Mare-O-Lin's Chili Sauce

Our humble beginnings take us to Amherst, a suburb of Buffalo, NY. Our two story house on Frankhauser Road is the only house we ever lived in. When my sisters & I were young, Mom & Dad thought they found their real dream house in a town south of Buffalo. They liked it so much they put a verbal offer on the house. They wound up canceling the offer because the kids put up such a fuss about having to move to a new school, make new friends etc.

Chili sauce is one of many products my Mom used to can. She grew most of the ingredients herself. If you were to look up the ultimate gardener (vegetables & flowers), you'd see a picture of Mom. She started canning back in the early 1970's. She & Dad did most of the work but, as my 4 sisters & I grew older, we assisted in the process. My favorite part was being Mom's taste-tester!! She canned spaghetti sauce, chili sauce, taco sauce, plums, dill pickles & sweet pickles. Canning was a good way to stretch the food dollar and Mom would often get additional vegetables from family & friends who also had gardens & didn't can anything. She had all her recipe's written on index cards.

I went to Oswego State where I met my future wife Ann. We both graduated in May of 1984. I gradually worked my way from Oswego to Camillus with both jobs & apartments. Camillus is where Ann is from. In some ways it was tough no longer calling Amherst/Buffalo home but I learned then & still feel now a part of my heart & soul will always be there. I started growing a vegetable garden myself partly because there's nothing like the taste of a fresh picked tomato, pepper, squash or anything for that matter. Having my own garden was also kind of a way to bring Mom's spirit from home to where I now call home. It was nice to be able to call her when I needed advice on gardening related things. I would also help her & Dad plant their vegetables & do the roto-tilling that was required before planting. Often this would happen over Mother's Day weekend.

My Mom unfortunately died long before her time. Cancer took her life at the tender age of 55 back in 1990. Now gardening took on a whole new meaning & in the years it's been since she died, we connect in a very special way each year when I plant my garden. It's one of those things that just happens. Mom's passing also meant the end to the gravy train of wonderful home made products, or so I thought. Mom's chili sauce was always my favorite of everything she canned. It had such a unique taste. I tasted so many different tastes with each sample. It also lingered long after having it. The problem was no one could find her recipe cards. Not Dad or my four sisters. Finally, about two years after she died, my oldest sister Kathy found them!! She sent me up the chili sauce recipe &, in 1993, I produced my first batch of chili sauce. I've been making it ever since. Over the years I've given many a jar away to family, friends & neighbors. The reaction was always the same...such a multi-dimensional, wonderfully tasting sauce.

In 1995, my Dad passed away from a heart attack. He died two days before he was scheduled to have open heart surgery. He had it once in 1972 & was given 5 years to live after that. I know he didn't want to die but talking to all his/our family & friends at his wake showed me just how much he missed his wife. He had a real busy 5 years (after Mom died) being a Grandpa to Kathy's three children & he was still active with all his organizations, which included Snyder Fire Department & the International Police Association. Busy though he was, he was alone in that two story house that used to have seven people in it and he was homesick to see his wife of 30+ years.

Unfortunately for me, Mom & Dad died before my children were born. We did find out Ann was expecting two weeks before Dad died & we were able to share the good news with him. I am eternally grateful that Ann's parents are still alive to this date because part of every child's right is to have grandparents & to be spoiled by them!! What's also nice is they live less than 10 minutes from us. My children know who Grandma & Grandpa Sullivan are & many times we have felt their presence but the fact remains they will never physically be able to interact with them.

Our daughter Amanda was born unto us in May, 1996. Her birth signaled my re-birth & answered a life long question of mine which was why was I put on this earth? Above anything else, what is my main mission? In my heart of hearts I learned that, above all else, I was put here to be a Daddy. Everything else in my life seem to fall together after that realization. In March of 1997, I began a new job with United Communications where I remain to this day.

I've kept up with the gardening each year and my wife Ann is right there as well. In 1999, while roto-tilling the garden, I looked & in the dining room window was my little girl watching her Daddy. All of three years of age, she signaled me to come over to the window. She asked if she could help with the gardening. Be-still my heart. It's every parent's dream that their children will share an interest in a lot of the same things Mommy & Daddy do. Forcing any of those things (like gardening) is something we vowed never to do. So Amanda's asking to help garden brought me to tears & I could tell it did Mom as well. She's been helping ever since. Our son, John Michael (who was born in 1998), has also been helping the last four years.

So I guess you could say gardening has come full circle & is a family tradition that I'm sure will be carried on by both my children. My wife has been a full time Mommy since June of 2000. She's an Occupational Therapist on a long sabbatical!! Back in early 2003, we got to thinking about potential ways she could bring in some additional money without having to go back to work in the traditional sense. Everybody we talked to said why not take a shot having her (and me & the kids) market the chili sauce? We did some research & found that, while the world doesn't need another spaghetti sauce or jar of pickles, there's virtually nothing in the way of a chili sauce out there. We decided to give it a shot.

The first person we consulted with for advice was Rich Keene, a dear friend of ours for over 15 years. Rich is currently President of Eagle Newspapers & it is their company who put our new web site together!! He & I have a tradition of taking 1/2 a day on the Friday before Memorial & Labor Day weekends & play 18 holes of golf. A BBQ at our house always follows. His first official taste test of our sauce was Friday of Memorial Day weekend of 2003. He would up having 1/2 of the 16 ounce jar!! His honest opinion was that we needed to get people to try one jar of our sauce & it would then sell itself. With that kind of endorsement we were on our way.

MARE-O-LIN's became a natural name for our sauce. Dad always used to address cards & letters to my Mom just like that. The name honors the creator of the sauce but also ties Dad into it since he was at her side every step of the way. We hooked up with Nelson Farms (Cazenovia, NY...just outside of Syracuse) to produce our sauce. With the help of John McIntyre (also of Eagle) our product became Pride of NY certified in September of 2003. That has opened a lot of doors for us & we are on their web site. John also redesigned our label into the current one appearing on this web site.