Retired employee stays connected to students via baking

By Emily Gibson

Assistant Features Editor

A retired employee at Trevecca continues to make an impact on the faculty and students at Trevecca through her passion for baking cinnamon rolls. 

Marilyn Jordan, 80, retired as the administrative assistant for the Department of Communication Studies in 2018 after serving 17 years in multiple roles at Trevecca, during which time she also baked hundreds of cinnamon rolls. 

This year alone, Jordan has baked four dozen rolls for the Department of Communication students and faculty, during which time Jordan got to do what she said she loves most: fellowship with friends and spend time with students. 

“Can we ever say Marilyn is retired?” said Kristi Walker, administrative assistant for the department of communication. “Cinnamon rolls are one thing, but I know she has done other things for people.”

While Jordan carries many unofficial hats at Trevecca, such as assistant name-caller at graduation and a frequent attendee at various student recitals, she is better known as the grandma of the Department of Communication because of her continuing legacy of being there for the students when they need someone. Her cinnamon rolls are just a bonus. 

“Students don’t always have a grandmother local, and she kind of serves that function,” said Lena Welch, dean of the School of Arts and Sciences and professor of communication studies.

Jordan’s baking story goes as far back as her formative years. 

In 1944, Jordan was born in Elizabethtown, Tennessee, and at just a year old, her family moved to Jacksonville, Florida. Three years later, at the age of four, Jordan’s father passed away, after which her mother took her and her three siblings to West Virginia, where they could be with family.

While her mother worked as a bookkeeper for a furniture company, Jordan spent much time with both sets of grandparents, but especially her mom’s mom, Ola, who Jordan referred to as Mike.

“My grandmother cooked every day, and my grandfather loved sweets, so every Saturday, my grandmother made three pies, and she let me help roll out the pie crust,” said Jordan.

Both sets of grandparents passed away when Jordan was 12 and 13, but Jordan is happy she kept and, to this day, continues to use her grandmother’s rolling pin when baking with her own children and 15 grandchildren.

Upon graduating from what was then called Stone Wall Jackson High School in West Virginia, Jordan spent three months at a trade school for business training on keypunch machines, precursors to computers. 

At the time, Jordan was dating Ron Jordan, who she met when she was 16 at the supermarket where she and her mother shopped weekly, so upon the completion of trade school, Marilyn moved to Nashville with Ron so he could study Ministry at Trevecca. 

The Jordans served 25 years in ministry and raised three biological as well as two adopted children together. When Marilyn’s sister Barbara passed away at 32, Jordan and her husband took in and legally adopted Barbara’s 4-year-old son and 18-month-old daughter.

“It was not easy, but we felt that God was in it,” said Jordan.

Jordan’s love for baking cinnamon rolls began 51 years ago in 1973. 

While Jordan was serving alongside her husband at the first church he pastored in Charleston, West Virginia, several ladies in the church taught Jordan how to make yeast rolls and how to use that same dough for cinnamon rolls. 

From thereon out, when Jordan saw an opportunity to make the rolls she did, especially when it came to what Jordan would consider contentious church board meetings. 

“When my husband knew that a monthly meeting might have some serious issues, he would ask me to make cinnamon rolls to make things go down easier,” said Jordan. “I think scripture would agree that breaking bread (or cinnamon rolls) together builds relationships, and I love building relationships.”

When Jordan’s husband unexpectedly asked for a divorce and left in 1997, 53-year-old Jordan at the time said she did not know who she was. 

“I just kept doing the things that for a while I thought were habits but later realized were just foundational,” said Jordan. “Every step of the way, everything I needed, sometimes even before I realized I needed it, God was there.”

In late December of 2000, Jordan was driving home from work at a grocery company in West Virginia when the telephone number 615-248-1200 came to mind. Jordan knew the number because she often called that number to talk with her daughter, who studied at and graduated from Trevecca in 1996. 

“I thought why would that number of Trevecca come to mind, so I called the number when I got home and no answer,” said Jordan. “The next evening coming home from work, the same thing happened, so I got home, and I called the number again, and Delores Green (secretary for president Millard Reed) answered.”

Green was only at the school for 30 minutes when Jordan called because Reed asked her to get something out of his office for him. If Jordan waited 15 more minutes, Green would not have been present. 

When Green asked Jordan why she called, Jordan told her what happened and said she had no idea, so Jordan asked Green if there was anyone she needed to be in prayer for. 

Then Green informed Jordan of a job opportunity in the School of Education. One month later, Jordan was interviewed and hired over the phone. 

Jordan served as secretary for the School of Education and secretary for the director of alumni services before the year 2010, when Jordan made the transition to administrative assistant for the Department of Communication Studies and worked alongside Welch. 

“Somewhere along the line, she made the mistake of telling me she makes the world’s best cinnamon rolls,” said Welch. “Now, I think she just said she makes cinnamon rolls, but I call them the world’s best.”

At some point,  Jordan volunteered to bring cinnamon rolls for one of Welch’s annual department meetings.

“Everyone loved them, so each year she would volunteer to bring them,” said Welch. “People would arrive early for the meeting to get the cinnamon rolls. Those were some of the best-attended meetings.”

According to Welch, when the department began to have gatherings for students, that is when Jordan really loved to make them.

“There is something about a home-cooked treat that just makes someone feel loved and special,” said Welch. “Let’s broaden it away from just cinnamon rolls. Marilyn has the gift of hospitality, and that is an ability to make people feel accepted and welcome no matter what their circumstances are.”

Briley Daniels, junior communication studies major and leadership minor, met Jordan for the first time Friday, October 4, in the lobby of Wakefield.

“I could sense that she cared for me even as a student that she didn’t know through a cinnamon roll,” said Daniels. “She took the time to not only make them but also to stand at her table and talk to the students and engage with them. The fact that there is a grandma who took the time to make something for me, that intentionality behind the cinnamon roll goes a lot further.”

Welch and Walker both spoke on behalf of the communication department in saying they consider Jordan family, and they hope she continues to use her gift of hospitality.

“It’s important to our department to continue to ask her to come back, and it delights me when I see the next generation of students meeting her and finding out what a really special and talented person she is,” said Welch. “ I want her to continue to be loved by this community that she has loved so well.”