2023 January Oak Cliff Advocate

Time to show your heart some love

February is Heart Month. And heart disease is the leading cause of death in our community and across the country. So, let’s do something about it, together. Every week during Heart Month we’ll be sharing heart healthy tips, from early warning signs to recipes and exercise ideas. Caring for the heart health of our friends and neighbors. That’s community and why so many people Trust Methodist.

Sign up for Heart Month emails with tips, recipes, exercise ideas, info on events, and more at: Methodist.com/HeartMonth

Texas law prohibits hospitals from practicing medicine. The physicians on the Methodist Health System medical staff are independent practitioners who are not employees or agents of Methodist Health System. Methodist Health System compiles with applicable federal civil rights laws and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, disability, or sex.

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ABOUT THE COVER

George Mason, Patti Vinson, Carol Toler, Sam Gillespie, Lucy Erspamer, Matthew Ruffner, Eric Folkerth, Kathy Tran, Emil Lippe, Corrie Aune, Yuvie Styles, Shelby Tauber, Azul Sordo, Johnathan

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A SOARING SUCCESS

Faith Family Academy has become a men’s basketball juggernaut ›

Interview by EMMA RUBY Photography by JULIA CARTWRIGHT

Brandon Thomas is both the men’s basketball head coach and the athletic director at Faith Family Academy.

Located directly off I-35 in Five Mile Creek, Faith Family Academy operates out of a small, one-story building.

But while the school may fly under the radar, their men’s basketball team certainly does not.

With two 4A state championship titles since 2019 under their belts, and a hot streak to start off the 20222023 season, the Eagles are already a team to watch.

The Advocate spoke with head coach Brandon Thomas about the team’s success and the season ahead.

HOW DO YOU APPROACH A NEW SEASON AFTER A STATE CHAMPIONSHIP WIN?

With the time we have between when we won state back in March to the beginning of the season, it feels like a decade ago. So it’s not as connected as one would think, especially when you have a host of seniors that you graduate and that you kind of move on from. You get a chance to kind of press a hard reset and start over. We always teach our kids that you can’t live in the past; you have to continue to move forward and focus on what’s in front of you.

DOES WINNING TWO STATE CHAMPIONSHIPS PUT A TARGET ON YOUR TEAM’S BACK?

That would really be a question for our competition. We feel that we’re the standard and that we want to uphold that standard. So for us, winning state or having an opportunity to win state is a byproduct of just that mentality… In terms of targets, that’s every game. We compete to win, and the teams we play have the same goal in mind, which is to be successful.

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE THE OVERALL TEAM CULTURE?

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of it. It’s very big picture. Everyone wants to be the last man standing, but we don’t focus on that. We focus on just truly getting better at the things that we feel will make us hard to beat. We are focused on working on things that will help us become a very formidable opponent for someone.

I had a very injury-riddled playing career. So my time as a player, that definitely impacts my coaching career in saying that you cannot take anything for granted. The game can be with you today, and tomorrow it can be gone … and (I’m) just trying to instill that in the guys and even the coaches. Not everyone’s roles are the same, but everybody makes an impact if you’re able to play your role to the best of your capability.

IS THERE ANYTHING FROM YOUR TIME AS A PLAYER AT KIMBALL HIGH SCHOOL THAT INFORMS YOUR COACHING STYLE?

Brandon Thomas plays basketball with Faith Family Academy players in the charter school’s gymnasium.

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR COACHING STYLE?

I’m very direct with my guys. I’m a truth teller; I make sure I tell them the truth, and I am very demanding. But at the same time, I try to find as many fun spots and funny moments as I possibly can to make light of things as well. I don’t want to just be overly rigid all the time.

BEING FROM OAK CLIFF, WERE YOU LOOKING TO RETURN TO THE AREA WHEN YOU STARTED COACHING AT FAITH FAMILY ACADEMY?

It was the Faith Family Academy administrative team and their vision that they have for the school, for the athletic program. I’m also the athletic director, not just a basketball coach. It was just their vision and how it aligned with some of the goals that I had in mind for my career. They just happened to be in Oak Cliff. That was the icing on the cake.

Growing up around that area and all the success that Oak Cliff has had throughout the years in all sports— football, basketball, track — it’s just to be expected that you’re highly competitive. On the basketball side of things in particular, I don’t know if there’s another area in the state of Texas that has endured the longterm success that Dallas has had dating back to the ’80s. So it’s not pressure or anything like that; it’s more pride. You’re just proud to represent that community and be one of the programs that’s helping carry the torch for that community.

Interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Advocate is now a 501(c)3 not-for-profit public media organization. Donations are gifts to the Advocate and tax deductible.

