Knox Bakery Closes; Owner’s Life for Over 35 Years

Ron Wilshire

Ron Wilshire

Published January 11, 2017 10:36 pm
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knox bakeryKNOX, Pa. (EYT) — Many people will miss the homemade goodies from the Knox Bakery after its closing was announced earlier this week, but Lee Stewart will miss it the most, and she’s the owner.

(Photo by Frank Agnello.)

For the last 35½ years, the Knox Bakery has been Lee’s life, but she is closing the business for health reasons.
      
“I don’t like what I have done,” Lee told exploreClarion.com on Tuesday.

Lee spoke from her heart, “I LOVE my work, and if I did not have this health issue right now, I would continue my work.” 

“I started in the first week of September in 1981, my first job out of high school, and to this day, I’ve been doing it for 35 1/2. This coming August would complete my 36th year.”

She’s also aware of how people depend on her and the popularity of the bakery, noting she jokingly was worried that some people were lighting torches and getting pitchforks ready after she announced she was closing. 

That was one reason she wanted to tell her story.

“Still, to this day, I love what I do.  I have taken pride in making that wedding cake for someone, take pride in someone that grew up with the chocolate chip cookies who have now moved away and come back and they have children of their own, and they’re still the same cookie.”         

“I’m not boastful or putting myself out, but I take pride in everything I’ve done and stand at the end of the day and say ‘yes I did that and made the customer happy.’ That’s all I’ve ever needed. I can lay my head on the pillow at the end of the day and get five hours of sleep, get up and do it again.”

The Knox Bakery was established in 1921 by William Henry (Harry) Dascombe, and Lee Stewart has spent her life making sure the recipes have continued since 1981, offering at least three generations of customers the same baked goods that they remember. (For a complete history of the Knox Bakery, click here.)

“After I made this decision a couple of weeks ago,” said Lee, “there are days when my customers flash before my eyes, and they’re all part of my ‘family.’  I’ve got like 20 sets of grandparents there. I have customers that I treat like aunts and uncles, or look at them as brothers and sisters.  These people are like family to me.  It’s not been an easy decision, and I would not be going down this road if my body would continue.”

Few people realize the physical demands of running basically a one-woman bakery and what goes into producing the ideal cookie, doughnut, cake, or any of the other desserts.

“It starts Monday night each week at midnight, and I close the bakery Saturday at 1:00 p.m. but I have 3 1/2 hours of cleaning to do.  I have the bakery open at 5:00 a.m. every day. Between the hours of 12:30 a.m. and 5:00 a.m., I bake the pizza shop’s hoagie buns, breads, cinnamon rolls, sticky buns, brownies, doughnuts, and lady locks, and it’s all finished and ready to go when the doors open. And, then the day being with customers and yes, I do have customers that come in that early and then I ‘shift change,’ and I make the day shift and have to make cookies, cakes, and whatever I have to do to take care of the store and customers — eleven months a year. I love every minute of it and would not change a thing.  If I had it to do all over again, I’d do the same thing.”

Making those delicacies that go down so easily for customers requires a lot of activity and physical work.

“Up until about eight years ago, the sugars and flours came in 100-pound sacks.  For 30 some years, I was lifting and carrying 100-pound sacks – and it’s not just one sack — when you have to fill the bins up, you might be moving five or six sacks.  Shortening is 50-pound cubes, wedding cakes can weigh from 12 pounds to 50 pounds plus, and they have to be carried and placed at the event location. A recent wedding reception saw Lee traveling to Pittsburgh to deliver the cake and make everything meet her standards. With the physical labor, you’re always bending and stretching. It’s a physically demanding job.”

“When you’re standing over a bench and cutting and rolling dough and cutting doughnuts, it’s all upper and lower bodywork.”

“Everything I did was made from scratch – no performed doughnuts, no mixed doughnuts, no mixed bread — and it’s all done by hand.  Even the rolling pin probably weighs five pounds.  Someone kind of challenged if I even made my puff cakes here for the end of the season and Christmas.  They said show me your muscles because that takes works to make puff cakes.  Tell me about it; I’ve been doing it for so many years.”

