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ORAL HISTORY

Jesselynn Back

Jesselynn Back was born in Lubbock, Texas, and moved with her family to Waco, Texas  in 1994. She began working Pizza Hut as a teenager, and after a stint working retail gigs in Austin, Texas, she moved back to Waco to attend Baylor University in her early twenties.  Serving tables at Mama Fu’s, George’s, and eventually Clay Pot, allowed Back the flexibility to continue her studies while earning a living. She found joy in serving good food to hungry people. In 2020, she received her bachelor’s in communication strategy from Washington State  University, which she attended remotely. 

In 2023, Back was diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer, and she is grateful that her employer at Clay Pot began providing employees with health insurance just a few months before her diagnosis. But with lifelong cancer treatments costing upwards of $36,000 a month and, most recently, an operation to remove a brain tumor, Back is relying on donations from a GoFundMe campaign to help relieve some of her medical debt while she continues to work at Clay Pot whenever she is well. As a side hustle, Back runs Mad Conscious Media, a social media marketing company that currently focuses on promoting Clay Pot and its sister company, Le’s Kitchen. She hopes one day to devote herself full-time to her marketing company but, for now, she is focused on her health and living a rich life with her fiancé, Don, and their dog, Ume.