The coolest thing about the author, T. B. Wheelock, and this booklet is she invented these Rosette Irons.
She was born Ida Schwabe, c. 1851 in Prussia and married a man ten years her senior, Henry Ernst, a bookbinder, also German. They had three children, yet she became widowed in the 1880s. In 1887 she married a widower with grown children, Theodore Bainbridge Wheelock, 16 years her senior. Her two boys lived with them, and she ran a boarding house with the help of live-in help. This scenario mostly took place in St Paul Minnesota. She had a daughter who lived in Dubuque, Iowa and visited St Paul, and it seemed to me an emotional high point in Mrs. Wheelock’s life when her daughter move to New York and married a man there.
Mrs. T. B. Wheelock’s first food lecture that I found was in 1898 to The Crocus Hill Mathers’ Club at her home. They talked about “The Preparation of Food for Children” and Mrs. T. B. Wheelock gave a talk on the preparation of meats. The same year, her 46th year, she represented the Groff company at the manufacturer’s exhibit in St Paul. “The excitement at Groff’s booth ran high all day, and fresh help was required to serve the visitors with coffee and biscuits. Mrs. T. B. Wheelock was in charge of this booth, assisted by Mrs. Bernier.”
Two weeks later Mrs. T. B. Wheelock entered a contest at a Food and Health Exposition where she won first prize for her blended extract pudding composed of eight or nine colors. The next year she entered a contest at the Pure Foods show competing by serving a full dinner to four judges. Once again, Mrs. Wheelock won first prize. These wins must have been encouraging.
The next year, 1900, she held a cooking school at the Masonic Hall to introduce Home Brands, a brand of high-grade groceries from Griggs, Cooper and Co. in St Paul. But the turn out wasn’t as expected. In 1901 she held the cooking school at the Music Hall and there was a large attendance.
She continued with the special event cooking school demos in St Paul but took time and attended The Boston Cooking School with Fannie Merritt Farmer as it’s principal. The Boston Cooking School Magazine even published Mrs. Wheelock’s “Cupid’s Butter” recipe in the March 1902 issue. The Boston Cooking School was known throughout the country from East to West, and thus began Mrs. Wheelock’s travels throughout the country.
Now that her education lent her more creditability, she gave a week-long summer cooking course at Big Stone Lake Chautauqua, and continued to fill auditoriums. I don’t know if these first lectures were to promote the iron rosettes, or “Pattie Irons” because I haven’t discovered the date that she invented them. The booklet was originally printed in 1905. There is no mention of the Pattie Irons that I could find in print until the original 1905 recipe book, above, and a newspaper ad in 1906 for that recipe book. This booklet shown above is actually from 1913 or after because the Western Importing took over then from the original Alfred Andresen & Co. So. Minneapolis, Minn. To see the original 1905 booklet (see close up of 1905 copyright) go to the Reddit site where this investigation began. You’ll also see beautiful color plates from inside the book by selecting the arrow >
It was stated that she invented these Pattie Irons — if so, I begin to worry for her because the recipe booklet (given out for free as advertisement) has printed on it the name of Alfred Andresen & Co. So. Minneapolis, Minn. who is known as a broker who patented rosette irons, etc. and hired jobbers to make the hardware. Did Mrs. W not know that she was to take out the patent in her own name? Am I being a Mother Hen about this?
By 1908 until 1920 she traveled the country from East Coast to West Coast to the middle states and back again giving free cooking lectures and demonstrations, and helping stores sell kitchen hardware such her own invention — the “Pattie Irons” — and “Jewel” Gas Ranges, “Ideal” Steam Cookers, Shirred Egg Dishes, Decorative Sandwich Cutters, German Wooden Spoons, Vegetable Cutters, etc.
It appears as if she was a smart and entertaining entrepreneur.
Her husband, 16 years her senior, outlived her. She died in 1921 at about 69 years old. I hope she had a wonderful life — or did she die of exhaustion?
Books by Mrs. T. B. Wheelock
1904 – Mrs. Wheelock’s Choice Recipes, hardcover, 147 pages, plus ads for Home Goods
1905 – How to Make Dainty Rosette Wafers, booklet (shown here)
1910 – Salads, booklet
1912 – My New Recipe Book, hardcover, 310 pages
*”Cupid’s Butter” from The Boston Cooking-School Magazine**, March, 1902**
Pass the yolks of four hard-boiled eggs through a potato ricer or puree sieve, add gradually to a cup of butter beaten to a cream, then add one-third a cup of powdered sugar, a little grated orange rind, and a teaspoonful of orange water, or a scant half-teaspoonful or orange extract. Let the mixture become cold. Then press through a pointed strainer, or a sieve, into the centre of a serving-dish, being careful to retain the vermicelli effect. Surround with thin slices of angel cake. Serve as a dessert. Bread-and-butter spreaders are passed at the same time.