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Mrs. Beula Durrill Espy, of Van Horn, Texas shows off her cake at a picnic in west Texas, 1940. (Courtesy Portal to Texas History). View full size.
You can see more images from the Texas Mountain Trail, a coalition of west Texas museums, in our gallery.
The Pecos City Bakery made the cake for the picnic. Beula is the person who brought it to the picnic ... this is a "mystery" ??
One possible explanation for what's written on the cake is that Beula didn't bake the cake,(we just assumed that because of the wording, "shows off her cake" in the picture info),but won it in a tabbacki spittin' contest and was just showing off what is now, her cake! And such a nice lady too.
If that was Ms.Espy's cake, why does it say "Compliments - Pecos City Bakery"? Was Beula THE PC Bakery? Just an employee there? What's the reason behind the inscription, or whatever you call it on a cake? Obviously I'm missing something here. AH! Another Shorpy Mystery.
Was it chocolate?
That was a lot of work. You just know she baked that cake from scratch. (My google results say that good quality cake mix didn't appear until 1948.)
Love that handkerchief up her sleeve!
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