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Behind every good doughnut is a story about a shipwreck.

Well, maybe not behind every good doughnut. But the doughnuts on sale at the Hodag Farmer’s Market this Saturday are made from a recipe mastered by Rhinelander resident Jon Bailey during his time as a cook on the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald, the famous Great Lakes freighter that sunk in Lake Superior in 1975.

Bailey, who first learned to cook in his mother’s kitchen, served as an assistant cook on Great Lakes freighters during summers in the late 1950s as he worked his way through college. He learned the recipe and cooking method for his doughnuts from a French chef who was hired to cook for the company guests on board the ships.

“I learned the recipe from this old French chef. There’s really no secret. It’s just how the things are put together... how many times you sift the dry ingredients and the combination of the spices,” Bailey said.

In those days the shipping lines’ queen ships were equipped with fancy state rooms to accommodate company guests who wanted to cruise the Great Lakes during the summers. Bailey worked on the Edmund Fitzgerald during the summers of 1960, 1961, and 1962.

“I got promoted into the private section for company guests. I worked under the French chef who was hired to cook for the company guests over the summer. Ultimately he retired and about that time the Edmund Fitzgerald was launched as the queen ship of the line,” said Bailey.

When the Fitzgerald sunk over thirteen years later, Bailey was working as a history and theater teacher at Rhinelander High School.

“I knew a lot of guys on there. I was teaching school and my mother called me that morning from Superior. She called me at 7 o’clock in the morning and it was tough going to school that day. I didn’t know all of them but a lot of them. It was just that empty feeling of what people felt when the Titanic went down. The emptiness of it all,” said Bailey.

The Edmund Fitzgerald was the largest ship on the Great Lakes when it was completed in 1958. At 729 feet long, the ship was designed to fit exactly into the largest lock at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, where the ship would passage from Lake Superior into Lake Michigan before traveling on to ports like Chicago and Cleveland.

The Edmund Fitzgerald remained the largest ship on the lakes until the dawn of the superfreighters during the mid-1970s. When the ship sunk in 1975, 29 crew members went down with it.

Bailey only worked on the ships during summers, but he remembers Lake Superior as both beautiful and horrible.

“There were some beautiful days and when you weren’t working you could do some wonderful sunning. But Lake Superior could get pretty mean. I remember seeing a snowstorm out in the middle of the lake on the 4th of July,” he said.

Bailey worked as a Rhinelander High School teacher for 37 years. He and his wife, Jan, perfected the Edmund Fitzgerald doughnut recipe after reviving it for the St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church organ fund raiser. Avid antique enthusiasts, the Baileys’ doughnut operation benefited from the happenstance discovery of an old doughnut machine in an attic in Hancock.

“We stopped at an antique shop that was closing down in Hancock. Up in the attic was this old doughnut machine. It’s the type of machine where you make the batter and the motor rolls the batter into the hot grease,” Bailey said.

The machine came equipped with a 55-amp plug, and Bailey didn’t have an outlet that size in his home. Luckily, his son had one for his welder in the garage. The doughnut machine worked perfectly the first time the Baileys cranked it up.

Now Jon Bailey’s famous fry cakes are available every Saturday morning at the Hodag Farmers’ Market. The recipe is being used with Bailey’s permission to benefit the Rhinelander Logging Museum.

Wesley “Butch” Strong is in charge of turning out fresh batches of the specialty cake doughnuts, which come glazed, sugared, and plain. Rhinelander residents who wake up early on a Saturday morning can sample a taste of history in the form of a delectable morning bite, and wash it all down with a cup of strong coffee.

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Comments »

Edmund Fitzgerald wrote on Sep 17, 2008 6:13 PM:

" On February 1, 1957, the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, Milwaukee, entered into a contract with Great Lakes Engineering Works for the construction of the first "maximum sized" Laker ever built. The builder laid the keel of Hull 301 at its yard at River Rouge, Michigan, on August 8, 1957, and the vessel was launched on June 7, 1958. On September 22, 1958, S.S. EDMUND FITZGERALD was delivered to her owner. The Fitz was operated for her entire career under charter to the Columbia Transportation Division, Oglebay Norton Company, Cleveland.

See www.ssedmundfitzgerald.com for more information "

Lyle Crandall wrote on Jul 4, 2008 5:53 PM:

" I enjoyed the article about Jon Bailey and his donut making. He commented about seeing snow on the 4th of July while serving on the Edmund Fitzgerald on Lake Superior. I remember seeing a 4th of July fireworks display thru snowflakes at Hodag Park one year.It must have been in the late 40's. I tell that story to my Mississippi neighbors and they just shake their heads,probably in disbelief! (it's in the mid 90's here today) "

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