Auntie Anne 

April is National Soft Pretzel month (yes, it really is a designation). When Central Pennsylvania thinks soft pretzels, many likely think “Auntie Anne.” Auntie Anne’s Inc. is headquartered in Lancaster.

Auntie Anne is Anne Beiler. She began making Auntie Anne’s pretzels in 1988. Beiler baked pretzels and sold them at a simple farmer’s market stand in Downington, Pennsylvania. At first, Beiler will admit, they were terrible! But her husband, Jonas, fine-tuned the recipe. 

Word of Auntie Anne’s delicious pretzels spread beyond that Farmer’s Market. Just four months later, she opened a stand at Harrisburg’s Broad Street Market. Then family and friends began opening “licensed” locations in other spots like: Saturday’s Market in Middletown and the Morgantown Farmers Market. Beiler was amazed. After all, she never had aspirations to be a businesswoman.

“It was not something I really wanted to do,” Beiler recalls.

Now, more than 20 years later, Auntie Anne’s is a franchise business with more than 1000 locations in 19 countries. Anne and Jonas, sold the business in 2005 to Anne’s second cousin, Samuel Beiler.

To see Anne Beiler now, you might believe life was picture perfect. Beiler lives in the rolling farmlands of Lancaster County. She has a devoted husband, two grown daughters and four grandchildren. Nowadays, Beiler will not greet you with warm, doughy pretzels but with fresh, baked cookies. She will not meet you at a blue and white storefront in a mall, but rather at a massive counseling complex in the heart of Lancaster County.

Though Anne Beiler is who you expect to see – a kind, smiling, motherly woman who likes to feed you and chat and laugh – her path there was like her famous pretzels… twisted. In fact, to Beiler, being who and where she is right now is a miracle.

Anne Beiler was born Anne Smucker, an Old Order Amish child in Lancaster County. (Her parents switched to a more tolerant Black Car Amish when Anne was three-years-old.) Beiler received no schooling beyond eighth grade. At times, her family was extremely poor relying on friends and family to help them by. For a time, as a wife and mother, Anne lived in a dilapidated trailer. All of that, though, was on the outside. All of that was manageable. Beiler was happy. It was what happened to her on the inside that nearly destroyed her – more than once.

In Fall 1975, Beiler lived with husband Jonas and their two girls, LaWonna, four-years-old and Angela, 19 months, on the same land as Beiler’s parents’ farm. One tragic morning, Beiler watched little Angie toddle her way to her parents’ house to play with cousins. Suddenly, Beiler heard screaming. Beiler’s father came running with a lifeless Angie in his arms. Beiler’s sister had accidentally backed over the little girl with a Bobcat. Angie died.

Beiler says that ushered in years and years of “pain, blame and shame.” Though she tried to overcome her grief and be who she believed others wanted her to be, she could not.

“When she [Angie] was killed,” Beiler explains. “I was not able to get over it, or be victorious, or feel good.”

After four or five months, Beiler remained in an “abyss of sadness and depression.” She decided to meet with her pastor for counseling. How could she have known what would happen?

This trusted leader seduced her. Heraped her.

“I was in complete disbelief,” Beiler recalls. “I went from this feeling of being ashamed of myself for not being victorious, and then experiencing that. I can’t really explain it.”

This negative relationship lasted six years. Rumors of the pastor’s behavior tore her church and family apart.

During this time, Beiler had another daughter, LaVale. She continued to grieve for Angie, with no help.

“I’m shrinking. I’m slowly just dying,” Beiler remembers. “The death of Angela, I probably would have recovered from that fairly normal I think.” 

But instead, life was “heavy and dark and depressing.” Beiler thought she was doomed forever. Her marriage was collapsing. She weighed 92 pounds and suffered headaches, backaches and even once thought she was having a heart attack. She discovered that the pastor was also abusing her sisters.

“I just grieved – in such a way that I don’t even know how I survived.”

Finally, Beiler had the courage to break away completely from the pastor. After a stint working as a manager at a farmers market stand in Burtonsville, Maryland, in 1988 she borrowed $6,000 from her Amish father-in-law and opened the Dowingtown pretzel stand.

The business went well. It grew. Her extended family was involved. Beiler enjoyed pouring her heart into the business. But her relationship with her daughters was a poignant struggle. They were making poor choices with school, friends and typical teenage issues. Her marriage was rocky. Even Auntie Anne’s became a struggle as it grew to 35 stores in just two years.

“Auntie Anne’s now became something, again, that was controlling me,” Beiler explains. “And I swore that nothing or anyone would ever control me again.”

Then in 1995 Beiler discovered that her former pastor had also abused her children.

“That was like putting the lid on my coffin.”

Desperate for escape, Beiler had an affair. She wanted to leave her family and business behind and simply start over. The plan failed. But something changed. Beiler realized she must conquer her demons.

“I knew then that I was finished with life as it was. That I had to get on a path toward wholeness.”

She entered five years of faith-based counseling.

“It saved my life,” Beiler states matter-of-factly. “It changed the way I think. Without that, I wouldn’t be here today.”

Interestingly, when Anne Beiler first began making and selling pretzels, it was to help fund her husband’s dream. Even as Anne was silently struggling and spiraling in darkness, Jonas passionately wanted to help others who were battling pain, depression and broken marriages. He counseled people at their Lancaster County home with hopes of opening a center that could reach out in an even bigger way.

“I could never have known the fire that burned in my soul when I first started my store in Downingtown. When I think about it, I could have realized that it’s more than just a pretzel. But I didn’t,” Beiler thoughtfully notes.

With the sale of Auntie Anne’s in 2005, the Beilers, with their own marriage restored, saw Jonas’ dream realized.

The Family Center of Gap Family Resource and Counseling Center opened in September 2008. It’s mission is to heal and “help families thrive.”

The center is 55,000 square feet on 120 acres. It cost five-million-dollars to build. Besides counseling, the center holds before and after school events, exercise classes, craft sessions, financial classes and many other seminars.

Anne says her “life is an open book.” She is frank about her experiences. “It is my story, and it is my faith that really helped me through,” she says.

With tears in her eyes, Anne explains that she can look back and say that it is okay.

“You know what? I can sit here today and can honestly say that I am thankful that I went through all of that. I really understand, when people say there is no hope.”

“God thinks I’m amazing. He loves me no matter. On my worst day,  on my darkest day and my worst sin he loves me as much,” Anne says as she both beams with joy and nearly cries at the same time. “That’s what I discovered. And when you discover that, it really does change your life.”

Anne now travels the country, speaking to groups about Auntie Anne and the business.

For the record, Beiler still stops by Auntie Anne’s locations. “It’s a great pretzel,” she says with a twinkle in her eye. Her favorite? It is a tie between the original and the almond pretzel with caramel dip.

“My world just got bigger because of a soft pretzel.”

In 1998, Anne and Jonas founded the Angela Foundation as the charitable side to Auntie Anne’s. It provides financial support for ministries assisting families and children.

Last year Thomas Nelson, Inc. published Anne’s book, Twist of Faith: The Story of Anne Beiler, Founder of Auntie Anne’s Pretzels. Beiler chronicles the growth of Auntie Anne’s pretzels coupled with her own growth, struggles and faith. HBG