Peggy Jones was born, raised, lived and worked in Perrin, in the heart of what is lovingly called the Guinea area of Gloucester, and is still involved in her community.

Her cooking career began at the age of 10. “My first thing I remember making was a chocolate pudding.” But soon Peggy was cooking whatever her mother set out to have for supper. “My mother would say ‘fix this or that,’ and that’s what I had to do. There were six of us, three girls and three boys. All the men were working on the water. It took a lot of food for our family. Mother had a woodstove in the outbuilding where she cooked things like cornbread. I used to watch her doing it. I’m looking for one now to put out in my building so I can cook some of the things she did. Nothing cooks bread like a woodstove does.”

When she was 14, Peggy’s father died, and in two days her mother was dead. The only bright spot during this period of three days was that “my sist...