Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American
people coming to you from the city where the West begins,
Fort Worth, Texas. Anti Anne Builer is best known as
the founder of Anti Ann's, the world's largest pretzel franchise.
Here to tell her story in a talk she gave
(00:32):
it by all the university is the pretzel queen herself,
Annie Buyler. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
I was born a little Amish girl in Leicester County, Pennsylvania.
Five boys, three girls, one mom, one dad. You know,
the old fashioned way.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Ten of us.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
We were raised to love God and to love each other.
My dad said, to work hard. We hear the line
a lot today, work smarter. My dad made me believe
if I work hard, I am smart. Be kind to
each other, my mom said, every day little children, love
each other.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Do not give each other pain.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
When one speaks to you in anger, do not answer
them again. Every day we heard that. I believe that
one of the greatest lessons I learned on the farm
was to persevere. You do what you don't feel like doing,
You do it anyway. At the age of twelve, I
(01:35):
would make sixty or seventy pies and cakes by myself
in the basement of our old farmhouse in a big
old pizza oven, and I'd walk down there wipe the
tears from my eyes because I did not want to
do that. My mom and dad would come home from
(01:56):
market that night, and my dad was so proud, and
he would tell every customer, my daughter made those pies,
my daughter made those cakes. So at the age of twelve,
my bakery was pretty well. It had reached a peak,
like I can sell my wares, my goods, my baked goods,
and my dad was proud of me that there was
something about all of that that really set the pace
(02:19):
for me. I really thought I hit the jackpot the
day I married Jonas Byler. Now with a name like
Jonas Biler, you know that he was Amish.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
It's just you don't have to wonder.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Yes, he was Amish. We were young, We were innocent
and filled with love for each other and for God,
and we were living our dream as a young Amish girl,
all I ever wanted in life was my very own family.
I have to tell you the forty six years of
being married to this man.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
He's not quite as tall his last doctor check up.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
He's a half in shorter, his hair is not so dark,
but he's still really handsome. And I still believe I
hit the jackpot the day I'm married Jonah Spiler. God
gave me more than I deserved. The secret is find
(03:20):
someone that loves God more than he loves you. That
is not a guarantee, but I can't tell you that's
a very good start in a relationship. In a few
short years after being married, our dreams were broken. Our
(03:45):
nineteen month old little girl, Angela, was killed in a
tragic farm accident as she was walking from our little
double white trailer to my mom and dad's house just
up the lane during that time that she was run
over by Bobcat, which my sister was driving at the time,
(04:06):
and she was killed instantly. My grief was too deep
for words, and I began to withdraw me to a
place of silence.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
My husband and I drifted apart.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
This took me into into a great, deep depression, and
based on that, I went to our pastor, who we
thought was a good man at that time, and I
walked into his office that Monday morning, about five months
after our daughter was killed, and as I left his office.
(04:49):
He seduced me and I stayed in an abusive relationship
for six long years. The grief that I experienced with Angela,
as deep as that was the abuse, took me to
the abyss of hell, of despair, of darkness, of guilt,
(05:17):
of suicide. Being broken in spirit from nineteen seventy four
to nineteen eighty four had me believing that God was
finished with me.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
In nineteen eighty four, my husband and.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
I walked into a church in Austin, Texas.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Broken in spirit.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
We were welcomed by the pastor and his wife, Tom
and Brenda Wilson. Their love and the people in that
congregation restored us back to spiritual health. I had no
idea at that time that God had Anti Ann's on
(06:07):
his mind. Through our tragedy, Jonas and I began to
put our life back together again with the help of
marriage counseling, and Jonas decided, this is exciting. I want
to help other couples get through their struggles and their marriages.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Just help people.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
So he began to study psychology and became a counselor
and did free counseling in our community for over fifteen years.
When he started counseling, and he was doing it as
a free service. That meant one thing for me. I
needed to go to work and make the dough, the Bretzel.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Dough, that is.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
And you've been listening to one heck of a story
told by Annie Buyler about the tragic loss of her
daughter's life than the even more tragic abuse delivered to
her by the person while the last person who should
her pastor, but then reclaiming her faith and reclaiming her
(07:15):
story and a relationship with God. When we come back
the story of Anti Ann and her Pretzel Empire here
on our American Stories, plea habibe here again, and I'd
like to encourage you to subscribe to our podcast on
Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, or wherever you get your podcasts.
(07:38):
Every story we are here is uploaded their daily and
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iHeartRadio app, or wherever you get your podcasts, and we
(08:09):
continue with our American Stories and the story of Anti
Annie Byler. And she's best known as the founder of
Anti Ann's the world's largest pretzel franchise. Let's return to
the talk she gave at Biola University.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
My decision to go to work was based on our
financial need and not on a smart business plan. From
a housewife to corporate America almost overnight, Anti Hans started
in nineteen eighty eight, and we knew from the very
(08:50):
early days of months of Anti ends was.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
Created to give.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
God wanted to use Anti Ann's as a vehicle for missions.
I can tell you that purpose with passion is dangerous.
Three things that I did not have when I started
Anti NSA and the obstacles that I had to overcome.
