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WOW2: October 2023 Women Trailblazers and Activists – 10-16 thru 10-23 [1]

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Date: 2023-10-21  

October 19 , 1917 – During WWI, Salvation Army Ensign Helen Purviance and Captain Margaret Sheldon, two of the first eleven Salvation Army women to arrive in France, were stationed behind the American fighting lines at Monte-sur-Soux, France. They rigged a make-shift system to provide doughnuts for the soldiers. Purviance had to get on her knees to work the tiny stove, and they had no way to make holes in the first batch of 150 “doughnuts,” which were received with overwhelming enthusiasm by the troops. Purviance improvised the tools they needed, using a wine bottle as a rolling pin, and getting a French blacksmith to combine an empty evaporated milk can, a shaving cream tube, and a block of wood into a dough cutter so their doughnuts had holes and were more symmetrical. The doughnuts were in such demand, they had to upgrade their equipment, and production increased to over 2,000 doughnuts a day. The “Doughnut Girls” often received thank you notes on scraps of paper, but they wanted to do more. In January, 1918, in spite of General Pershing’s reservations about women in a combat zone, Helen Purviance and three other “Doughnut Girls” were admitted to the front lines, equipped with gas masks, steel helmets, rubber blankets, and army revolvers. They suffered freezing cold, artillery bombardment, and all the other hardships which the soldiers faced except combat, and carried out their mission until the end of the war in November, 1918. Purviance estimated she cooked over one million doughnuts. She came home a national heroine, and used her celebrity to promote the Salvation Army, helping to set up Salvation Army posts in her hometown of Huntington, Indiana, and in Oswego, New York. By 1924 she was on the teaching staff at the Salvation Army’s training school in the Bronx, New York. In 1936, she became dean of the training college. She continued to make speeches, and often demonstrated making doughnuts at events, generating more positive press for the Salvation Army. Doughnuts surged in popularity in the U.S. Though she dreaded another war, when the U.S. entered WWII, Brigadier Helen Purviance trained the Salvation Army recruits for work in the field. A new treat was developed, the “All-American Cookie,” which could be made and packaged in Salvation Army kitchens at home, then shipped overseas.

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