DOES PLAYING IN AN AREA WITH SO MANY SUCCESSFUL ATHLETIC PROGRAMS IMPACT YOU AT ALL, WHETHER BEING MOTIVATING OR INTIMIDATING?

BOXLESS

Los Beckleys is homegrown talent

by SIMON PRUITT

Photography by KATHY TRAN

Story

The members of Los Beckleys stand outside of the Kessler Theater.

Oak Cliff’s Los Beckleys don’t really know what their music sounds like, and they don’t think you should either.

“We just play what sounds good, and when it sounds good, we know it,” lead guitarist Eric Cerda says.

“We never want to be put in a box,” Albert Rivera says.

Cerda grew up in Oak Cliff, playing guitar and fantasizing about one day having a band with his neighbor Rivera. The two made various attempts at starting a band together, with Cerda on lead guitar and Rivera

playing the keys. After years of experimenting, Rivera went far out of his comfort zone to try his hand at vocals.

Rivera spent most of his childhood writing poetry and song lyrics, most of which being far different from any Beckleys track.

“Growing up, it was Eminem and Korn,” Rivera says. “As I got older, I discovered more Spanish rock and other types of artists. It was literally a mixture of everything.”

Pulling from the wide spectrum of art he took in, Rivera penned and sang on the band’s

debut single, “Here,” in 2019.

Rivera and Cerda teamed up with bassist Anthony Najera, drummer Luis Rodriguez and Mollie Ramsey on keys to form Los Beckleys, and have been performing across Texas ever since. The band wrote and recorded four more tracks to fill out their self-titled EP released in the same year.

“People are gonna ask us what we sound like or what are we,” Cerda says. “We don’t even know.”

Their unknowing has led to great success all around DFW. The band has played sets at

Trees, Deep Ellum Art Co. and even the iconic Josey Records. Recently, Los Beckleys opened for Bastards Of Soul at Oak Cliff’s signature Kessler Theater.

Being brought up in Oak Cliff’s artistic fraternity, playing The Kessler is as big of an accomplishment as it gets. At every Los Beckleys show, you’ll see a packed front row of family, friends and other artists ready to support.

“The Kessler always seemed kind of out of reach for us,” Cerda says. “We grew up in this neighborhood looking at it and now we’re playing it. It’s insane.”

Elevating the Real Estate

On Saturdays, Crumb and Kettle sells coffee, scones and cookies, as well as cake-by-theslice and ice cream crumb cups (pictured).

CRUMB & KETTLE

Modernizing confectionary classics ›

Story by EMMA RUBY | Photography by KATHY TRAN

CRUMB AND KETTLE is not your grandmother’s bakery.

With the goal of bringing the baking industry into the modern age, bakery owner Heather Anziani runs Crumb and Kettle a bit differently than a traditional bake shop.

Cakes can be designed on Crumb and Kettle’s website, unlike traditional bakeries where cakes are designed during in-person consultations. Anziani says her virtual process is meant to appeal to a younger crowd.

“I’m 34, and I don’t want to have to call someone to order a cake, or

anything,” Anziani says. “We all shop online.”

That being said, all ages are able to enjoy the bakery’s goods when it opens to the public from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. every Saturday.

On that day, Crumb and Kettle offers a selection of cakes-by-the-slice in seven flavors. The flavors lemon blueberry, champagne raspberry, espresso and cookie crumble can be purchased year-round, and three others rotate seasonally.

Outside of cake, customers will find two to three cookie and scone

variations. There is also an in-house barista making coffee, tea and other hot drinks. Although the majority of the week is dedicated to baked goods, coffee is not a second thought for Crumb and Kettle.

“It’s important to me that the coffee tastes as good as the cake,” Anziani says.

Most Saturdays, Anziani says, the cake slices sell out before closing.

Crumb and Kettle does not offer traditional tastings, as some people may expect when shopping for a wedding cake. Instead, Anziani says

Crumb and Kettle owner Heather Anziani slices a cake alongside baker Cassady Keener.

stopping in for a Saturday slice is the best way to test out the flavors.

Anziani went to school in Canada and was trained in French-style baking, so she says the cakes are not as sweet as what some customers may be accustomed to.

“I like to just tell people, it’s not what you typically eat here in the South. It’s a bit more elevated. You can eat a whole slice and not feel like you’re gonna have a tummy ache,” Anziani says.

While Crumb and Kettle does take custom wedding orders, they are limited to two a month so that Anziani is best able to focus on the customers and their cake designs.

Whereas Anziani started her baking career focusing on wedding cakes, she says the pandemic stalled the wedding industry, and now birthday cakes are Crumb and Kettle’s biggest item.

