The Donut Lady

“Four Hundred A Day” is the caption and story accompanying a photo in a March,1953 Millinocket newspaper. Four hundred what, you ask? Well, it refers to 400 doughnuts a day being made by a local housewife!

 Mrs. Bryant Jenkins took over Joe’s Bakery in the 1940’s. A small establishment, she ran it for two years, then took over Hobb’s Lunch Cart (also known as Joe’s Diner). This was located next to the original MFD building (torn down & in 1951 became site of Millinocket Municipal Building). Mrs. Jenkins then needed to come up with a new business plan.

She decided to make doughnuts using her own special recipes for both plain and chocolate coffee dunkers. At first, she cooked them in her daughter’s basement on a two-burner oil stove. She called her equipment primitive as she mixed the batter by hand, stirring and melting chocolate on the cook stove. The doughnuts dried in a wire container after coming out of the deep fat.

Mrs. Jenkins acted as her own salesman and distributor. At first, she welcomed people to come to her home to purchase the doughnuts, but it wasn’t long before Mrs. Jenkins decided to solicit business at the various stores in town. For the stores, she packed the doughnuts six to a box…wrapped in oiled paper. She started with eight stores. She claimed her doughnuts were better than the “store kind” that were made using “doughnut machinery.” She said, “Machinery might make my work easier, but that’s not what sells doughnuts. It’s the quality of stuff that goes in them and the pains I take that make mine eat better than the average store doughnut.” Her price was five cents a doughnut!

She told the reporter that interviewed her for the newspaper, “I don’t suppose you want to give anybody a free ad, but I think it ought to be known that I use only the best Pillsbury’s flour and pure lard. I use cream of tartar and baking soda in the white ones and baking powder in the chocolate variety. In the chocolate of course I use selected buttermilk while the liquid for the white is sour milk. I put some nutmeg and cinnamon in the white.”

At the time the article appeared in the paper, she was still cooking in her daughter’s kitchen as the new Bryant home was still being constructed (by her husband). Some folks had told her she should quit (she was in her 60’s). Her reply was, “I have no intention of doing any such thing. Why would I want to quit as long as I have my health?” The caption under a photo claims Mrs. Jenkins had cooked and packaged over 250,000 doughnuts during the previous 2 ½ years!

It is interesting to note that the writer of the news article always referred to the donut lady as Mrs. Jenkins. No-where does it use give her first name!