Health Issues

Health issues are the only reason Lee decided not to reopen this year after her annual closing on Christmas Eve day until the week of Valentine’s Day.

“I had a spinal fusion on February 9, 2015, and by the grace of God, I made it through and reopened the bakery after my surgery. After the first surgery for four weeks, I literally had to do nothing.  For four weeks, I did nothing because I knew I had to listen to what the doctor said, and I did not want to mess it up.  I was peace with that and knew that’s what I had to do.  After that, I started walking in circles in the basement, and there was no lifting allowed…not even a gallon of milk.”

“I made it through 2015, and I got rested, felt better, and my back felt strong.  I started back to work this past year, and in April or May, I felt like I was sliding sideways.  Something was wrong, and it was progressively getting worse as the year went on.  In December, I’m working seven days a week the whole month because of the cookies, the fruitcakes, the candies and everything I have to do with Christmas — the big season.”

“I am physically done.  I was just to see the surgeon today and going to have some more tests done.  It’s almost worse than it was before.  My body will not take this workload anymore — it’s telling me you are done. I cannot physically do it; if I was to reopen the bakery during the week of Valentine’s Day, there would be some type of emergency within a week, and then it’s a whole different story.”

Time will tell her future

Asked what she will be doing now that she is out of the bakery, she said “Time will tell; I don’t know.  Number one, I’ve got to take care of myself, and I’m putting myself first for once.  The way I have worked the last two years, I have pushed my health condition back. I’ve worked through pain I can’t even explain.  I signed on for the year, and I kept on moving and didn’t look back.  Now I’ve got to get healthy and make a change in my life.”

Lee and her husband, Scott, have three stepchildren and seven grandchildren, so there will be plenty to keep her busy after her health improves.  Asked if she intended to bake any cookies for her husband at home, and she replied, “Time will tell.  I jokingly told him for Christmas this year ‘you’ll have to get me a Kitchen Aid mixer.’”

She leaves behind an oven at the bakery that is a 12 ft. by 12 ft hearth oven, one of the last operating ones in the tri-state area, according to her health inspector.  Installed in 1921 with the start of the bakery, the gas oven is left on 24/7, 365 days a year.

The future

“As far as the future of the Knox Bakery, it is for sale. My dream has been that I could find someone to work that has the desire, and a true within-your-heart pounding wants to be a baker. I wanted to find someone who wants to learn — (someone) to pass on the knowledge and skills that I learned there.  Everything that I learned was at 540 East State Street at Knox Bakery.  Someone else can learn. It has been my dream and is my dream.”

“If I sell the building and property, I don’t know.  The door has closed for me, and it may be a door opening for someone else. It’s out there.  Believe me, I know.”             

“The cookies that I have been making with the same formula for 60 plus years.  These formulas go back that far.  I have people in their 70s visit, and when they were here when they were young children, the bakery smells the same, and it tastes the same. It looks the same.  I would hear that over and over.  The connection is deep in the community and goes back generations.  I’m on my third generation of customers, and it would be my wish for it to continue.  One has to sincerely, not just flippantly, step up to the plate, because I can’t physically do it anymore.”

“Someone could buy the building and contents and property and make it Suzie’s Cupcake Palace.  They could make it whatever they wanted to be, or if they come to me and say they want to continue what I’ve been doing — why change it? That’s what people want.  It’s out of my hands.”

“The surgery did work, but I knew last January 2016 when I was off I started to get stronger, but as the year went on, I knew my body couldn’t take it.  I need to listen to what it’s telling me, and I don’t want to end up a cripple at 53.”

“I’ve got the world in front of me, and you’ll never know where I might pop up. I want to be involved.  The community and the customers have given to me for 35½ years.  There are great needs in our community.  I want to be involved somehow, but I do not know (how), yet.”

“I’m not just going to ride off into the sunset on my backside.”

“We’ve got a great need with our youth.  My word, we’ve dropped the ball on them, and we’ve got to get in touch with them.  The youth are the future of our country, the future of Knox, and the future of Clarion County.”

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