Cleora Butler

Cleora Thomas was born on the sixth of February 1901 at the village of Waxahachie, in Ellis County, Texas, the daughter of an Ellis County Black-and-rural family of the principal post-Reconstruction Texas Black-and-rural community. She was raised at the family relocation to Muskogee, Oklahoma in 1908.

She completed her secondary education at the Manual Training High School at Muskogee in 1918 — and was hired in 1918 as a junior cook at the principal Muskogee Black-and-mainstream commercial-catering community.

She relocated to Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1923 — at the principal post-1921 Tulsa-race-massacre Black-Tulsa rebuilding-and-commercial-recovery period — and was hired at the principal Tulsa commercial-catering community of the principal post-1923 post-Tulsa-race-massacre Black-Tulsa-community.

She was hired in 1928 by the principal Cosden Petroleum Company executive household at Tulsa as principal household-cook-and-caterer — and held the principal Cosden Petroleum executive-household cook-and-caterer position from 1928 to 1953.

She operated the principal Cleora Butler Catering Service at Tulsa from 1953 to 1979 — at the principal post-1953 Tulsa Black-American commercial-catering community.

The principal Cleora Butler Catering Service across the principal 1953 to 1979 period catered approximately five thousand principal Tulsa commercial-and-aristocratic events — at the principal post-1953 Tulsa commercial-and-aristocratic-catering community.

She published the principal cookbook-and-memoir Cleora's Kitchens: Eight Decades of Great American Food at the principal Council Oak Books at Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1985 — the principal autobiographical cookbook-and-memoir of the principal post-1985 American Black-and-commercial-catering Black-Tulsa-community.

The principal Cleora's Kitchens of 1985 is at this day the principal foundational post-1985 American Black-and-Oklahoma Black-American commercial-catering memoir-and-cookbook of the principal post-1985 American Black-and-Oklahoma Black-and-Tulsa commercial-catering canon.

She was the principal Tulsa Black-American chef-and-caterer of the principal post-1923 post-Tulsa-race-massacre Black-Tulsa-community — at the principal post-1923 Tulsa Black-and-commercial-catering rebuilding-and-recovery community.

She was named in 1982 the principal Tulsa Mayor's Arts Award recipient — and was named in 1984 the principal first Black-American member of the principal Tulsa Junior League.

She died at Tulsa, Oklahoma on the eighth of December 1985 of natural causes, at eighty-four.

She is honored here as the author of Cleora's Kitchens.