One of Nashville’s signature events will occur Friday, April 22, when the chapter of Junior Auxiliary hosts the annual Evelyn Ramsay Tasting Brunch.
The event will be from 11-1 in the Family Activities Building of First Baptist Church. Admission is $5. The event traditionally draws large crowds for the food and community fellowship.
Salads, appetizers, casseroles, desserts and drinks will be made and served by JA members. Proceeds from the event support JA projects for children and schools.
There is a story about the event and its name.
It began in the early 1980s when the late Evelyn Hill Ramsay went to visit her daughter, Carol, who was then a student at Centenary College in Shreveport, La.
Carol Ramsay, now a retired college instructor who is living again in Nashville, remembers that she and her mother attended a tasting brunch put on by a Shreveport organization.
“It was a real tasting brunch — you just got a pinch of different dishes.”
Evelyn Ramsay was the wife of the president of the savings and loan, and she was active in civic and church organizations and affairs including the hospital auxiliary.
She convinced the Nashville organization to conduct a similar food tasting event. “The idea of just a pinch of different dishes didn’t work out here,” Carol Ramsay recalls with a chuckle.
After her mother died, the hospital auxiliary named their event in her honor and conducted it for several years until it got too big for the group to handle.
The Junior Auxiliary took over the project and has conducted it since.
