OUR STORY
THE STORY OF AUNT MILDRED
77 Year Old Recipe, Third Generation
Portland, Arkansas, 1944. McArthur Williams (Aunt Mildred’s father) created the recipe for a barbecue sauce that has withstood the test of picky barbecue eaters' taste buds and has been passed down through three generations.
Mac’s Barbecue was owned and operated by McArthur for over 40 years in Portland. A staple in the community, it has been told that customers would drive from all over the country just to dine on his barbecue and buy his special sauce.
Around the time that he opened Mac’s, McArthur and his wife, Neacie welcomed a baby girl, Mildred. Mildred was one of 12 children. Mildred, being born and raised in Portland, Ark. Mildred’s parents instilled a strong work ethic in her early in life. In her mid-teen years, Mildred began working in the fields in Portland, Ark. weeding beans and she also picked cotton in the cotton fields of Dermott, Arkansas.
From a young age, Mildred developed a special bond with her father. So special, in fact that when she decided to join the Great Migration from the south to the north, in search of a better life and more opportunities, her father gave her his secret barbecue sauce recipe, entrusting her to use it to build a legacy for the family.
With her three children, Mildred relocated to Rockford, Illinois, and was soon married and took on the responsibility of helping to raise 8 step children. In the years to follow Mildred gave birth to an additional 7 children. The family unit at times also included some of Mildred’s sisters, brothers, nieces, and nephews. Although the family unit was large and resources were few, the family formed an unbreakable bond in order to survive the harsh decades of the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s. In the early years, Mildred’s primary occupation was cleaning houses and babysitting, eventually becoming a nurses' aid. Mildred began cooking to supplement her income. Mildred’s cooking was so good that her co-workers would have her cook their holiday meals. Whenever Mildred would cook for church dinners, the “little old ladies” in the kitchen would hide her food for themselves telling everyone else it was all gone.
Aunt Mildred took her father’s recipe and put her own twist on it. Being known around Rockford for her cooking, her barbecue dinners, drenched in her southern style barbeque sauce, slow cooked for hours is what made her famous. The demand for her barbecue dinners was so high that she created a makeshift barbeque grill from a 55 gallon drum. She would travel around the city setting up shop at car washes, grocery store parking lots, or wherever she could, to sell dinners. You could say she was probably one of the first food truck operators in the country. The crowds clamoring for her food became so large she had to employ many of her 10 children to help – giving birth to “Aunt Mildred’s #10” southern style barbecue sauce.
After years of groundwork and building a solid reputation and name for herself as one of the premier go to persons for barbeque dinners, Mildred was finally able to realize her dream and opened her own restaurant in Rockford, IL in 1996. It was called The Rib Cage. With the help of family and the support of the neighborhood, The Rib Cage thrived for several years until about 2000 when Mildred’s health began to fail. Mildred was forced to close the doors and relocated to St. Louis where she spent her final years being cared for by her loved ones. Mildred passed away Thanksgiving day of 2010. Given the fact that Thanksgiving is a day of family gatherings full of laughter, fond memories, and feasting, it is not a coincidence that would be the day that she passed away. Most stories would end there, but not Mildred’s. She left behind a rich family legacy, which included a love for the past and a road map to continue that legacy into the future. We are now proud to present to the world Aunt Mildred’s #10 Southern Style Barbecue Sauce!!!! The moral behind Aunt Mildred’s life is: No matter where you start out in life, never ever give up. If you continue to move forward, you will eventually reach your destination!!!
Aunt Mildred did in fact use her father’s recipe to create a legacy for her family that reached from Northern Illinois and Southern Wisconsin back then, to the rest of the country, right now.