Abigail and Martha Levie explain about how, Abigail got the whole family into the sourdough bread baking business.

Martha: “Hi, I am Martha Levie and today I am with my daughter Abigail. She is my oldest daughter, (and this is my youngest daughter, Elizabeth, who just wanted to be with me today). We want to tell you a little bit about how Abigail started a bakery called Abigail’s Oven that exclusively makes sourdough bread.

“When Abigail was little, I had her and two boys. They always wanted to sell things. When we would go to Walmart, she would say, ‘When I grow up, I want to work at Walmart.’ 

“My husband would face-palm and say ‘My daughter’s highest aspiration is to work at Walmart. What am I doing wrong?’

“But really she just wanted to sort the things; put things on the shelves; sell things to people and take their money and count it. She just wanted to have those kinds of interactions. And she loved cash registers.

Abigail: “And I liked the human involvement with other people. Working with money and giving something of value to them. Something that I made, that I could give to them. I think that was the biggest thing, to have that transaction.”

Martha: “Then I found out from my neighbors that my kids were drawing pictures and selling them door to door for 50¢ a piece. And so I sat them down and said, ‘All right, now if you’re going to sell something to someone, you have to make sure that it’s valuable enough that they really want it, so they’re giving you equal value in return.’

“And Abigail said, ‘I know mom, I could sell bread.” Because we made homemade bread and, and I thought, ‘Oh no, what have I done?’ And I said, ‘Well, you’re only eight and if you sold bread, then I would have to be the one to make it all. So we’re not going to do that.”

Abigail: “But then she didn’t know I was planning to do it all along.”

Martha: “So anyway, as she got older, it became her job to make the bread. And I taught her how to make bread. So when she was ten and a half, she said, ‘Okay, I can make bread now, mom.’ So she went out door-to-door—we had a little red wagon and she took her brothers.”

Abigail: “We also had some lettuce that we had grown in our garden and took it along with the bread to sell to our neighbors. Pretty soon we had people that wanted bread every week. They would say, ‘Hey, can you bring me bread every week?’ I said, ‘Well, yeah, I could do that.’ And so we started making it and keeping all the records in an Excelspread sheet.”

Martha: “She kept track of every thing on that spread sheet. She would call them every week to follow up and say, ‘We’re going to deliver your bread.’ She did all the interaction herself. She took the money and had all of her change counted at the end of the day. That was so fun.

“Anyway, eventually we moved from where we were living at the time in Cedar City, Utah to Virginia.  Anytime the kids needed money they would cook up another was to earn it—they were going to be in a play, Mulan. So they sold bread so they could get their costumes and be in the play. Then we moved back to Utah and they were still doing it.

“My husband had a great job but all they wanted him to commit and just do research. He was basically withering away in a little cubicle and he just has to have human interaction. So he came home and said, ‘We are going to take Abigail’s Oven and we’re going to make it our family business.’”

“So that’s what we did and now we have a bakery that employs over 20 people. We bake several thousands of sourdough loaves every week and sell them to hundreds of families all over the state and they think our sourdough bread is great.

“It’s all because of Abigail’s drive and ingenuity and desire to just be awesome.

“Have a good day.”

PS Since this was filmed in December 2019, since then Abigail has left for London, England, where she is performing service for her church. Reports from there suggest her starter is alive and well there—occasionally, she still bakes bread there too.