For birthdays, anniversaries or any other events, Crumb and Kettle has predesigned cakes that can

be ordered as few as five days in advance, and picked up on Fridays and Saturdays. The designs all fit into varying aesthetics, such as “modern marble” and “artsy,” and a variety of cake toppers can make the cakes fully customized.

Crumb and Kettle also sells seasonally flavored holiday cakes, which can be preordered. During Thanksgiving, customers could order pumpkin spice cakes with cream cheese buttercream and caramel swirl.

The next holiday that cakes will be available for preorder is Valentine’s Day.

Anziani says everything is made from scratch in house, including the ice cream “crumb cups” that the bakery offers year-round, although they are most popular in the summer.

Made of half cake, half ice cream layered together, Anziani’s husband came up with the idea for the creation to utilize cake trimmings as part of the bakery’s zero-waste goal.

“A big tenant of the business for me is to limit waste,” Anziani says. “So we compost all of our food waste that is actual waste. And then anything trimmed off the cake goes back into ice cream. If we had leftover blueberry scones from the summer, those went into lemon ice cream. We’re just trying to limit every kind of waste possible.”

In addition to their cake offerings and Saturday openings, Crumb and Kettle rents out their kitchen to other bakers.

Anziani says that when she was starting her business, she often relied on borrowing kitchens from friends and family, and she hopes that by offering her space, other cooks will be able to feel supported while starting out.

Information about Crumb and Kettle’s kitchen rental, as well as details for cake ordering, can be found on their website.

and Kettle, 1300 S. Polk St., crumbandkettle.com

Crumb

Cakes can be designed on Crumb and Kettle’s website, unlike traditional bakeries where cakes are designed during in-person consultations. Anziani says her virtual process is meant to appeal to a younger crowd.

* DALLAS HAS SOME OF THE BEST DOCTORS. AND THE BAD DOCTORS ARE THE EXCEPTION, NOT THE RULE. BUT THAT DOESN’T HELP WHEN YOU’RE THE PATIENT OF THE EXCEPTION.

the bad doctors

DENTISTS, HOSPITAL EXECUTIVES, SURGEONS, NURSES AND OTHER HEALTH CARE WORKERS

(IN SOME CASES, THOSE IMPERSONATING THEM) ARE DOING TIME FOR DOING HARM

Story by CHRISTINA HUGHES BABB | Illustrations by JESSICA TURNER

In the 1870s, a bright young dentist — tall, lean, mustachioed and blonde, with a slight speech impediment and a nagging cough — opened his practice in Deep Ellum.

The lanky Georgia native Henry John Holliday had earned a doctorate of dentistry at 19 and won three awards, including best set of gold teeth, at a Dallas County fair.

But Doc, as he was known, had a dark side. Not only was he sick with a terminal illness, tuberculosis, but he also had a gambling habit. Thus, he would never become the doctor

he might have been.

Like some other promising healers in this story (most of whom had far more formal medical training and credentials than our outlaw DDS), Doc Holliday would be remembered for less noble reasons.

The law ran Doc out of town after a shootout at a Dallas saloon. He attempted several times to resume a dental practice, historians say, but his hacking concerned potential patients. He went on gaming and gunslinging until he died from his illness in Colorado in 1887.

Dallas is home to substantial

medical resources — Baylor Scott & White is the most awarded notfor-profit health system in Texas ( U.S. News & World Report ); we have the No. 1 scientific health care research institution at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center ( Nature Index ), the No. 10 overall hospital system in the nation (The Lown Institute) with Parkland Health and the country’s second largest Veterans Affairs hospital system.

But with so many doctors, clinics and hospitals, on occasion, a bad actor violates his vow to do no harm.

doctors

Dr. Death

dr. Christopher Duntsch became the subject of a Peacock original series for all the wrong reasons. He’s serving a life sentence for gross malpractice that resulted in two direct fatalities and the maiming of more than 30 neurosurgery patients, as told by Laura Beil, the journalist who hosts the Dr. Death podcast, on which the eponymous show is based.

Beil’s reporting was sensational and entertaining in a true-crime sense, but it served an important public service. It exposed a local health care system that allowed a dangerous doctor to move around to different hospitals rather than be scrutinized for his incompetence and, in some cases, willful destruction of patients’ health and lives.

*It’s important to remember, Beil says, that this “pass the trash” phenomenon, where institutions transfer a destructive employee rather than deal with them, is not consigned to medicine.

Duntsch began his career at Baylor Scott & White in Plano, but after several of his surgeries ended in paralysis, permanent damage or death, as well as reports of him showing up to surgery inebriated, Baylor revoked his privileges.

“The one ‘Holy Cow’ I had, was when I learned from the (then) president of the medical board that, had (Baylor) properly notified them of what was going on … they could have suspended him on an emergency basis while they investigated,” she says. “If that had happened, there are people who died who would have still been alive, because he would not have been able to immediately go somewhere else.”

