Dear Friends, both old and new,
Growing up in a family business, you're surrounded by stories: stories about how the company started and how things used to be; stories about tough decisions, unavoidable disasters, and unlikely successes; and, since it is a family business, stories about bickering and loyalty, about love and stubbornness, about who was right and, maybe more pointedly, who was wrong. Stories are memories set to meaning, however roughly, and the storyteller uses them to pass down purpose, identity, perspective, and humor. Stories shape how we remember, how we understand, and how we belong.
I could always trust that Grandma and Grandpa—our founders, Evva and Travis Hanes—had a story to share. I would sit with them in Grandma's kitchen after a family dinner, prompt them with a question, and then just listen. Sometimes, I was looking for guidance or insight, and sometimes I just wanted to hear another tale about a character or situation from their memories of Depression-era and post-war Piedmont, North Carolina—where thrift met ingenuity, every neighbor had a nickname and a story worth retelling, and virtue was measured in hard work and quiet kindness. They told stories together, each supplying the other with half-remembered details. Nearly all the stories took place within ten miles of the family homeplace; that history is anchored to the red clay soil beneath us.
My dad, Scott Wesly Templin, was a man of stories, too—but relatively few of his took place within a thousand miles of Grandma's kitchen. Born October 27, 1945, into a career U.S. Air Force family, Dad spent his formative years far from North Carolina and its red clay. His childhood stories have settings like the heated, enclosed walkways connecting airbase buildings, tunneled beneath two-story-tall snowdrifts in Goose Bay, Labrador; or in Okinawa, Japan, where he and his family befriended an ostracized kamikaze pilot whose mission, but not whose funeral, was preempted by Japan's surrender; and at the estate of a Pashtun tribal leader in northern Pakistan who hosted Dad's line dancing troupe from the Karachi American School and treated them to pit-roasted fat-tailed sheep served directly on 600-year-old Persian rugs, and cardamom-spiced green tea served in Soviet-made bone china.
The stories from his youth belong to the age of Pax Americana—Cold War outposts, foreign bases, and borrowed languages. But the stories from his young adulthood trace the opposite direction: inward, artistic, searching. After enlisting in the Air Force and serving in Vietnam, Dad accepted an invitation from a fellow long-haired and lost-looking veteran to join the UC Santa Barbara theatre program, where he studied lighting and sound design. Graduate school at CalArts (which included Wednesday-morning sitar lessons with Ravi Shankar) led to technical work at Disneyland—whose grooming policy required him to cut his hair. He designed seasonal performance shows and maintained ride systems like "It's a Small World," a song whose melody lodged itself permanently in his memory, much to his chagrin. A professional hippie, he arrived at the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, eager to mentor the next generation of theatre designers, and that was where he met my mom and her family and fell in love.
This final chapter of his story brought him home—not to the place he was born but to the place he chose. No longer shuffled around the globe or traveling from stage to school to theme park, he settled into something quieter, more enduring. He found a home among the Mrs. Hanes' Moravian Cookies family and built a family of his own within it.
He was proud of being the only person Grandma allowed in the kitchen while she cooked. Over the years, he made friends with many bakery customers and shared stories of his nomadic youth, his time in the service, or his love for fine cooking and tea. And, of course, he loved being a dad.
He didn’t need to retell fatherhood stories to me—I was there for most of them. He taught me to work with wood, to repair what was broken, and to cook with care. He introduced me to Pink Floyd and Simon & Garfunkel, to Kurt Vonnegut and Robert Heinlein. He taught me to be curious, to look up whatever I wanted to know, and to believe that anything someone else could do, I could learn to do, too. In short, his stories are marked by a lifelong transition—from a childhood shaped by the global sweep of United States internationalism, through a young adulthood shaped by the art and sounds of American internalism, to a North Carolinian foundationalism of family, food, and faith that surprised him with its depth. Through it all, he retained his sense of awe and wonder at the variety and unexpectedness of life.
Dad passed away on February 28, 2025, at home, dozing quietly in his favorite chair in the library—surrounded by books, warmth, and memory—at the age of 79. He was my best friend my whole life. In the song "Bookends," Simon & Garfunkel advise us to "Preserve your memories; they're all that's left you." Dad left me his stories, and through them, my memory of him is preserved.
Dad’s story resolves in rootedness—found late, chosen freely, and held tightly. The story of our bakery, by contrast, grows from that rootedness and stretches outward. It began on a wood-fired stove in a farmhouse kitchen and has become something far-reaching—yet the foundation remains the same. We bake using the same recipes, on the same land, and with the same tools and techniques passed down from hand to hand. And as the reach of our bakery has grown—generation by generation, cookie by cookie—from family tradition to a symbol recognized throughout our state and beyond, our foundation holds fast.
This year, that story of tradition may take on new significance. Legislation currently moving through the General Assembly would designate Moravian cookies as the official state cookie of North Carolina. Moravian presence in the region predates the state itself, and our tradition of thin, handmade ginger and molasses cookies has endured across the generations. For our family, it's more than recognition—it’s a reminder that what we do is part of a larger narrative. Whether or not the measure passes, it’s an honor to think our work might represent a meaningful thread in North Carolina’s ongoing story.
My grandfather, Travis Hanes—now 93—still lives and works on the family land where this business began. Known affectionately as the "Whittler on the Roof," he crafts over 600 walking sticks yearly from saplings he and my uncle Mike gather from the woods surrounding the bakery, preferring those naturally adorned with honeysuckle vine. He also maintains the trails that wind through those woods and has even added whimsical "woods people"—each with a carved face and a clever name—that have become a source of delight for his great-grandchildren on golf cart rides through the trees.
My mother, Mona Templin, who served as president of the bakery for 39 years, remains our chief storyteller. I'll let you in on a secret, friends: It was, in fact, Mom who used to write the family letters, although she would sign them as her mother, Mrs. Hanes. An archive of all our past letters dating back to 1987 can be found on our website. She is now embracing the world of social media to share behind-the-scenes updates and historical reflections. I encourage you to follow along on our Facebook (@hanescookies), Instagram (@mrshanescookies), and YouTube (@hanescookies) pages. My uncle Mike continues to work at the bakery during the Christmas season. My wife, Lori, is our chief dough maker and helps me navigate the many administrative hurdles that come with running a family business. My aunt Caroline and her husband Norian work part-time in our retail area alongside their daughter Evva Kate (16), and their twins, Lucy and Norian Travis (13). My uncle Jonathan’s daughters, Isabella and Fiona, have graduated from their cookie taster positions, but still help when needed, along with their mother, Sheila.
Now, the next generation—my daughters Adelaide (3) and Lydia (1), and their cousins Hanes (4) and Georgia (3)—are growing up, as I did, surrounded by the stories of the family business. They serve as our cookie tasters, our junior greeters, and our joyful reminder that this work matters far beyond ourselves. This isn’t just a business—it’s a legacy passed down through generations, and we intend to pass it on to theirs.
Our bakery was born in a farmhouse kitchen, survived lean years, grew during boom years, and still stands—unchanged in purpose. The red tins, the thin, delicious crispness of the cookies, the joy of sharing them with family and friends: these are not just rote habits. They are traditions. They are memories set to meaning. They are stories.
Thank you, friends, for being part of our story, and for letting us be part of yours.
Jedidiah Hanes Templin
President, Mrs. Hanes Moravian Cookies