The founder of Three Nosey Broads and the author of Southwest Garden, Edna Campos Gravenhorst, 53, is a native of South Texas. Her love of local history comes from roaming around her great grandparents’ ranch which has been in the family for over a century and sitting on the porch listening to her great-grandmother tell the family history. Her ancestors had come from Spain to Texas and were granted a Spanish Land Grant in the 1700s. They farmed and raised cattle there until the 1800s. Their ranch was in the region between the Nueces and Rio Grande Rivers. This region belonged to Spain, then Mexico and with the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo extending the Texas boundaries to the Rio Grande River the Mungia family lost their land, as did many other Spanish families. During the Civil War eight members of the Mungia family from Hidalgo County enlisted with the Confederate Army. These were the stories Edna grew up hearing, so when she and her husband, Ted, bought their home in a historic St. Louis neighborhood it was only natural to want to know about the immigrants who had built these communities. Much has been written about the predominate citizens of St. Louis and the neighborhoods they lived in, but little has been written about the neighborhoods of working class St. Louis so she decided to write the book to preserve the history of the every day people.
A 1974 graduate of South Texas Commercial College in Corpus Christi, Texas. Campos Gravenhorst had a twenty-five year career in sales and merchandising. In 2002 she was ready for a second career and founded the historical research business, Three Nosey Broads. To date Three Nosey Broads has researched more than three hundred historic homes and businesses in the city of St. Louis. Her experience with her research business was invaluable in researching for the text and editing the photographs to tell the history of Southwest Garden.
Campos Gravenhorst is a member of The Society of Architectural Historians, Missouri Valley Chapter and the National Society of Arts and Letters. At the University of Missouri-St. Louis she sits on the boards of the Chancellor's Cultural Diversity Initiative, the Center for the Humanities and the Institute for Women's and Gender Studies Advisory Council. In 2008 she was awarded a Trailblazer award from the University of Missouri-St. Louis in celebration of National Women's History Month. In 2008 her book, Ay, Mijo! Why do you want to be an engineer? was named the Best Young Adult Nonfiction-English Book in the 10th Annual International Latino Book Awards. In 2007 her book Ay, Mija! Why do you want to be an engineer? won an Honorable Mention in the 9th Annual International Latino Book Awards and was a runner up in the 2007 Kid Power Book Awards. She is also the author of Te de Canela/Cinnamon Tea, Benton Park West and Historical Home Research in the City of St. Louis.
When not writing or doing historical research, Campos Gravenhorst finds time to travel, take walk tours, hike, educate people about cultural diversity, read, listen to live jazz and blues, promote St. Louis' historic neighborhoods and advice other entrepreneurs on how to market their small businesses.
She hopes that Southwest Garden will encourage other city neighborhoods to discover and record more of their history. Campos Gravenhorst regards the book as a celebration of the Southwest Garden Neighborhood Association on the occasion of its 30th anniversary.