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Frontier Press publishes new booklet, “The Doughnut Sweethearts.”
Frontier Press announces a new title: “The Doughnut Sweethearts.” This 4.25” x 7” booklet is the original journal of one doughnut girl, Alice McAllister, who joined the 1st Division of the American Expeditionary Forces and was sworn into the U.S. Army as a private—the only way she could volunteer on the front lines of World War I.
With guitars in hand, Alice and her sister Violet McAllister performed for the troops, set broken bones and immunized soldiers for tetanus, but they became known for a simple luxury while at war—the doughnut.
“They made do with the simplest of supplies—a grape juice bottle for rolling pin, tin cans to cut the shape, a coffee percolator tube to make the hole. The day a line of 800 from the 26th Division lined up for the first 150 [doughnuts], they knew they had found their calling,” Judy Vaughn wrote in “The Bells of San Francisco.”
The diary is now presented with clarification from Mildred Mendell (the McAllisters’ niece) after a first transcription by Commissioner William Francis. According to The Salvation Army’s officer records, Alice McAllister served on the front lines in France from March 31 to Nov. 1, 1918, and again from Feb. 8 to Sept. 26, 1919. She was later commissioned in the Eastern Territory, and eventually served in the West.
This booklet—at a price of just $5 each—makes an excellent gift at Christmas, on National Doughnut Day and throughout the year. It will soon be available from Trade West and Amazon.
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