Once again a second visit with a cookbook reveals a new dimension to it: this time its the 1973 “Rosemary Hills International Community Cookbook,” compiled by Gwendolyn Coffield and Juanita Hamby. The book is an early celebration of the DC suburbs’ growing diversity.
In 2002, the Washington Post ran an article about the Lyttonsville neighborhood surrounding the Rosemary Hills School. The article called the Silver Spring neighborhood an “ethnic enclave” with “hidden appeal.”
Gwendolyn’s sister Charlotte is quoted in that article, reflecting on the ways Lyttonsville had changed over the years. The historically Black neighborhood, built on land that had been acquired in the 1850s by a free Black man named Samuel Lytton, has been home to several generations of the Coffield family.
Lyttonville in the 1917 U.S. Geological Survey, Library of Congress