Duntsch performed several surgeries and mangled more patients at South Hampton Community Hospital (now University General Hospital). He sliced through a man’s artery during a surgery at Methodist Hospital, and he left the sponge he used to soak the blood inside the patient when he sewed him up, causing a horrific infection. Duntsch’s reign of terror, reportedly, ended after that operation.

As recently as 2021, his patients were still dying. Jerry Summers, a primary subject of the Dr. Death podcast, and Philip Mayfield both were left paralyzed with compromised immune systems and died from infections, according to what Summers’ lawyer and Mayfield’s wife

told respective local reporters.

Beil’s podcasts reveal that often hospitals do not report problematic physicians to governing boards such as the National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB), which is intended to flag them, because of costs associated with fighting and possibly losing wrongful termination suits.

Beil, a resident of Southern Dallas County who has continued to report on deadly docs, says her stories are not meant to reflect negatively on the profession.

“The vast majority of doctors are good and caring people who want the best for their patients,” she says. In fact, they are the heroes in the Duntsch story because they filed complaints, made phone calls and testified against him.

“The thing you don’t want is to be the patient of the doctor who is the exception,” she says in one podcast episode. “We are limited in what we can find out about a doctor, but a skepticism of a doctor you don’t know is not a bad thing.”

If there’s an overriding good thing about getting this story out there, she says, it is that people will take that extra measure, to the degree that they can, to protect themselves.

In 2021, Duntsch became the first doctor to be convicted of a crime committed in the operating room during the act of surgery.

While awaiting trial, Duntsch was arrested trying to walk out of the Walmart at Northwest Highway and Skillman Street without paying for $887 worth of sunglasses, watches, ties, briefcases, cologne and a pair of pants that he put on in the dressing room, according to a Dallas police affidavit filed on April 8, 2015

Dying for Curves

woman known by her clients

as Wee Wee operated a clandestine med spa in East Dallas where she offered black-market butt injections.

In 2015, clients hoping to attain Kardashian-esque curves could ask for the “Wee Wee Booty,” and, 24 hours before their appointment, she would send them the address, 3800 East Side Ave. The amateur plastic surgeon, Denise Rochelle Ross (Wee Wee), and her assistant, Alicia Clarke, used material that was not safe to inject into clients’

Wykesha Reid, 34, did not survive an injection of silicone caulk, which prosecutors said entered her veins, traveled through her heart and was trapped in her lungs. Reid died in the clinic after lying down, saying she felt unwell. Her injectors left her “to rest” overnight and discovered her dead the next day, when Clarke frantically called 911, according to court records.

In 2017, Wee Wee and her assistant, Clarke, were sentenced to prison for murder in two separate trials. They were not doctors, but were practicing medicine without a license, according to police and court documents; thus their malpractice

amounted to murder.

Police documents show Wee Wee was arrested at an Oak Cliff address shortly after they issued a warrant. She was sentenced to 60 years. She was denied parole in 2020.

It is uncertain whether Wee Wee or Clarke administered the fatal injection. Each woman refused to testify against the other.

The dangers of pursuing the perfect rump are not relegated to the black market.

In 2017, a woman from Oklahoma, Rolanda Hutton, sued several cosmetic surgeons and nurses associated with the Dallas Plastic Surgery Center after she was left paralyzed following what she said at a press conference was a “botched Brazilian Butt Lift.”

The BBL procedure involves transferring fat from other areas into the buttocks. It’s both an in-demand and dangerous surgery, reports the New York Times . “The procedure has the highest mortality rate of any cosmetic surgery, but many women are undaunted,” the paper reported in 2021. In 2020 alone, there were 40,320 buttock augmentations, per the Aesthetic Society.

It’s common practice to move patients to unlicensed post-operative hotels after procedures—in Hutton’s case, The Cloister at Park Lane — but that is dangerous, her lawyers alleged. The defendants — doctors and nurses with offices in Lake Highlands, East Dallas and University Park among them — said, officially, that her claims are without merit.

Court records reveal no settlement reached at this time.

The Pill Mill Doc

dr. Carlos L. Venegas — who operated what appears to have been a legitimate clinic in the Preston Hollow area — also ran a series of sham medical offices, including one in the Wynnewood Shopping Center, where he oversaw the illegal prescription of almost a million units of narcotics with no legitimate medical purpose, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Erin Nealy Cox said in May 2013. After Venegas was convicted of conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance, he was sentenced to 13 years in a federal prison.

Cox said these “pills mills,” fronts

for distributing hydrocodone and alprazolam (Xanax), contributed to an opioid crisis that was, that year, killing 116 Americans a day.

