Macon Magazine

VERA STEWART BECAME A MACONITE under less-than ideal-circumstances. When she was 7 years old, her father passed away. Her mother, who was raised here, felt her best option was to relocate herself and her five children from their home in Raleigh, North Carolina, to a place where she could be surrounded by the comfort of family. "I ended up here at a very vulnerable time in my life," Stewart says, "and I am so proud of all the ways this city reached out to shape me into the person I became." So, who did Vera Stewart become? A loving and dedicated wife, mother and grandmother – all great accomplishments and just the beginning of the list for Stewart. roughout her impressive career, she's been a teacher, a caterer, an early mentee of Martha Stewart's, a mail-order cake sensation who garnered great press in Southern Living and Garden & Gun and drew accolades from Oprah and Oscar de la Renta, a cafe owner, a children's cooking camp founder, a cookbook author and a nationally syndicated cooking show host. is driven businesswoman is proud – and a little awestruck – of the serendipity of her early years here. In Macon, Stewart met mentors and teachers who took an interest in her and helped guide her career path. rough these encounters, Stewart learned the essential nature of teaching others to care for themselves and their loved ones via the culinary arts – and she learned how much fun this could be, too. She learned that being a successful company head meant working hard every day alongside your employees rather than barking orders from an isolated office, and that respecting and appreciating those employees garnered the best results. She learned that in order to truly grow a brand, you have to be forward-thinking, resolute and, at times, risk-taking. She learned the importance of rigorous, rewarding mentorship. Raising Vera e hospitality entrepreneur behind the VeryVera brand is engaging and lively. Her accent is comfortingly, deeply Southern and she's well-known for her megawatt smile, something she says she was self-conscious about as a child. She's also very down-to-earth. "I don't dye my hair," she says of her short-cropped silver 'do. "I'd never have time to sit still in that chair! I have too many things to do!" She laughs, then tells a story of being a young girl sitting in the congregation of Vineville Methodist Church and seeing Mr. and Mrs. Snow (of Snow's Funeral Parlor) walk in. "ey looked like Ken and Barbie to me back then," she says. "He was tall and good-looking, and she was a show-stopper – tall and gorgeous with a full head of gray hair. Because of her, I've never associated gray hair with age." Stewart grew up witnessing her mother, Betty Stewart Wingfield, thrive under less-than-ideal circumstances. "She didn't really have a safety net, which I'm not sure I fully understood as a child, but I did understand the concept of: if you give up, who's going to pick up the pieces? at's part of my DNA, I think," Stewart says. Stewart's mother, 40 and newly widowed, re-entered the workforce as a teacher. She earned a master's degree at Wesleyan College, where Stewart's older sister also studied, and always instilled in her children the importance of graduating from college, which they all did. Stewart recalls a formative entrepreneurial moment on Wesleyan's campus. She was a Girl Scout, and every Girl Scout who sold 500 boxes of cookies could earn a golden charm for their bracelet. "I was getting that charm if it was the last thing I did," says Stewart. So, her mother dropped her off at the dorms to sell cookies to college kids door-to-door. She easily secured her charm, and in the process got an alluring preview of the rewards that can follow ambition and potential. ABSOLUTELY VERY VERA Macon-raised Southern cooking icon, Vera Stewart, shares what inspired her then and what keeps her focused now BY TRACI BURNS PHOTOGRAPHY BY MATT ODOM V 42 maconmagazine.com | APRIL/MAY 2021

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