Donna Quessenberry was Jim's wife and Lee and Michael's mother. She co-ran the original Quessenberry product line marketing in the 1990s and worked alongside Jim in the kitchen developing recipes.
Donna designed the original retro labels for Sauce Beautiful and Spice Beautiful with Lee in the mid-1990s, when the kitchen was the factory floor. She was present the night Jim had his dream about Sauce Beautiful and helped him develop the recipe.
She started Lee younger than that. From a young age she pushed him to make signs and displays for the sauce and spice they were just beginning to get into stores. In 1990, when Lee was eight, she and Jim took him to Creative Multigraphics in Jonesboro — a real drafting room, before digital graphics were ready for production. He thought the grown-ups got better crayons and pencils than school. He filled his hands with every crayon in the drawing room. He loved it. That is how the brand’s designer started: a kindergarten teacher who treated her son like he already had a job.
She makes a sauce called Whiskey-A-Go-Go with bourbon whiskey, which Jim described as 'good stuff.' Donna was a kindergarten teacher while Jim was farming and making sauce to support the family.
In Their Own Words & Others'
"Mom inspired me from a young age to create and design marketing materials for our budding sauce company. I was encouraged to design signs and displays for the sauce and spice we were beginning to sell in stores. I was eight when Mom and Dad took me with them to Creative Multigraphics in Jonesboro, Arkansas, in 1990. I took it upon myself to find all the crayons I could from the drawing room. It was an actual drafting room — before digital graphics were anywhere close to ready for production. I just thought they got to draw and paint with better crayons and pencils than I did in school. I loved it."
Timeline
1990
Creative Multigraphics, Jonesboro
Donna and Jim take eight-year-old Lee to the drafting room. He raids the crayon drawer. The brand’s future designer is already on the clock.
