Two women who had never met shared one legacy \u2013 transforming East County with their generosity and paving the way for women in business.<\/p>\n
Sharilyn \u201cShari\u201d Newquist, co-owner of Yogurt Mill in El Cajon, and Mary Hennessy, owner and founder of Mary\u2019s Donuts in Santee, both died earlier this month, leaving community members to reflect on their decades-long legacies.<\/p>\n
El Cajon resident Mike Atkinson said three generations of his family were regulars at both Yogurt Mill and Mary\u2019s Donuts. He said Hennessy and Newquist will be remembered as the \u201cEast County queens\u201d for years to come.<\/p>\n
A donut dream<\/p>\n
Mary Hennessy moved to California in the early \u201950\u2019s after marrying her husband, Donald. She eventually got her start in the donut industry in her early fifties after training and working at multiple Winchell\u2019s locations.<\/p>\n
Her granddaughter, Kelly Hennessy, said Mary decided she wanted her own donut shop.<\/p>\n
Mary\u2019s Donuts opened for business in 1984. At the time, Kelly said, businesses refused to sell to a woman, but Mary was dead-set on doing it herself.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy grandfather signed for it, but she did it all,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cIt was hers. She was amazing, she did all that work.\u201d<\/p>\n
The storefront was relocated once in 2016 from the Mission Gorge location to Carlton Hills Boulevard, where it remains now.<\/p>\n
A family friend, Joel Scalzitti, played a key role in securing the lease at the new location, Kelly said. With Mary\u2019s blessing, Scalzitti opened a sister location in Lakeside.<\/p>\n
As time passed and the business grew, Kelly said her grandmother was sure to remain front-and-center in business operations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThings changed over the years, but she was always there,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cShe greeted customers when we had a line out the door.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kelly moved to San Diego in 2016 after her grandfather, who has since passed, fell ill. She came for what she expected to just be a summer of helping Mary, but never left.<\/p>\n
Mary worked at the shop until her passing. She spent her life focused on work and exercise, Kelly said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no better job than working at Mary\u2019s Donuts,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cNo one comes to a donut shop angry. The shop isn\u2019t just a business, it\u2019s a place of community. It\u2019s a part of who she was and what she stood for: hard work, kindness and connection.\u201d<\/p>\n
After managing Mary\u2019s Donuts for the last nine years, Kelly is taking over ownership following her grandmother\u2019s passing. She said her only plan for Mary\u2019s Donuts is to continue to operate it the way her grandmother had had.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no changing anything here, just carrying it forward with love and care,\u201d Kelly said.<\/p>\n
Mary died Oct. 19 at 94 years old. The family is holding a public celebration of life on Nov. 15 at the Santee Civic Center at 2 p.m.<\/p>\n
\u2018A family affair\u2019<\/p>\n
Newquist spent most of her life in El Cajon. She started at Yogurt Mill as a manager when it first opened in 1977. She managed the location for over 40 years and eventually bought partial ownership of the company.<\/p>\n
Her daughter, Lauri Davis, worked alongside Newquist throughout high school and into her college years.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a family affair,\u201d Davis said. \u201cMy mom was there almost seven days a week. On Sunday, she\u2019d run over there right after church, and make sure everything was running smoothly before she could relax.\u201d<\/p>\n
Newquist was driven by her Christian faith and generous attitude, Davis said. Each customer was treated with the same level of attention as the next.<\/p>\n
Yogurt Mill became a home away from home for the entire family, Davis said. This became true for many other families who made regular stops at the shop.<\/p>\n
Atkinson said he became very close with Newquist as he regularly visited Yogurt Mill in his teenage and early adult years. He attended Christian High School in El Cajon, where he met his wife, Stacy.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor years, I called her Mom,\u201d Atkinson said. \u201cShe was one part sass, one part snark and a whole lot of Jesus.\u201d<\/p>\n
The yogurt shop transformed from his own high school hangout spot to one where he brought his own children, he said. Three generations later, his family grew and continued to visit on a regular basis.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt one point in life, we were struggling financially and Shari came out from behind the counter and sat down at a table with Stacy where they talked for an hour,\u201d Atkinson said. \u201cThe whole time they were talking, the kids that work in the back were bringing our kids their yogurt.\u00a0When they get done talking, Stacy turns around, and she\u2019s like, \u2018Where\u2019d the yogurt come from?\u2019 Shari just said, \u2018Oh, honey, don\u2019t worry about it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
This was the level of customer service that Newquist strived for all the time, her daughter said. She went out of her way to \u201cremember anything about everybody,\u201d Davis said.<\/p>\n
After retiring, Newquist moved to South Dakota with her family in 2016.<\/p>\n
\u201cHer heart was always in El Cajon,\u201d Davis said.<\/p>\n
Newquist died Oct. 14 at 86 years old.<\/p>\n
Trailblazers for women in business\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mary and Newquist had never met, but both acted as trailblazers at a time when it was considered somewhat unusual for women to be leaders in business, Atkinson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese were the days when it just wasn\u2019t that common and both of them had created so much happiness with their businesses,\u201d Atkinson said. \u201cIt was just crazy parallel lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not only had the two set a strong example for girls and young women in East County, they also had provided local teens their first job opportunity, he said. Their loving personalities and deep-rooted connections within the community will be remembered for years to come, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey didn\u2019t know each other, but Mary was all about women in business, and she would have been happy to know Shari,\u201d Kelly said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two women who had never met shared one legacy \u2013 transforming East County with their generosity and paving…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[7,3053,181,23,100,8567,74,84,76,75,1696],"class_list":{"0":"post-22256","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-east-county","10":"tag-latest-headlines","11":"tag-local-news","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-news-obituaries","14":"tag-san-diego","15":"tag-san-diego-county","16":"tag-san-diego-headlines","17":"tag-san-diego-news","18":"tag-top-stories-sdut"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}