In 1989, the entrepreneur now known to the world as “Sister Schubert” was baking her soon-to-be famous yeast rolls in the kitchen of her home in Troy, Alabama, for her small catering business and for family and friends.

That year, she volunteered to donate some rolls, based on her grandmother’s heirloom recipe for “Everlasting Rolls,” to the holiday frozen food fair at her church. She received orders for 80 pans. The next year brought orders for 200 pans, and in 1991, she had to cut off orders at 300 pans.

Barnes, who was called "Sister" by her siblings growing up in Troy and whose last name was then Schubert, decided there might be a wider market for her rolls. And Sister Schubert’s Homemade Rolls was born.

The largest available double residential oven was too big for her kitchen so she set it up on the sun porch next to a large chest freezer that was a gift from her mother. Her kitchen and sun porch became a mini-bakery, and the dining room a packaging area. She hired three helpers and began with one account, Ingram's Curb Market in Troy, Alabama.

After one month, she was ready for new markets. Tirelessly, Sister called on other small groceries in Montgomery, Dothan and Birmingham, Alabama. If a grocer would agree to sell her product, she and her two daughters would set up in the store and hand out samples. "I knew," Sister says, "if I could get people to taste my rolls, they would buy them."

After working out of her home for a year, Barnes opened her first Sister Schubert's Homemade Rolls bakery in August 1992 in Troy, using space in the family furniture warehouse, a 30-quart commercial mixer and a pair of used commercial gas ovens. Within six months, the furniture was evicted so that Sister Schubert’s could take over the entire warehouse.

In a short time, volume grew to the point where she could no longer supervise marketing, production and delivery by herself. She turned to food broker George Barnes for assistance. Under his guidance, the company landed larger accounts and expanded from local to regional distribution. The couple married in 1995.

In November 1995, Barnes expanded her business by opening a new 27,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art bakery in Luverne, Alabama. Even in the new facility, demand continued to outpace supply. Within three years, the company had expanded the facility to 80,000 square feet and was producing more than 1 million rolls per day.

In September 2000, Barnes sold the stock in her company to Lancaster Colony, a specialty foods corporation in Columbus, Ohio, whose broad marketing system has propelled Sister Schubert’s Rolls into national brand status. Today, Sister Schubert’s Homemade Rolls is a subsidiary of Lancaster Colony’s T. Marzetti Co. division.

Patricia Barnes and her husband George are still hands-on executives at Sister Schubert’s Homemade Rolls.