Harland Sanders - The Inspirational Life Story of Colonel Sanders

Harland David Sanders was born on September 9th in 1890.

1890! That’s a vastly different world, and every chapter in this book really drives that message home.

Wilbur David, his father, was an affectionate and warm man. He made a living as a farmer as he owned 80 acres of land. However, he had to give up his profession. One day, he broke his leg because of a fall. After that, he went on to become a butcher in Henryville but only for the next two years. One afternoon in the summer of the year 1895, he arrived home with a fever. He died later that day. After his father died, Harland Sanders’s mother, Margaret Ann, found work in a canning factory for tomatoes. Harland, as a kid, had to take care of his siblings while his mother worked. He learned to cook for the sake of his siblings. At age 10, Harland Sanders started working as a farmhand.

People forget how brutal life was back then. If you didn’t work and earn your keep, your family starved. Period. The human condition has improved so much.

Margaret Ann married again in the year 1902. As a result, they moved to Greenwood, Indiana. This would prove to be problematic for the young Harland Sanders. He and his stepfather didn’t get along well. They’d frequently have arguments and eventually, Sanders moved out only after staying for a year.

His mother really felt a lot of pressure to remarry. It was tough to support the family, and a man’s income helped a great deal.

In November of 1906, Harland Sanders faked his date of birth and enlisted in the United States Army. He completed his service commitment stationed in Cuba. After a period of three months, Sanders was honorably discharged after which he moved to Sheffield, Alabama in 1907.

Note that he was never a colonel.

While he was on a trip, his boss fired him – the reason being disobedience. From that point, Josephine stopped sending him letters. Later, he learned that Josephine left him, leaving him alone and giving away all their belongings – both household goods and furniture. She also took their children to live in her parents’ home. Later, Harland Sanders would receive a letter from Josephine’s brother. In it was the reason why Josephine left him: she felt there was no point in staying with Harland Sanders, a man she called “a no good fellow” because he couldn’t “hold a job”. They had three children: a son and two daughters. His son, Harland Jr., died early in the year 1932 due to infection in the tonsils.

Harlan was a terrible husband and an even worse employee. Some people just cannot work for others; they simply must be entrepreneurs because they are unemployable. Harlan was one such person.

There is some merit in Josephine thinking that Harland Sanders couldn’t hold a job. As we have seen already, he frequently moved from job to job. Harland continued this pattern as he grew older.

Yup.

Sanders started law practice in Little Rock. This lasted for three years and he raised enough money to take his family to live with him. His career in law was put to a stop when he brawled inside the courtroom with his opponent as his own client!

They really let anyone be a lawyer back then.

Harland Sanders’s career was dealt blow after blow. Sometimes, it was because of his own doing. Sometimes, it was because of forces beyond his control. Eventually, it caused the breaking apart of his family. The thing that we should notice, however, is that through all these blows, Harland Sanders never gave up.

He really believed he was destined for greatness.

Kentucky Colonel is bestowed by the Commonwealth of Kentucky and is the highest among the titles of honor given by the government of the state.

Feels fake but fine.

The title only became official in the year 1813. But it was in use before that, just informally. People of Kentucky refer to local folks with honorable reputations which are mostly earned through military service during the American Revolution. Another commonly associated people are respected landowners within the communities.

What a great marketing stunt honestly.

It was in the year 1935, when then governor of Kentucky Ruby Laffoon recognized Harland Sanders’s service to the community. His popularity stemmed from his cooking. As customers loved the food he served, he became popular among the locality. Thus, he received the title of Kentucky Colonel. That’s how he started getting known as Colonel Sanders.

I feel lied to.

In the following year, 1940, Colonel Sanders was also able to complete his very own “secret recipe” of fried chicken. It involved frying the chickens using a modified cooker called pressure fryer instead of the conventional pan fryer. The pressure fryer cooked chickens faster.

The pressure fryer is the key invention here. Chicken was notoriously hard to cook back in the day.

When he pan-fried chicken, it would take him more or less 35 minutes to prepare one. He was not satisfied as this seemed so long. However, he was adamant not to use the deep-fry method. Although it was way faster than pan frying, Sanders think that the quality of the fried chicken was not up to par. According to him, deep frying results in unevenly cooked, crusty, and dry chicken. Preparing the chicken in advance is also not an option, as it results into waste at the end of a work day. Around that time, the first commercial pressure cookers came out into the market. These were meant mostly for steaming vegetables. Colonel Sanders bought one but he made modifications with it, turning it into a pressure fryer. He used this to fry his chicken. With this new method, he achieved his objective – faster cooking time while still retaining the quality of a pan-fried chicken. It was in the year 1940 when Colonel Sanders was able to complete what we know today as the “original recipe”. Colonel Sanders kept the 11 herbs and spices used in the recipe a secret. However, he disclosed that he used salt and pepper. He also claimed that the rest of the ingredients are not rare items, i.e. “stand on everybody’s shelf”.

Universally, the thing that attracts people to these restaurants in the early days is quality. Every single chain I’ve ever read about started with quality. They may not stand for quality today, but relative to the competition in their day and age they absolutely did.

His system included his secret recipe, method, and the blend of spices that he uses. They’ll also be allowed to utilize both his name and likeness as promotion for their restaurant. In exchange, Sanders would gain a franchise fee from them – usually four or five cents for every chicken sold.

We’ll learn more about this in Dave’s Way and Colonel Sanders.

Harman hired a sign painter named Don Anderson. Anderson was the one who came up with the name “Kentucky Fried Chicken”. Sanders liked it because it made a distinction from the Southern Fried Chicken – the chicken product dominant in restaurants back then.

Differentiation!

According to Harman, his restaurant sales went up triple after selling the “Kentucky Fried Chicken” for one year and 75 percent of this increase came from the sales of the chicken.

Again: differentiation!

It was Harman who pushed for the phrase “It’s finger lickin’ good” to be trademarked.

Too funny.

---

A short but decent quick history.