At trial, witnesses testified that participants in this conspiracy paid homeless and indigent people to pose as patients seeking pain medication. Runners coached these men and women on how to describe their (nonexistent) symptoms, drove them to the clinics, and paid for their appointments. Seven other defendants including nurses and property owners went on to serve sentences ranging from 18 months to 11 or more years.

SNAPSHOT OF SUNSHINE

DAVE AINLEY CAPTURES PHOTO BOOTH MAGIC

Story by EMMA RUBY | Photography by KATHY TRAN

At some point or another, you’ve likely been warned never to get into a stranger’s car, but Dave Ainley wants you to put that aside. At least, for the few minutes it takes to get your photo taken inside of his yellow Volkswagen bus-turned photo booth.

If the Eternal Sunshine Photobus is a circus, then Ainley is the ringmaster.

You may have seen Goldie, his bus, parked on Bishop Avenue in front of the restaurant Paradiso, but before you see Goldie, you likely hear Ainley.

If he is in the middle of a session, Ainley’s yelling can be heard down the block.

“Three… Two… One…” he thunders, counting down until a camera flashes, capturing whatever moment is taking place inside of the van.

After that first photo, Ainley yells increasingly hectic and hilarious instructions to his customers. He may yell for a large group of people to rearrange seats, which, with only two seconds between photos and in the tight confines of the bus, often ends with at least one person’s rear end caught on film.

Or, he may suddenly throw props — huge mascot heads or funky glasses — into the mix.

Even when his bus is empty, Ainley’s presence is noticeable.

He stands outside Goldie in the rain, cold or beating sun with a smile on his face, greeting the people who walk up and down Bishop Avenue. Ainley says if he can just get someone walking by to glance at his bus, he has an opportunity to invite them into the chaos.

And that chaos, he says, is an integral part of the magic of the photobus.

“I want it to be anxiety driven, because that just is a part of it. What you create when you’re under pressure is so much better than when you’re not,” Ainley says.

BUILT UNDER PRESSURE

While Ainley loves Texas, everything for him goes back to Spokane, Washington, where he was born, raised and lived most of his life.

It was in Spokane where he started his photography company, Dave Ainley Photography, and where he met his wife, Jill Paullin.

And it was in Spokane where he and Jill were photographing a wedding in 2005, when Jill commented on the growing number of freestanding photo booths she had noticed at the events.

“She said we should put a photo booth in a Volkswagen bus because I was driving one, and I was like, dude, that’s a brilliant idea,” Ainley says.

At the time though, Ainley was driving a bus he called Parker, and Parker was a “total beater” (although Ainley also admits he once told Jill she would have to bury him with the bus, he loved it so much).

Plus, the photography business was doing alright. So Jill’s idea for a photo booth bus floated freely for the next decade.

Ainley spent the next few years focusing on building up his business photographing weddings and senior portraits. But in 2011, his eldest daughter was born, and what he thought would be a quick break to be there for his family resulted in a significant hit to his clientele.

Then in 2017, Ainley and Paullin decided to move their family and photography business down to Dallas, but ultimately struggled to acclimate and “left with their tails between their legs” a year later.

But Ainley said that first move to Dallas, which someone less optimistic may have written off as an abject failure, was what got the Eternal Sunshine Photobus off the ground.

“The year of living in Dallas, seeing businesses pop up and fizzle out, I realized the thing that separates a business that makes it from a business that dies out is you bring something to the table that nobody else has, and you get people excited about it,” Ainley says.

In October 2018, back in Spokane with an orange bus named Clementine, Ainley and Paullin finally started the business they’d schemed up 13 years earlier.

“The idea of Eternal Sunshine — it’s uplifting, it’s a breath of fresh air. And that’s what I want when somebody comes to my bus. For them to have a breath of fresh air and say ‘Man, I just want to be a part of that,’” Ainley says.

Left: Dallas resident Katie Van Sloun poses inside of the Eternal Sunshine Photobus.

THE GOLDIE ERA

It was in 2021, after spending a year navigating small business ownership through the ever-changing regulations of COVID-19, that Ainley decided it was time to look back to Texas.

He and his family moved to Casa Linda in Dallas, Volkswagen in tow, and this time, it’s been nothing but sun, Ainley says.

“Dallas, Texas, is the promised land,” he says.

Ainley first brought the bus to Bishop Arts in December 2021 where he set up outside of the Tipsy Elf holiday bar. But what started as a holiday pop up has turned into a permanent home base.

The Eternal Sunshine Photobus is now a yellow bus named Goldie, and she is decked out with a bench and a fireplace with a camera on the mantle. Ainley sells T-shirts, hats, stickers and any other merchandise he can think of to his growing fanbase.

