September 18, 2000
Lubbock's Strawberry Bread Lady spreads joy
___By Ferrell Foster
___Texas Baptist Communications
___LUBBOCK--Linda Wigner is energy personified.
___Words roll off her tongue fast. She moves quickly and purposefully. Her mind is a ready catalog of information. She is a woman who has a lot to do.
___Wigner, 59, carries a white business card with red type proclaiming "The Strawberry Bread Lady." But it's not really a business card. Wigner bakes the bread for free, givingaway hundreds of the deep red loaves each year.
LINDA WIGNER displays a sample of her strawberry bread, which is known all over Lubbock as a trademark of her ministry.
___"It's a ministry," she explains.
___"This lady does more for other people than anyone I have ever known," said Dorothy Harvey, assistant to the pastor at First Baptist Church of Lubbock. "How she does it, I do not know. She does it all over the community."
___And Lubbock is a big community.
___Wigner bakes about 480 loaves each year. She does it by planning ahead, adjusting her schedule as surprises occur, starting early each day (except Sunday, when she rests), taking advantage of grocery specials and keeping track of hundreds of birthdays.
___"I go through four dozen eggs in a week," Wigner said.
___She bakes other breads--banana nut, pumpkin, lemon and grapefruit (first place at the South Plains Fair)--but strawberry bread has become her specialty. The recipe, however, is no secret. It's printed on the back of each business card. And Wigner readily admits that she got the recipe from the late Mrs. Joe Fletcher.
___The bread contains frozen strawberries, eggs, sugar, cinnamon, soda, flour, cooking oil and red food coloring.
___But even with recipe in hand, not everyone can make the bread like Wigner does. One man tried, then told Wigner his bread didn't turn out like hers.
___"You have to practice," she responded.
___Wigner has had 15 years of practice. She rises every morning at about 7, cooks breakfast, packs lunches, takes the phone off the hook, spends five minutes mixing the bread's ingredients and another five minutes putting the mix in pans. One hour and six minutes later, the bread is done.
___Delivery comes next. The bread goes to people throughout Lubbock on their special days--birthdays, anniversaries and other dates. She drops off loaves at banks, churches, doctors' offices, funeral homes, doorsteps and even grocery stores--where she is a treasured customer.
___Wigner said she goes to all the trouble day after day because she enjoys it. "I like to see people smile and see them happy."
___Many of her deliveries are planned, but if "somebody's kind of down and out," she likes to drop off a hot loaf as a surprise.
___Years ago, at a GA camp at Plains Baptist Encampment in Floydada, Wigner learned an acrostic--JOY, which stands for Jesus first, others second, yourself third. And her mother reinforced that message. JOY still motivates her to minister in the name of Jesus to the many "others" in her life.
___Wigner also bakes because she loves it. Both her parents were cooks; and her aunt, Ima Grant, started Wigner cooking at age 5. "I just always loved the kitchen," she said. "I just cook, cook all the time."
___And she doesn't get tired. "God's just always given me an abundance of energy," Wigner said, citing an overactive thyroid as a contributor. "My aunts are always trying to make me slow down." But she dismisses their advice. "My secret is I take a little rest right after lunch."
___Plus, God gives her energy, she noted.
___"The Lord has to keep a couple of angels busy" to stay up with Wigner, quipped her pastor, D.L. Lowrie.
___Wigner doesn't just bake bread. She visits local nursing homes, works in the children's division of First Baptist's Sunday School and mails about 20 greeting cards each week.
___Kenneth, her husband of 27 years, is a "good soul about it," she said. The Wigners have two sons, Joey, 21, and Dann, 19. The family supports her many activities "most of the time," she noted.
___Wigner grew up in First Baptist Church and was baptized there by her uncle, Ralph Grant, in 1951. She graduated from Baylor University in 1963 and taught school until 1974.
___"The Lord needs more Linda Wigners," said John Ballard, a former minister at the church. "She's a blessing to everyone. ... She brings good cheer and good cake," he said, making a common error in Lubbock by referring to Wigner's bread as cake.
___And it is that bread by which she is so widely known.
___"The reason strawberry bread is so popular is it has a pretty red color ... and lots of fruit," she said.
___Wigner, however, does not eat the bread herself. "I do not need it," she said. "It might make me slightly plump."
___
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