(09:18):
There were many, but three things, in particular education, formal education,
capital and a business plan. I went through the eighth
grade because that's Amish culture.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
It's what you do.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
And when you're done with eighth grade, you get on
the farm and you help mom and dad, or you
go get a job. So what we did, it's all
I knew. So I'm not a dropout. We had no capital.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
We'd come back after.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Living in Texas and we had twenty five dollars cash,
had no plan, had no four to one K. I
didn't know what a four oh one K was so
I didn't know what CDs or I didn't know what
I knew nothing period about business or banking, and I
felt intimidated as I made my rounds in the business world,
(10:17):
and I became fearful. I began to whine, you know,
whine and cry to my husband, Oh, I wish I
would be like him, like her, I wish i'd huh.
He said to me one day, stop whining.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
And just be who God made you.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
That sounds like simple, not too profound, but at the
time it was very important for me to hear those words.
During that time, God took me through the verse in
some two verse eight. He said, I will instruct you,
and I will teach you in the way that you
(11:08):
should go, and I'll counsel you with my eye.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
And I took him literal. It was very clear.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
To me there was three things that I had. I
had a great purpose, I had great product, and I
had great people.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
And when you focus.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
On what you have, you don't have any time left
to think about what you don't have. And when we
started Anti Hannda in nineteen eighty eight, with a six
thousand dollars leaned from my father in law, bought.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Our first market stand.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
By nineteen ninety two, we were opening our one hundredth store.
The growth for me was fast and intense. By nineteen
ninety five, we were opening our first international store halfway
around the world in Jakarta, Indonesia. I mean, why you
know people will say to me, why did you go
(12:25):
to Jakarta, Indonesia.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
My simple answer to the question.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Is, I guess I thought that if we can do
business halfway around the world, anything closer would be easier.
What I learned early on is the founder and CEO
of a fast growing organization, was that if we were
going to grow as an organization then and fulfill our purpose,
(12:52):
then I, the owner, the founder, the leader, that I
would have to grow personally. You cannot grow professionally if
you do not grow personally. That meant to me to
live a life of purpose meant them that I had
to get over me. I had to grow in every
aspect of my life, which meant to read books. I
(13:14):
went to seminars, I went to conferences.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
So I was.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
So sick of going to conferences week after week, month
after month. Leadership management, franchise, consult you name it. I
was there because I knew I.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Had to grow.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Over time, I became comfortable in my own skin and
confident in the position that God put me in, and
it became very clear to me it's not about me,
but it was about the purpose. I became passionate about
(13:54):
our employees, and I always I've always been passionate about
the product today and the company anymore. But the unfortunate
part is that my name is still there and Linda,
I cannot help myself if I come to your store
and the pretzels are not perfect.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
I just.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
I'm passionate about the product and the employees and their needs.
And I'm here to tell you that if you care
about your employees, they will be loyal to your purpose, guaranteed.
I read a book on Lincoln on leadership. Lincoln was
dubbed with an MBWA manage. By walking around.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
I could relate to.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
That is all I ever did, walk around in my
office and talk to people.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
I knew if I talked to them and cared for them.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
I mean I didn't know at that time, but I
wanted to know them and care for them. I love
them and discovered much later, if you can care for
your people, they'll be loyal to your purpose.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
When I started anti Enn's.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
I was surprised at how business was being done, because
remember I didn't know anything about business. I hadn't made
my rounds out there in corporate yet I didn't know.
I mean, I grew up on an Amish farm. It
was all about integrity. I knew that anti Enn's had
to be the kind of company that would honor God
in all that we did. Can we do it perfectly
(15:27):
one hundred percent all the time? No, But I believe
the model is there and to be excellent and to
care about building a company of integrity.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Who would have thought that a pretzel.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
It's a common pretzels date all the way back to
six 't ten AD. God took this little Homish girl
from Leanicester County, Pennsylvania, all around.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
The world.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Sewing pretzels. We sold the company five and built the
family's center to help families in need. But all during
the years, I kept going back to the promise that
God gave to me. I'll teach you, I'll instruct you,
(16:16):
i'll help you, and I can tell you. He was
faithful to his promise, and he not only taught me,
but he walked with me every step of the way,
and he helped me. Mother Teresa once said, you don't
(16:40):
have to be famous to be effective, you just have
to be faithful.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
And a terrific job on the production and editing by
our own Greg Hangler, and a special thanks to Biola
University for the story you just heard. That, of course,
is Anti Anne Buyler's remarkable life story born out of
tragedy the very worst kind, and then triumphing despite it
and putting her faith in the Lord. But also well,
(17:10):
what she did was she had to get over herself,
that she had to grow personally, which she did relentlessly,
and over time, I became comfortable in my own skin
and confident in the position God placed me. And we
can only hope for that in everyone who's listening, that
you can get to that place, that we can all
(17:30):
get to that place. And as Anne Biler said, in
the end, God took this little amage girl all around
the world selling pretzels. God not only taught me, he
walked with me every step of the way. The story
of Anti Anne's Pretzels, which in the end is Anne
Builer's story. Here on our American Stories