An experience in the photobus costs $20 and comes with two printed photostrips of three photos, a boomerang for your Instagram and a GIF.

Ainley also rents the photobus to private events like weddings, and is back in the photography business with Dave Ainley Photography.

But on Friday and Saturday evenings, Ainley and his bus can be found holding court on Bishop Avenue, waiting for the next person who is ready to experience the Eternal Sunshine.

“If you just are along for the ride, you’re just willing to have a good time, you’re gonna make magic,” Ainley says. “And I want them to remember that. Cut loose, let go and have fun.”

Eternal Sunshine Photobus parks at 308 N Bishop Ave. @eternalsunshinephotobus, daveainley.com.

Dave Ainley poses next to the Eternal Sunshine Photobus on Bishop Avenue.

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FENCING & DECKS

4 QUALITY FENCING • 214-507-9322 Specializing in Wood. YourWoodmaster.com

AMBASSADOR FENCE CO. Automatic Gates, Fences/Decks, Pergolas, Patio Covers, Arbors. AmbassadorFenceCo.com 214-621-3217

FENCING, ARBORS, DECKS oldgatefence.com 214-766-6422

GARAGE SERVICES

UNITED GARAGE DOORS AND GATES Res/Com. Locally Owned. 214-251-5428

GLASS, WINDOWS & DOORS

PRO WINDOW CLEANING prompt, dependable. Matt 214-766-2183

ROCK GLASS CO Replace, repair: windows, mirrors, showers, screens. 214-837-7829

HANDYMAN SERVICES

DANHANDY.NET Repairs Done Right For A Fair Price. References 214-991-5692

HANDY DAN The Handyman. ToDo’s Done Right. handy-dan.com 214-252-1628

HANDYMAN SPECIALIST Residential/ Commercial. Large, small jobs, repair list, renovations. Refs. 214-489-0635

HANDYMAN WANTS your Painting,Repairs, To Do Lists. Bob. 214-288-4232. Free Est. 25+yrs exp.

HOME REPAIR Small/Big Jobs. Int/Ext. Sheetrock, Windows, Kitchen, Bathroom 33 yrs exp. 214-875-1127

HOMETOWN HANDYMAN All phases of construction. No job too small 214-327-4606 ONE

CALL WEEKEND SERVICES

Contractor & Handyman. Remodels, Renovations . Paint, Plumbing, Drywall, Electrical.469-658-9163

HOUSE PAINTING

TOP COAT 30 Yrs. Exp. Reliable. Quality Repair/Remodel. Phil @ 214-770-2863

RAMON’S INT/EXT PAINT Sheetrock, Repairs. 214-679-4513

KITCHEN/BATH/TILE/GROUT

FENN CONSTRUCTION Full Service Contractor. dallastileman.com 214-343-4645

TK REMODELING 972-533-2872 Complete Full Service Repairs, Remodeling, Restoration. Name It — We do it. Tommy. Insured. dallas.tkremodelingcontractors.com JIM 972-992-4660 WE REFINISH! www.allsurfacerefinishing.com 214-631-8719

LAWNS, GARDENS & TREES

HOLMAN IRRIGATION

Sprinkler & Valve Repair/ Rebuild Older Systems. Lic. #1742. 214-398-8061

MAYA TREE SERVICE Tree Trim/Remove. Lawn Maintenance. Resd/ Commcl.Insd. CC’s Accptd. mayatreeservice.com 214-924-7058 214-770-2435

MONSTER TREE SERVICE DALLAS Certified Arborists, Fully Insured 469.983.1060

PEST CONTROL

MCDANIEL PEST CONTROL

Prices Start at $85 + Tax

For General Treatment.

Average Home-Interior/Exterior & Attached Garage. Quotes For Other Services. 214-328-2847. Lakewood Resident

NATURE KING PEST MANAGEMENT INC. Squirrels, Racoons, Skunks, Snakes, Possums, etc. Pest & Termite. Neighborhood Resident 30+ Yrs.exp. 214-827-0090

"Keeping Children & Pets in Mind"

Termite Specialist - Mosquito Mister Systems Licensed · Insured · Residential · Commercial · Organic 214-350-3595 • Abetterearth.crw@gmail.com abetterearth.com

PLUMBING

AC PLUMBING Repairs, Fixtures, Senior Discounts. Gary Campbell. 214-321-5943

ANCHOR PLUMBING Your trusted Oak Cliff plumber for 30+ years. 214-946-1638.

RESPONSIBLE TREE CARE FOR THE ENVIRONMENT Firewood/Cooking Wood Full service trimming & planting of native trees. 214.946.7138

POOLS

REAL ESTATE

ESTATE HOME NEEDS TO BE SOLD?

