Bertha Lee Turner (1867–1938) was an American caterer, cookbook author, and community leader in Pasadena, California, in the early 1900s.
Her mother, doing laundry to support the family, married her second husband, Edward Dupree, also a veteran of the Civil War.
By 1900, Raymond was living with his grandparents, while Bertha and James worked in the home of a man named Sterling R. Scott, an ice manufacturer.
Turner established a catering business in Pasadena, and joined the National Federation of Colored Women as well as the Sojourner Truth societies.
[4] In 1910, Turner collected recipes and edited The Federation Cookbook: A Collection of Tested Recipes Compiled by the Colored Women of the State of California, a cookbook to preserve black culinary identity and celebrate the culinary success of local housewives.
She was known as a skilled cook and hostess, as evidenced by newspaper coverage of a dinner she held in October 1917:"Mrs. Bertha Turner of 920 Worcester St., Pasadena, was a charming hostess on Monday evening when she gave a delightful dinner in honor of Mesdames L. Robinson, E. Lewis and Misses B.
The Table was a dream of perfect beauty and the dainty table appointments of silver candelabras and silver baskets filled with choice pink nodding rose buds and large bows of delicate pink ribbon was a sight too beautiful to have been true, the transformation being so effective that those present thought of only fairy land where the fairies flitted here and there and the five course dinner was enjoyed to each heart's content and was only that will linger long in the memory of those bid to sup with such charming visitors as these ladies from New York.
- George Garner, California Eagle[15] Turner's funeral was held at the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Pasadena, with an estimated 1500 people in attendance.
[17][18] At the time of her death she was reported to be, "California's wealthiest colored citizen" and to have employed hundreds of people during the summer season.