Author Fulfills Family Request
Jill Marie Thomas is the author of several books, including several Bible studies. Among her works are "Risking It All," the story of how she gave away her income for a full year, and "The Day My Son Fell from the Sky," which tells the story of her son's powered parachute crash, which he survived.
Most recently, Thomas has written "Twisted: Mindful Pretzel Consumption," the story of how her great-great grandfather, Julius Sturgis, opened America's first pretzel factory in Lititz in 1861, when the country was on the brink of civil war.
"My family has pestered me to do this for years," said Thomas, who taught math at Pennsylvania College of Technology in Williamsport while competing in East Coast judo competitions until 2010, when a mat accident sidelined her for two years. A delicate surgery enabled her to walk again, but the two-year recovery led to a deep depression. Thomas started writing to "lift myself out of that funk," and she was soon leading Bible studies via Facebook. In 2017, when she was between writing projects, she agreed to write "Twisted."
"The relatives were passing away, and the stories go with them," said Thomas, who noted that her father, Tom Sturgis Jr., is still making his way into the Shillington factory five days a week at the age of 87. Thomas said she parked herself in front of the Sturgis archives at that factory to do her research. "We have anything that was published (about the business)," said Thomas, noting that the book features old photos from the archives, including one of Julius, who died in 1897 at the age of 62. The factory passed to his son William, and William's son, Tom Sr., before passing to her father.
Thomas said she began the book with her memories of the factory. "I grew up in Shillington, but I visited Lititz as a child," said Thomas, who spent time in the original factory at 219 E. Main St. "That's where I learned to twist my first pretzel," she recalled. Thomas and her brothers worked at the factory in Shillington when they came of age. "I worked at everything from cleaning rest rooms to scrubbing the sides of the oven walls," said Thomas. "My father didn't coddle us. He said, 'If you want any respect in this factory among the other employees, you have to do the dirty work,'" she recalled, noting that she worked on the assembly line and her brothers cut the factory grass. Her father had the opportunity to make pretzels with his father and grandfather. "My dad told me how they mixed the dough in large batches by hand and then twisted the pretzels by hand and lay them out and put them in and out of the oven," she noted. "He knows the old methods."
Thomas said the book contains "a little bit of everything," including recipes, pretzel trivia, and a transcript of an interview with her grandfather. When "Twisted" was published in 2019, Thomas had 32 speaking engagements to talk about the book lined up for 2020, but she said most of them were canceled due to COVID-19 restrictions. She hopes to resume speaking soon. More information about Thomas and her books may be found at http://www.jillmariethomas.com.
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