar
¾ cup chopped pecans
Grease and flour large bundt pan. Using electric mixer, cream butter and sugar. Add eggs, one at a time. Mix sour cream and vanilla together. Sift flour, salt, and baking powder together. Add flour mixture to butter alternately with sour cream. Pour 1⁄3 to ½ of batter into prepared pan. Combine cinnamon, brown sugar, and nuts; sprinkle over cake batter. Spoon remaining batter into cake pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 60-65 minutes. Cake will rise, then fall slightly. Cool for at least 10 minutes before removing from pan. Sift powdered sugar over top of warm cake if desired.
Cynthia Adkins, executive director at the TIRR Foundation and member of several nonprofit boards, joined the League when she was 22 and teaching second grade at River Oaks Baptist. “It was so long ago, I’m not sure I can count back that far,” she laughs. “My mother and my aunt had put me up, and in that day and time it was completely different. They sent out a ballot to the entire membership and everyone would vote. That’s how it worked.” Today, anyone interested and willing to put in the time can join.
“When we joined, we had a really strict provisional course. We went around the city and learned about all the different institutions and nonprofits. I remember seeing the Port of Houston. I had never seen the Port of Houston! I became enthralled with the community,” she says, adding, “I love to help people. That’s where I get my excitement.”
Once Cynthia started her family – both of her grown daughters are members of the Junior League, one in Georgetown and one in Houston – she worked in the Tea Room, and then leadership roles started to come her way. She was asked to chair the building of a new League headquarters.
“I knew nothing about building a building,” Cynthia says. “But it was the most fun thing I ever did in the League. We designed our committee with people in charge of the kitchen, the ballroom. We interviewed a project manager, and he was a great guy. Why he took the job answering to all of us, I don’t know. But he was great. We interviewed a construction firm, a design firm, an architecture firm, and off we went on this crazy journey.” That building still stands at 1811 Briar Oaks Lane and has hosted countless weddings, showers, meetings, and more.
A little-known story: When Cynthia was president of the League, her Tea Room chairman and others put a new Tea Room menu together. “We all looked that thing over and over,” Cynthia says about proofing it. But when it was printed, instead of Crab Cakes, the menu read Crap Cakes. “She [the Tea Room Chairman] was mortified, but mistakes happen,” Cynthia says. “We lived with it.”
There are no crab cakes at Cynthia’s family’s Christmas dinner, but there are Garlic Cheese Grits. “From the yellow cookbook,” she says, speaking of the 1968 The Junior League Cook Book. “Then the Milk Punch from that book as well. Sometimes, if I do Mexican for Christmas Eve, I’ll make the Portuguese Chicken in The Star of Texas cookbook. It’s really good, and it feeds a crowd.” She adds that there’s a delicious recipe in The Star of Texas that combines potatoes with Velveeta cheese (Hot Potato Salad). “Nothing in it is the least bit healthy,” she says. Maybe not, but it was a delicious sign of the times.
Garlic Cheese Grits, from The Junior League Cook Book
2 cups uncooked grits
1 roll (6 ounces) garlic cheese
½ pound sharp Cheddar cheese, grated
½ cup butter
2 eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon Tabasco
¼ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
Paprika
Cook grits. Add other ingredients, except paprika, and mix well. Pour into large, shallow casserole. Sprinkle with paprika. Bake in 350-degree oven about 30 minutes. May be made early in the day and heated at serving time. Serves 12.
Sharyn Robinson and her daughters Elizabeth Kendrick and Emily Walter make volunteering with the League a family affair. (Photo: Jacob Powers Photography)
Elizabeth Kendrick and her sister Emily Walter followed in the footsteps of their mother, Sharyn Robinson, when they joined the League. “When we were little, we would go to the Tea Room and watch [my mom] serve,” Elizabeth says. Outside of her job as Director of Change Management for Phillips 66, Elizabeth led the 100th year celebration as Centennial Chairman. “We’ve had a whole season of festivities,” she says. “We reconnected with our sustainers, and with the agencies and donors we have worked with over the last 100 years. The most recent celebration was a donor recognition luncheon this fall.” Ann Stern, a former League president and president and CEO of Houston Endowment, spoke at the event about the League’s impact and response to community needs.