Facing forclosure? IG Heron Homes Call Ricardo Garza @ 469-426-7839

NEAR WRLAKE 2/1 DUPLEX. Hdwds, Appl. Yard Serv. CHA, 1/carport. $1,400+Dep. 469-879-2977

OFFICE SUBLEASE In Bishop Arts. Cool, Quiet. 1,179 Sq ft. 4 rooms + kit / bath, parking. $2,950 + NNNs. 713.302-7722.

REMODELING

A2H GENERAL CONTRACTING,LLC

Remodeling, Painting, Drywall/Texture, Plumbing, Electrical,Siding, Bathroom/Kitchen Remodels, Tilling, Flooring, Fencing. 469-658-9163. Free Estimates.

A2HGeneralContractingLLC@gmail.com

FENN CONSTRUCTION Kitchens And Baths. Call Us For Your Remodeling Needs. 214-343-4645. dallastileman.com

O’BRIEN GROUP INC. Remodeling Dallas For Over 24 Years www.ObrienGroupInc.com 214-341-1448

RENOVATE DALLAS renovatedallas.com 214-403-7247

REMODELING

TK REMODELING 972-533-2872 Complete Full Service Repairs, Kitchen & Bath/Remodeling, Restoration. Name It- We Do It. dallas.tkremodelingcontractors.com

ROOFING & GUTTERS

BERT ROOFING

INC.

Family owned and operated for over 40 years

• Residential/Commercial • Over 30,000 roofs completed • Seven NTRCA “Golden Hammer” Awards • Free Estimates www.bertroofing.com 214.321.9341

SERVICES FOR YOU

ATTENTION HOMEOWNERS If you have water damage and need cleanup services, call us! We'll get in & work with your insurance agency to get your home repaired and your life back to normal ASAP! 855-767-7031

BATH & SHOWER UPDATES in as little as ONE DAY! Affordable prices - No payments for 18 months! Lifetime warranty & professional installs. Senior & Military Discounts available. Call: 855-761-1725

DENTAL INSURANCE-Physicians Mutual Insurance Company. Covers 350 procedures. Real insurance -not a discount plan. Get your free dental info kit! 1-888-623-3036 www.dental50plus.com/58 #6258

DISH TV $64.99 For 190 Channels + $14.95 High Speed Internet. Free Installation, Smart HD DVR Included, Free Voice Remote. Some restrictions apply.Promo Expires 7/21/21.1-833-872-2545

DONATE YOUR CARS TO VETERANS TODAY. Help and Support our Veterans. Fast - FREE pick up. 100% tax deductible. Call 1-800 -245-0398

WHERE CAN I FIND LOCAL

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SERVICES FOR YOU

PROTECT YOUR home from pests safely and affordably. Pest, rodent, termite and mosquito control. Call for a quote o rinspection today 844-394-9278

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By EMMA RUBY

Oak Cliff’s ‘haunted’ mansion

Charles Kirtley was a high school student in the late ’50s when he began to hear rumors of a haunted house located at the corner of Camp Wisdom Road and South Hampton Road.

The house had been built nearly 30 years earlier, in 1933, and stood on nine acres of land. And, there were reports that screams for help could be heard from the property. The paranormal story sensationalized the teenagers of the area.

Unbeknownst to his classmates, the home was owned by Kirtley’s great aunt, and he grew up visiting her, and the house, often.

“I could not really say anything about that being my great aunt’s house because everybody in that school knew that was the haunted house,” Kirtley says.

Kirtley found himself amused by his peers’ whispers of ghosts as he knew the real reason behind the strange sounds that would come from the plantation-style mansion and its grounds.

Kirtley’s great aunt, Laura Suddarth, raised peacocks.

While peacock experts may have more scientific ways to describe the noise made by the bird, it is fair to say that to an untrained ear, the scream sounds similar to a high-pitched wail for help.

So no, Kirtley says, his great aunt never held hostages or hosted ghosts. She just really, really loved peacocks.

Kirtley thinks that Suddarth may have gotten the idea to raise peacocks from a friend in Kentucky, where she lived before moving to Oak Cliff. However, while the exotic breeding may have begun as a hobby, it eventually became a full-blown business.

“She incubated the eggs, and a lot of times she raised them herself,” Kirtley says.

The flocks lived in pens to keep predatory animals away, and Suddarth’s birds were sold all over the world.

Kirtley — a member of Kimball High School’s first graduating class — says he would often take his dates

to the house to impress them as long as they swore secrecy about his connection to it.

As word about the peacocks spread around town, high schoolers would drive onto the property and attempt to startle the birds to hear their cry. Suddarth, not one to turn a blind eye to the mistreatment, spent evenings sitting in a second-story window with her .410 shotgun.

