Ep 17: The Legend of the Bluebonnet, with Dr. Nancy Kate Dunkerly

Have you heard the legend of the Bluebonnet story? 

Dr. Nancy Kate Dunkerly, a Native Texan and Native Dallasite, first heard the legend of the Blue Bonnet from her grandmother. Nancy Kate is one of the original partners of Retreat House. She is active in our community as a spiritual director and retreat leader and was one of the original prayer partners in our community. She says she remembers seeing and longing for a place where people could be spiritually fed long before Retreat House was born. 

As we celebrate our 7th birthday in October, Podcast Host Emily Turner Watson connected with Nancy Kate to learn more about the roots of Retreat House. This interview took place in the library at Retreat house, among the many books or “spiritual friends” as she calls them.  

Back to the blue bonnets. The story is about the native Americans in East Texas who were experiencing a drought. The drought was severe and the people were starving and thirsty. They tried all kinds of things. Talking and asking the Great Spirit – how do we make it rain? They finally concluded: someone in their tribe would have to give something up, someone would have to sacrifice something that they loved.

A little girl was listening to her elders and overheard the need for such a sacrifice.

She loved her people so much and she also loved her doll. In fact, her doll was her most prized possession. When everyone else had gone to sleep, she went to where the tribe’s fire had been burning. Still warm with hot coals, she threw her doll into the fire and asked the Great Spirit to give her people rain.

The next morning the people of this village awakened to find that the hills surrounding them were covered with blue. The rains had come and there were flowers everywhere.  The little girl looked closely at one of the flowers and could see an imprint of the bonnet that her doll was wearing imprinted on the flowers.

Legend has it that the Bluebonnet – the Texas state flower, is a result of a little girl giving what she loved to help the people.

Nancy Kate explains in this episode that this story encompasses much of what is behind her care for Retreat House. At 83, an elder in our community, and as someone who has lived in North Texas her entire life, she knows the people living in the area of NorthTexas,where the physical space of Retreat House lives, are spiritually thirsty and hungry. There is a spiritual drought in this part of Texas but Retreat House is like the blue bonnets she says. She even wears a blue bonnet necklace to remind her of this love story.