“At the same time our 12 founders were thinking about what the biggest needs in our community were,” Elizabeth says, “Jesse Jones was building the Houston Ship Channel,” transforming Houston into a major port city. “At the time, the idea of having a well-baby clinic…there wasn’t anything like it. From that point forward, we have continued to progressively support our community. We were caring for children with AIDS before we even knew what that meant.”
Today, more than 90 percent of JLH volunteers work outside their homes. “That’s a significant shift,” Elizabeth says. “These are strong, dedicated women who come from diverse backgrounds, and each have their own reasons for choosing to spend their free time volunteering.” She adds that the League is not only addressing community needs, but also training volunteers. “You have to have training to appreciate what different populations in our community look like. So, yes, the League is a wonderful group of women who come together and volunteer and have a good time. But we are working to better ourselves as volunteers, and to better the community. Women leave the League, and they are chairmen of boards, presidents of organizations.”
As impactful as they have been, the Houston Junior League’s cookbooks are no longer in print, and Elizabeth was the League’s last Publishing Chairman. “I have a real soft spot for the cookbooks,” she says. “They are such a treasured part of our history. It’s legacy, it’s tradition, it’s the culture of Houston. My mom got her first Junior League cookbook from her grandmother. She gave us our first League cookbooks. I have all of them on my shelf. The cookbooks, and the recipes, bring people together outside of our League walls.”
For as long as Elizabeth and Emily can remember, their family has spent Christmas morning sharing the Sausage Cheese Pie from The Star of Texas cookbook. “Before I knew what the League was, I knew what the Sausage Cheese Pie was!” Elizabeth says.
Sausage Cheese Pie from The Star of Texas Cookbook
½ pound sausage, cut into ¼-inch slices
1 8-inch pie shell, partially baked
½ pound grated Cheddar cheese
3 eggs, slightly beaten
½ cup milk
2 tablespoons bourbon
1 tablespoon lemon juice
½ tablespoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cook sausage slices until browned. Drain well and spread over bottom of pie shell. Cover with grated cheese. Beat eggs with milk, bourbon, lemon juice, salt and pepper, and pour into pie shell. Bake for 40 to 50 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Serves 6.
MAKE-AHEAD TREAT Donna Perillo and her daughter Lauren, Junior League of Houston members, make the Crème Brûlée French Toast from Peace Meals. (Photo: lawellphoto.com)
Lauren Perillo is an attorney and a volunteer at the League. “Joining the Junior League myself has definitely felt like a full-circle moment,” she says. “I remember hanging out in the seating area upstairs [at the Junior League] as a kid and proudly seeing Peace Meals in Barnes & Noble.” Lauren’s mother Donna Perillo was a member of the Peace Meals steering committee. “I was a little nervous about joining, because my job is pretty demanding,” Lauren says. Still, she says, “[Meeting] other hard-working women there…has been an incredible part of the experience. I love that I’m getting to follow in my dad’s footsteps as an attorney and my mom’s as a volunteer at the same time. It is really an amazing experience to grow up and be able to do some of the same things I was most proud of both of them for at the same time.”
Earlier this year, Abigail Simpson, the daughter of one of Donna’s Junior League friends, took part in Lauren's wedding. “It’s had an impact on my life already in a million ways.” One small impact that has become a big tradition is the Crème Brûlée French Toast from Peace Meals that Lauren’s family looks forward to every Christmas morning.