“She’d say, ‘Some of your friends or your classmates pulled up my driveway last night, and I shot one of their headlights,’” Kirtley says. “And I’d say, ‘Lala, you’ve got to stop; you’re going to hurt somebody.’”

Kirtley says raising peacocks was just one of a litany of quirks about his beloved great aunt.

Suddarth and her husband were some of the first members of Oak Cliff Country Club, where she loved to golf. Her husband, Robert Donnell Suddarth, was a board chairman for the Oak Cliff Bank & Trust Company and was known as “Mr. Oak Cliff” around town.

The time an exotic pet collection inspired paranormal rumors among high schoolers

Kirtley says Suddarth could often be spotted at a distance due to the signature pink cars she loved to drive, most notably a 1956 Cadillac Sedan DeVille.

When Suddarth died in 1978 at age 92, the house was sold and changed hands several times, Kirtley says.

At one point it became the set of a movie, Tender Mercies , starring Robert Duvall. Kirtley says the movie is “pretty good.”

The home is now part of a large swath of land owned by Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship after minister Anthony “Tony” Evans and his wife bought the property in 2003.

And the ghost stories that once haunted the home on the corner of South Hampton and Camp Wisdom have all but faded.

Above: A glimpse of the house at the corner of South Hampton and Camp Wisdom Roads. The mansion was built on nine acres in 1933 by Robert Donnell Suddarth, who was known around town as “Mr. Oak Cliff.” Photography by Emil Lippe.

By BETSY SWETENBURG

Happy New Year

Reflect on the past, and embrace what’s ahead

“N

ew year. New you.” The start of a new year brings endless possibilities for businesses to pedal this message to us, promising that the simple turn of a calendar page can erase all that has been and usher in all that we imagine for ourselves, be it health, wealth, achievements, you name it. While I love the sentiment of grasping possibility and heading enthusiastically into the future, I don’t like the suggestion that the past should be tossed, as if it was nothing more than a box of holiday treats that have gone stale sitting on the kitchen counter. New Year’s messages reek of “don’t look back” subtext, and that’s unfortunate because you can’t appreciate the new without looking back. Reflecting on the past is part of what makes Christmas so poignant for Christians. Jesus’ birth did make everything new. It marked a new year. It marked a new life for everyone who had been waiting and wondering if the promise of a Messiah was true. But Jesus’ arrival did not mean that people threw out memories of the past as quickly as they could. Instead, remembering the past was part of what made the birth so powerful. They remembered the past with honesty, recognizing how grim and dark things had been for so long. They remembered the broken relationships, dashed dreams, bleak political situation and senseless violence. They remembered how desperate they were for hope. And then they remembered the promise of a light shining in the darkness, and the depths of their

gratitude only grew when they recognized that the Christ child had been born into such a dark world.

The promise of newness was not a promise to override all that had been — a light beaming so bright that darkness and memories of past darkness would cease to exist. The promise of newness was and is a promise that even in the dark, light can break through.

Instead of embracing “New year. New you,” what if we embraced “New year. New light”? What if we started this year with confidence that we don’t have to discard our past to receive new hope and new possibility? What if we reflected honestly on the things that make us want to abandon the past so we’re capable of recognizing newness when it comes instead of trying to manufacture a future without memory? What if we resolved to face the darkness of our lives and our world expecting to see light no matter how faint the glimmer? Light shines in the darkness. If we begin this year trusting that light will arrive to even the darkest places of our lives, then I imagine we’ll find newness that can’t be bought with a gym membership, a beauty regimen, a technological gadget or a meal plan. New year. New light. The light shines in the darkness if only we have eyes to behold it. It’s a happy new year, indeed!

Betsy Swetenburg is pastor of Northridge Presbyterian Church and a regular contributor to the Advocate’s Worship Column. To help support the Worship Column, email sales@advocatemag.com.

WORSHIP

METHODIST

TYLER STREET CHURCH / Join us @tylerstreet.church / 927 W.10th St. / 214-946-8106 / Study of God’s Word Contemporary / Anderson Hall Sat 5 pm / Traditional & Worship Sunday 10 am Tylerstreet.com

KESSLER PARK UMC / 1215 Turner Ave./ 214.942.0098 I kpumc.org 10:30am Sunday School/11:00 Worship /All are welcome regardless or r ace, creed, culture, gender or sexual identity.

NON-DENOMINATIONAL

KESSLER COMMUNITY CHURCH / 2100 Leander Dr. at Hampton Rd. “Your Hometown Church Near the Heart of the City.” 10:30 am Contemporary Service / kesslercommunitychurch.com

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