If you had a sweet tooth or just liked the smell and taste of freshly baked bread, the Camden Bakery was the place to go in the early 1900s. In “downtown” Camden, at 4157 Washington was a bakery owned by my uncle Earle Baumann and his father John Baumann.
My mother loved to shop there because everything was so fresh. Oatmeal and peanutbutter cookies were our favorites, along with other specialties such as Bismarcks, with jelly inside and cream puffs with real cream, custard fillings and chocolate frosting!
Also, inside the bakery was a small restaurant, and if you stopped by at noon you could refuel with coffee and doughnuts, hamburgers on newly baked buns, fried chicken and thick malted milks.
Earle and John Baumann owned the Camden Bakery from about 1910 to the mid 1930s. They had two popular clerk\waitresses, Florence Anderson and Earle’s sister, Irene Baumann Pederson, who worked interchangeably between the bakery and the restaurant.
In the early 1930s, along with all the baking, there was a real life love story unfolding behind the scenes. Earle had been a widower since 1928, and he had fallen in love with the dark-haired beauty, Florence, as they worked together (making lots of dough). His first wife, Helen Meyer Baumann, was the mother of his two children, Marilyn and Lois. But being alone with two small children was not easy, and he was in love, so Earle married Florence Anderson in 1932. I’m wondering who baked their wedding cake.
Keeping it all in the family, the bakery was sold to Earle’s uncle, Ray Foslid and wife Gladys in 1935. The Foslid’s daughter, DeLoris, was a clerk in the bakery and was very popular with all her customers.
There was a fringe benefit to owning the bakery and that was the apartments upstairs, which could be rented out. Earle Baumann’s mother and father lived up there in one apartment and rented out the other three.
The final owners of the bakery were Mary and Gordie Lindberg. It is not known how long they had it, but when it was decided in the 70s that a freeway should run through Camden, all the buildings had to be demolished. It was about 1972 when the bakery and all the other buildings in the block were torn down.
So, that was the end of an era, but there were many good years of bakery and grocery shopping in Camden previous to that!
Note: Thanks to cousins Marilyn Baumann Mills, Lois Baumann Anderson and De Loris Foslid for their great photos and information.