PHILLIPS – Janet White describes herself as dependable and hardworking, and one who takes pride in what she does.

“No matter where I’ve worked,” she said, “I always treat it like it was my own business.”

Now, she operates JB’s Kitchen, producing a variety of pastries, doughnuts, muffins and whoopie pies from her log-cabin home in Phillips. She distributes her products to stores stretching from Carthage to Kingfield.

A year ago, she was working nights and weekends in a store in Phillips so she could be available for her grandchildren during the day, she said. The onset of what was believed to be a stroke in December was diagnosed as herniated discs that leave a tingling sensation and occasional lack of mobility in her left arm.

Knowing she couldn’t always depend on the arm, she said, made work difficult so she took the lemon life gave her and made lemonade.

“I’ve always wanted to bake,” she said. “It’s been a dream for a long time. I started talking about it 20 years ago. My first day of selling was March 8 of this year.”

A supportive husband, Dennis, told her it was time, she said. After looking at a potential site in town for a pastry shop, she chose to renovate her kitchen and acquire state licensing for the home business. It’s already been profitable for her, she said.

The location allows her to be there for her five grandchildren just as her mother helped take care of her own three children.

Even though White has worked in retail settings, local grocery and convenience stores, she said, she’s always kept a hand in cooking at those places.

“I’ve always cooked. I used to stay with my grandmother, and she let us help her cook,” White said.

Growing up in the 1960s in a hardworking family, White started stocking shelves at Edmunds Market in Phillips at the age of 11.

“If you wanted something, you had to work for it,” she said.

She went from Edmunds to Tranten’s Market in Kingfield, and also to the former Don’s AG in Farmington and other local stores.

“Getting sick wakes you up,” she said as she talked about her midlife change, a new career and her own business. While the extra income helps buy “toys” for the grandchildren, the interaction and work with the public for 36 of her 47 years means “I have to work,” she said. Her pleasant, friendly demeanor won’t allow her to be isolated, she said.

As chairman of the Phillips Chamber of Commerce, she was e-mailing reminders Friday of the town’s next Phillips Old Home Days to be held next August. Next year is the 50th annual event and it takes a year’s planning, she said. She enjoys the challenge of finding something new for the celebration.

A member of the Stratton-Eustis Lions Club and Farmington Emblem 460 club, she’s also associated with the Farmington Horsemen’s Association.

While working at Tranten’s, she helped the owner care for his race horses and found another niche for herself. For a number of years, she raised race horses, including one that made the top eight stakes finals, she said.

“Don’t ever tell me I can’t do it,” she said she told friends who tried to discourage her from racing.

She takes a similar joy from emceeing truck pulls at New Portland Fair and gets butterflies watching her sons pull the modified trucks. But the horse racing held an extra excitement. It was something that was hers, she said.