In 1929, the onset of the Great Depression, Sam Garner and his wife, Ila Jane, affectionately known as ”Mother Jane”, were struggling to make ends meet for themselves and their seven children. The oldest of the clan, Paul, had gone off to school at Duke University. The next in line, Thad, decided to use his college money to buy a nearby barbecue restaurant. Along with the restaurant came a special secret recipe for a delicious, so everybody told them, barbecue sauce.

The restaurant did not survive, but the barbecue sauce, made in the family kitchen, survived and prospered. People loved it! Soon the entire family was helping out to make the sauce and keep the family afloat in the hard times. Sam, who never met a stranger, traveled the back roads of North Carolina peddling their sauce. Thad, along with younger brothers Ralph and Harold, as well as Mother Jane and sisters Virginia, Elizabeth, and even young Margaret, were helping in the kitchen. Eventually the three sisters went off to college themselves, all graduating and moving on in their careers and/or marriage.