The best recipe using Sno sheen flour was announced in the Pillsbury’s Cookery Club booklet in 1935. Pillsbury couldn’t have picked a more intriguing name —North Hero, Grand Isle, Vermont— as the location of the winner of their 1935 Blue Ribbon contest. North Hero is on an island connected to both New York state and Vermont by water. In the 2020s there are under 900 residents, I imagine the population was even less in the 1930s and 1940s.
Ella “Blanche” (born Dodds) Way (1895-1965) was born in Burlington, Vermont and grew up in North Hero, Vermont where her father was a general merchant. She had two older brothers, and one younger. In February 1920 she married Arthur Ladd Way (1893-1965) who was forth child of twelve children from the same county. He was a garage mechanic. Their only child, Winston, was born in 1923.
Blanche, 40, and Arthur Way, 42, and 12-year old Winston at the time of the contest lived on West Shore road undoubtedly next to the water where most of the population settled.
Being an island in the woods in a northern climate, I imagine Blanche cooked on a wood-burning stove in 1935. It’s likely the maple syrup used for the Maple Cake recipe was locally tapped. I’m content with conjecture for this instance. Congratulation Blanche! I found no local newspaper article about this exciting event, but news travels on a small island.
