As a staple of downtown Vicksburg, a tourism destination and a landmark on the National Register of Historic Places, Church of the Holy Trinity’s history intertwines with the Red Carpet City of the South’s.

In an effort to preserve its history, offer a keepsake for tourists and support a local nonprofit, Holy Trinity is in the beginning stages of creating a cookbook featuring the history of the church through past and present member’s submitted memories in addition to instructions for tasty meals.

“We feel the cookbook allows us to tie a couple of threads together,” Rector Beth Palmer said.

The threads include thoughts of updating a previous book about the church’s windows, requests from tourists for information about the church—and the church’s upcoming 150th anniversary.

“It’s to get our story in one place,” said Bobbie Marascalco, leader of the eight-person committee charged with plans for the church-sponsored cookbook. “Over time, we’ll loose some of our history (if we don’t write it down). There eventually won’t be people here to know the ceiling in the (apse) was once blue with stars.”

Marascalco said the cookbook will include recipes from previous church cookbooks and church gumbo lunches along with submitted stories and photos about the church’s history. She said oral histories will be taken in some cases in order to preserve stories.

“Sometimes it’s easier to talk than write something down,” she said. “We want to show we’re an alive parish.”

Palmer said the cookbook likely will include stories about the church’s first rector, whose great-great grandson visited the church in 2013, and information from a recently discovered diary of one of the founding members of the church.

“We are writing our story of feeding body, mind and spirit for 150 years,” Palmer said.

The cookbook is tentatively set to be a minimum of 150 pages, feature 150 recipes and be ready for Christmas 2018, Marascalco said, emphasizing the need for anyone with memories of the church or a recipe they would like to share to contact Holy Trinity’s office at (601) 636-0542.

A portion of the proceeds from the cookbooks will be donated to the United Way of West Central Mississippi, which is adjacent to the church.

The remaining profits will be used to establish a restoration fund for the church, Palmer said.

“We take seriously our stewardship responsibilities for this local architectural treasure,” she said.