Memorializing a Mother Who Fueled Lives With Spritz Cookies
The story behind the sweetest grave in Brooklyn
Naomi Odessa Miller-Dawson’s grave in Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery is marked by a three-foot-tall piece of stone carved to resemble an open book. Etched into the pages for all eternity is a recipe for spritz cookies. But what do measurements of butter, flour, and eggs say about a life?
The headstone is the brainchild of two of her children. According to her son, Richard Dawson, the unique design is based on a familiar template: “It’s probably from the design that [one would] use if someone was putting a Bible verse onto the headstone, but instead of having the Bible verse, we put the part of the recipe from spritz cookies.”
Naomi Dawson was a first-generation American. Her parents and two older sisters were born in Barbados, and her family immigrated before she was born. She lived in Brooklyn for her entire life, and supported her family as a postal worker for over 20 years. When she was at home, she loved to bake.
The Dawson home didn’t have a shortage of good cooks. When he was growing up, Richard Dawson lived with his mother, two aunts, an older sister, and his cousin George. He described eating a mixture of Caribbean and American foods, “ranging from Bajan fare like peas and rice…
