Culinary Arts food display

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Chaplain Donates Cookbooks In Memory of Wife
[Monday, July 30, 2012]
Chaplain George Paterson of Laguna Vista established a lasting education memorial for his first wife, Audrey Ann, with the official donation of almost 400 cookbooks from around the world to Texas State Technical College (TSTC) Harlingen.

Community and college officials joined Paterson on the second floor of the Dr. J. Gilbert Leal Learning Resource Center (LRC) at the unveiling of a plaque that commemorates the couple’s travels to 97 countries. Audrey Ann Paterson passed away in 2010 due to a cancerous brain tumor. Her husband said that preservation of the cookbooks will be a living tribute to his first wife and her legacy as a cook, traveler and an educator.

Many of the books in the Paterson collection include history about the specific ingredients, recipes, and how cultures developed the foods. “It’s very rewarding to see other countries and become familiar with other cultures,” he said. “In all, we collected about eight-thousand and five hundred books. My wife was a voracious reader.”

The couple moved to the Rio Grande Valley in 1975 and taught as band instructors in Brownsville and Los Fresnos. A discount on airfare thanks to a daughter who is a pilot for a major airline allowed them to afford the journeys, Paterson said.

Audrey Ann Paterson enjoyed putting the recipes and cookbooks to use, and there was a large supply of international seasonings in her kitchen. “This collection is all about Audrey today and I believe she would be proud of the legacy. She always used these books and recipes because she was a gourmet cook. She felt that library books were something to be taken care of,” he added.

Mrs. Paterson served on the library board for the city of Los Fresnos, played piano, made quilts, and for seven years wrote the weekly column “How Green Is Your Garden” for the Coastal Current. The couple owned Citrus Garden Tropical Plant Nursery and Botanical Garden between San Benito and Los Fresnos. George Paterson operated the Alegro Charter service for fishermen on weekends until Hurricane Allen destroyed his vessel in 1980. The couple lived on a 35-foot sailboat in 1988 and toured the Caribbean Sea for a year.

The couple retired in 1998 and Paterson became a chaplain with the International Ministerial Fellowship. He works with teenage boys at the juvenile detention center in Bayview. He also is chaplain for the city of Port Isabel and works with youth at the Christ Harbor Church in Laguna Vista.

“I’ve had a very interesting life and God has blessed me,” Paterson said.

He recently wed Kae Paterson, a longtime fashion design and marketing instructor at McClellan Community College in Waco. She suggested that he donate Audrey Ann Paterson’s cookbooks to TSTC for educational purposes.

George Paterson looked toward his new wife and said, “God took one angel and sent another one to me. I really feel it’s true.” One of the reasons he became a chaplain was to thank God for all his blessings.

“This is a great honor for us to be the recipients of this collection. This wealth of knowledge is a wonderful gift for our students. Today, the Patersons become part of our TSTC family and the relationship will last forever,” TSTC President Cesar Maldonado said.

District 38 State Rep. Eddie Lucio III of San Benito and Chaplain Joe Perez of Valley Baptist Medical Center-Harlingen also spoke at the dedication ceremony July 24.

“The contribution the Patersons are making today is a far-reaching one,” Lucio told the assembly. “It will give people more than recipes. It will give them a passion for cooking.”

Perez said that food has long been a sacred symbol of many religious faiths. The collection is one way to share food with the love and spirit that’s available to people through the books of Audrey Ann and George Paterson, he said.

Culinary Arts instructor Patrick Bauer said that the cookbooks will be valuable learning materials for students and the community. He thanked LRC Director Nancy Hendricks and the library staff for accommodating the books and organizing the special display. Students in the Architectural Design and Engineering Graphics and Machining Technology programs planned and made the plaque.

Paterson read the inscription on the Audrey Ann Paterson Culinary Collection plaque aloud to the audience of 30 administrators, faculty and guests. It reads, “Man cannot live by bread alone.”

“It’s a very appropriate plaque,” Paterson concluded.