By guest blogger Natalie Shiels
When we celebrate Doughnut Day every June, we think of what free doughnuts we might get from the local bakery. We think about the Doughnut girls, who we had vaguely heard about in Junior Soldiers or Corps Cadets. They had done something during one of the wars, but we can’t seem to remember what it was. Did we ever know their names? What did they do when they returned home? Did they continue to serve The Salvation Army in another way? How did their lives change after the war? For many, serving in the war effort was just a small piece in the work to which God had called them.
One of the most influential women involved in the war effort was Margaret Sheldon, affectionately nicknamed the “Doughnut Queen,” Sheldon was the fourth of nine children, born in Millvale, Pennsylvania. She joined the Army when she was ten and was commissioned in the Eastern Territory a decade later in 1904. The first thirteen years of her service were spent in rescue homes preaching the Gospel in several places across what would eventually become the Central Territory. These rescue homes supported single mothers, with a safe place to stay, employment assistance, and even some adoption services.
In April of 1917, two and a half years after the start of the First World War, the United States joined the conflict in Europe. On September 26, 1917, Sheldon, as well as several others, stepped off a boat in France, prepared to help in any way that she could. Over the course of the war, she served in many different capacities– from a nurse helping in a medical tent, to a smiling face greeting the soldiers who came through the huts (canteens)– but her most memorable and beloved contribution was a simple fried pastry: the doughnut.
When Margaret and a few other officers arrived with the US Army’s First Division in Montiers, France, they were greeted with open arms by the American soldiers. Sheldon asked the soldiers what they wanted most and many of them said they wanted “a piece of home,” something to remind them of the people and the places they left behind. “They were simply homesick for the United States,” one newspaper article said later. Sheldon had the idea of making doughnuts, using whatever materials and ingredients they could find. The donut cutter she used throughout the war was fashioned out of a shell casing, a gift from one of the soldiers. Soldiers put together an adobe stove outside the hut to the “Sallies,” as they were affectionately nicknamed, who made up to 15,000 donuts per day for the soldiers. The women were not permitted at the front lines, but since they were stationed so close, some soldiers would run donuts and coffee up to the front lines– boosting the strength and spirits of the men. Sheldon often wrote about the way a soldier’s demeanor changed when they entered the hut. Their shoulders relaxed and they smiled as they warmed themselves with cups of coffee and fresh baked goods. They sang and danced, participated in worship meetings with nearly 300 soldiers gathered in the tents.
Throughout her journals and letters, Sheldon maintained a positive attitude, despite the horrors of the war going on around her. She described the sounds of bombs falling on nearby villages and the gunfire they could hear from the front lines. But all the while, Sheldon kept a smile on her face, a light for the soldiers amidst the dark times. “Some of the boys would think they were going up for the last time,” Sheldon told a reporter, “and a cheery word and handshake would do more for them than anything in the world.”
Sheldon described the tasks performed in the medical tents as the Salvation Army’s “main work.” They would sit with the injured soldiers and speak words of comfort, cut clothes to save time for the doctors, roll cigarettes and take messages to pass home. When she returned stateside, Sheldon had more than 50 messages for families who had lost loved ones in the war.
After the war, she continued her work at the rescue home in Los Angeles, California, before going to Hawaii to open the Boys’ Home in Oahu. In 1923, she married Bryson Stufflebeam; together, the two served as envoys before moving to Portland, Oregon, where Sheldon continued her work with the local corps until she died in 1963.
Captain E. L. Rowan, with the Red Cross in France and Italy, summarized her personal mission statement, saying that “[T]here is nothing to do with men and boys but to love them, to contemplate their virtues with admiration, their faults with pity and forbearance, and their injuries with forgiveness.” In all her work, Sheldon emphasized her love for people and connection. She sought to help people with grace and kindness, meeting people where they were– on the streets or on the front lines. Margaret Sheldon stands as an example of dedication and grace as she followed God’s call, wherever He sent her.
Lead image: Photo of Ensign Margaret Sheldon outside of a Salvation Army hut in either France or Germany, c. 1917-1919. Gift of Pamela Feack in memory of Floyd O. “Pa” and Samantha Minerva “Minnie, Ma” Saunders Burdick, Cecil May Burdick Goodwin, Grace Belle Burdick Yates, and Fern Ann Goodwin Feack.
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