Bessie Munson learned to cook from her mother and grandmother, then -- with vocational school training under her apron -- gave cooking demonstrations for Lone Star Gas during and after World War II. She opened her first restaurant in 1948.

She was the protegee of both the late Lucille B. Smith of the Fort Worth Vocational School and later the late Helen Corbitt of Neiman Marcus fame

During the 1950s, when her family moved to California, she catered affairs attended by Rock Hudson and Loretta Young, and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Her family returned to Fort Worth in the 1960s  In 1978, Mrs. Gardner wrote the cookbook that gave her name to her cable cooking show, Bless the Cook. She taught TV viewers in the how to cook her way. The program was a showcase for her recipes and restaurants and ran from 1981 to 1986.

 

Mrs. Munson passed on to her glory in August 1997.