Twice a week Gladys Carson gets out her mixing bowls, warms up the oven, and bakes rolls. The 95-year-old, who started making rolls 30 years ago when she retired, has never sold a roll – she gives them away. This non-retiring nonagenarian's roll-baking expertise has earned her the title of “Roll Lady” – a role that suits her like ham on a biscuit.

The beginning of Mrs. Carson's roll-baking hobby was, in fact, ham biscuit-related.

“I was on the church kitchen committee,” Mrs. Carson recalled. “The lady in charge of the committee said something about making ham biscuits, but she said she didn't have the time to bake them.”

Mrs. Carson said she could make the ham biscuits using her roll dough if she had a small biscuit cutter.

“Two or three other women on the committee said they had one,” Mrs. Carson said with a smile. “So I started making rolls and cutting them into little biscuit shapes.”

Needless to say, her ham biscuits were a success.

“I started making regular size rolls after that and sharing them with friends and neighbors,” she added.

“For years she provided every roll the church used,” noted her daughter Shirley Carson Walker. “She made rolls for every reception and every funeral.”

Mrs. Carson's church is Farmville Presbyterian.

Despite the effort by some to pay her for homemade rolls, Mrs. Carter refused payment.

“I made the rolls for pleasure – no business in it,” she affirmed.

The 95-year-old did admit that she once received a dollar for a loaf of sour dough bread.

“This lady wanted a loaf of bread and wanted to pay me,” Mrs. Carson recalled. “She laid a dollar on the table and walked away before I had time to give it back!”

The local baker, who made rolls four or five times a week in her younger days, admits that roll making is a time-consuming activity.

“I didn't get into it until I retired,” she commented. “From start to finish it involves at least five hours. A busy person couldn't do it.”

Mrs. Carson was born in Appomattox County, one of 11 children.

“I was taught to work from a tiny little girl,” she observed.

Before her marriage in 1946, she worked for Craddock-Terry in Lynchburg and later for Goodyear in Newport News. She and her husband moved to Farmville in 1956.

“Mom retired at 65, but still worked part time for W.A. Watson & Sons,” her daughter added.

Mrs. Carson found that making and sharing rolls was a good way to keep in touch.

When she gave up driving at the age of 91, Mrs. Carson told her daughter she thought she would have to give up roll making.

“She told me she didn't have a way to deliver rolls anymore,” her daughter related. “I said – 'mom, I don't know of a living soul who wouldn't be there if you called them and said – I'm baking rolls today! '”

Apparently that advice was sound – Mrs. Carson is still baking twice a week.

“I mix two recipes, one right behind the other – that's 120 rolls,” the nonagenarian noted. “I make them in a bowl and invert a plate over the top. When the dough touches the plate I punch it down, roll it out, and cut the rolls and fold them over. Then I put them in a pan.”

Mrs. Carson puts the rolls on cookie sheets to rise again – each sheet holds 24 rolls.

“They rise quicker the second time,” she added.

She uses a special roll cutter made by her brother.

“My brother made it out of a pipe,” she noted of her heavy-duty roll cutter. “He had to go to a welding shop to do it. I broke one or two of the ones you buy in the kitchen department.”

Mrs. Carson uses a basic recipe that came from a friend in Bristol.

“They're potato rolls,” she explained. “The first time I made the recipe I cooked potatoes and mashed them. I said to myself – if I have to do this every time I make rolls I'm not going to do it!”

The local baker switched to instant potatoes and no one was the wiser.

“I use Pillsbury bread flour,” she noted. “One thing I would like to have put down over the years is how much flour I've bought.”

Of even more interest would be the number of rolls Mrs. Carson has made and shared in the past 30 years – more, no doubt, than even the Pillsbury Dough Boy could imagine!

“She has kept me and half of Richmond in rolls,” her daughter added. “Once when I was in charge of a church dinner for CARITAS, an organization that feeds the homeless, I mentioned it to mom and she made rolls. I can't tell you how many people we made dinner for that day who came back to the kitchen to say those were the best rolls they'd ever eaten.”

“I had a friend who carried some of my rolls to Denmark,” Mrs. Carson added. “I don't know how she managed to do it.”

“What impresses me is that she not only shares her rolls, she asks people to share with someone else as well,” her daughter added.

Mrs. Carson's roll sharing, in other words, is a random act of kindness that keeps on rolling.

“When you stay at home and can't drive you have to have something to do,” Mrs. Carson modestly concluded. “It's been a nice hobby. I'll put it this way – I haven't had anyone to turn down my rolls.”

One local resident who has enjoyed Mrs. Carson's rolls over the years commented, “One of her rolls, warm with butter on it – that's at the top of my list!”

If a vote were taken today Mrs. Carson's name would certainly be on that list.

Which list? The Honor Roll, of course.