Crème Brûlée French Toast (Photo: lawellphoto.com)
Crème Brûlée French Toast, from Peace Meals
¾ cup (1½ sticks) butter
1½ cups firmly packed brown sugar
3 tablespoons corn syrup
1 loaf challah bread, sliced 1-inch thick with each piece sliced in half diagonally
6 eggs
2 cups (1 pint) half-and-half
2 cups (1 pint) milk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
⅓ cup sugar
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon Grand Marnier (optional)
Powdered sugar, for dusting
This recipe requires advance preparation. Lightly butter a 9x13-inch baking dish and set aside. Melt the butter and brown sugar with the corn syrup in a small saucepan over medium heat; stir until smooth and bubbly. Pour the mixture into the prepared dish. Arrange the bread slices on top in two overlapping rows, slightly stacking the bread. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, half-and-half, milk, vanilla, sugar, salt, and liqueur until well combined; pour evenly over the bread. Cover with foil and chill for at least 8 hours or overnight. Preheat the oven to 350° F. Bake until set in the center, approximately 45 minutes, then uncover and bake an additional 15 minutes or until golden brown. Dust with powdered sugar and serve with the sauce from the dish. Serves 8.
HOLIDAY BAKING Soft Ginger Cookies from Peace Meals are a family favorite for sisters Lauren and Taylor Luce. They say volunteering at the League is a full-circle moment, as they remember doing homework in the building while their mom Keli was volunteering there. (Photo: lawellphoto.com)
Taylor Luce, 27, and her sister Lauren, 25, both say they grew up going to the Junior League building with their mom Keli. “We did homework there when Mom had her office at the League,” Taylor says, referring to one of Keli’s many high-level volunteer placements, requiring her to maintain an office in the building. “She had a ton of roles,” Taylor remembers. Keli currently serves as the Tea Room Sub-Council Sustainer Advisor, and Taylor is Tea Room Special Events Chair, a full-circle moment as she prepares to chair “Lunch with Santa” this year, remembering all the years they attended as a family. Keli says seeing her girls volunteer with the League is especially meaningful. “To see them building their own connections, finding their own purpose, and understanding the joy that comes from giving back and building a better community…feels like a legacy of service and sisterhood continuing through them.”
Each Christmas, their family gets excited for the Spicy Rosemary Cashews and Soft Ginger Cookies from Peace Meals. Taylor, a business transformation consultant at IBM, and Lauren, marketing coordinator at Pennington Wealth Management, say their family snacks on the cashews all month long. “They’ve become a staple on our charcuterie boards, and the scent alone instantly feels like the holidays,” Lauren says. The girls would leave the ginger cookies out for Santa, adding red and green sprinkles to up the holiday factor.
Soft Ginger Cookies (Photo: lawellphoto.com)
Soft Ginger Cookies, from Peace Meals
2 ¼ cups flour
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground cloves
¾ cup (1 ½ sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 ¼ cup sugar, divided
1 egg
¼ cup molasses
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Combine the flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, and cloves in a medium bowl; set aside. Mix the butter and 1 cup of the sugar together with an electric mixer in a large bowl. Add the egg and molasses, and mix well, scraping the sides of the bowl as necessary. Add the flour mixture gradually to the egg mixture. Place the remaining ¼ cup of sugar in a small bowl. Shape the dough into 1 ½ inch balls and roll in sugar. Place the balls 2 ½ inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake on the center rack until light brown and puffed, about 10 minutes. Do not overbake. Allow the cookies to cool on the cookie sheet for 2 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
MAKE-AHEAD TREAT Donna Perillo and her daughter Lauren make the Crème Brûlée French Toast from Peace Meals. “It is a make-ahead casserole that tastes like dessert,” Donna says. “It’s been our holiday brunch tradition since I tested recipes on the Peace Meals team!” (Photo: lawellphoto.com)
One hundred years, 10 decades, and multiple generations of women, following their grandmothers’ and mothers’ leads or paving their own paths. The Junior League of Houston has impacted every corner of the city, the lives of countless beneficiaries and volunteers, and the tables of all of us who turn to the iconic cookbooks not just for recipes, but for traditions.
As 2025 closes and Houston’s Junior League Centennial celebrations come to a close, as we appreciate all the League has done for us personally and for Houston, one question looms large: When can we get our hands on a new generation’s Junior League of Houston cookbook?
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, happy volunteering, and happy cooking!
