As easy as [lemon ice box] pie!
Louisville’s Shawnee Presbyterian Church revives beloved ‘Sunday dinner’ tradition
It was a sign.
Dianne White was watching TV one day when a book promotion caught her eye.
“Chef Alexander Smalls’ new book really piqued my interest because he’s from South Carolina, which is where I’m originally from,” said White, a ruling elder at Shawnee Presbyterian Church in Louisville’s historic West End.
West Louisville, a diverse and vibrant neighborhood, is known for its rich African American cultural heritage.
“When I found out that ‘When Alexander Graced the Table’ was both a recipe and a children’s book about ‘Sunday dinner,’ I knew it was a sign that I had to order it,” White said. “It even has a recipe from when Smalls was a boy of six. His contribution to the family’s Sunday dinner was a lemon icebox pie!”
Because White, a retired educator and expert chef in her own right, has long been advocating that Shawnee engage more intentionally with both the surrounding community and the presbytery, she sensed that the surest way to the people’s hearts would be through their stomachs.
In other words, “Sunday dinner.”
“People know what ‘Sunday dinner’ is because it’s an important tradition in a lot of cultures,” she said. “For us, we would gather at the grandmama’s house after church, and we would have Sunday dinner. Since the meal can be anything we want it to be, not just soul food, I knew that our members could use their imagination and whatever resources we had on hand to make it happen.”
And that’s just what they did.
On Sunday, March 23, White and a small group of faithful volunteers from the 30-member church — one of the four historic African American congregations in Mid-Kentucky Presbytery — launched the new Sunday dinner program.
Designed as a “drop-in” event from 1-3 p.m. on the fourth Sunday of every month, Shawnee Sunday dinners are tailored to accommodate a variety of schedules, guests and worship times.
“We want to be a bridge for the ‘9th Street Divide,” White said, referencing the “barrier” that exists between Louisville’s East and West Ends. “People are afraid to come to the West End, but there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
As a harbinger of the new program’s success, the first meal on March 23 drew about 50 hungry diners, including members from congregations across the presbytery, like Harvey Browne Memorial Presbyterian Church, Shawnee’s “sister church,” where Tom Hughes is a ruling elder.
And not only is Hughes active at Shawnee as part of the administrative commission created by the presbytery in February 2023 to support the small congregation with church governance, but he is also a member of “Harvey’s Helpers," a volunteer ministry of HBPC.
Harvey’s Helpers is a group of mixed aged and mixed skill individuals interested in supporting church projects ranging from painting to minor repairs, landscaping and more.
White recalled a tense moment when she shared with the administrative commission the fire marshal’s pronouncement that the inoperable chair lift leading from one of Shawnee’s outside entrances to the church’s upper level was a dangerous fire hazard that either had to be fixed or removed.
“That’s when Tom offered to come to Shawnee and take pictures of the broken chair lift to see if Harvey’s Helpers could do it,” said White.
When Hughes showed the photos to HBPC ruling elder Dave Doehnert, who convenes the volunteer group, they determined that the chair lift would be too expensive to repair. So last year, four members of Harvey’s Helpers came over, took it apart and hauled it off.
“Tom is a quiet godsend,” White said.
And someone who also enjoys a good Sunday dinner.
“It was very nice,” Hughes said. “And not only was the food very good — Dianne made her famous caramel frosted pound cake — but it was also a chance to interact with people. I met someone from Harvey Browne whose name I had heard but had never really met even though he’s a lifetime member and I’ve been there for 30 years.”
And as for the lemon icebox pie, White said she hopes that there will be youth in the church who will one day make Smalls’ childhood recipe.
“It’s aspirational for us,” she said. “It’s been a struggle.”
Still, White sees only growth in Shawnee’s future.
“There’s something special here,” she said. “And the more we keep pushing forward, the more everybody will see what I see!”
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