Sally Ann bakery closes

For the Gerbig brothers -- Al and Ardell -- Friday was one of the busiest days ever at their business, the Sally Ann Bakery at 102 N. Main St.

Long-time customers showed up in droves to buy doughnuts, cookies and cakes, and to stock up on Sally Ann's renowned peanut coffee cake. The brothers baked bread too -- far more than they normally bake, because customers wanted to stock their freezers.

Today, Sally Ann is closing after almost half a century in the baking business.

"There aren't many little holes in the wall left like this one," said Ardell Gerbig Friday afternoon as he poured the batter for a large sheet cake into an aluminum baking pan. "Like many small businesses ... well, the people are just leaving."

Ardell is 58 now, and isn't exactly retiring, although he says he hasn't made immediate plans for another job.

Al Gerbig, who founded the business in 1929, is 72, and is ready to retire for good.

The brothers said they searched for another bakery to move into Sally Ann, but couldn't find one. The store will be converted into a new home for Tom's Men's Wear, now down the street at 229 N. Main.

When Tom's moves in he'll have to get rid of the big freezers against one wall, plus the mammoth oven with its big trays which swing constantly inside the oven like the seats on a ferris wheel.

And the big wooden work table in the center of the bakeshop, where the dough is kneaded and the batter mixed.

"We're running late today," said Ardell, as he slid another sheet cake into the oven. The table was stacked with loaves of bread baked that day on special order. In recent years Sally Ann baked bread only on Saturdays. This time, the work had to be started on Friday to fill the many orders.

Sally Ann didn't always have the freezers and the oven with its revolving trays.

In the early days baking was done in a room-sized oven behind the present shop. There was an opening in the front wall of the oven -- now the back wall of the shop -- and bread and cakes were slid inside and removed on a paddle at the end of a pole about 12 feet long. It wasn't the best method, said Ardell, because to get to the cakes in back, you had to remove some of the ones in front. Some of the cakes ended up being over done, and others, under done.

Coal-Fired Oven

The oven was fired with coal originally, and later, with gas.

Ardell Gerbig went to work in the family business in the mid 1930's, at about age 15, right out of junior high school. Ardell's and Al's mother, Annie Gerbig, worked there then. She was there for 30 years or so.

In the 30's and early 40's Sally Ann produced bread for the little grocery stores around town; there were about 15 of them, and the bakery sold wholesale to the groceries. It also made buns for restaurants, including Rusty's. Most of the bakery's business was wholesale until 1941, said Ardell.

In the 1940's Al Gerbig decided he'd have to change jobs. He had developed asthma, and the flour in the bake shop wasn't helping his condition. He went to work for the Edwardsville Creamery Co. and stayed there until his retirement in 1968.

Another long-time baker at Sally Ann was Wilbur Sido. "Call him our long-time buddy," said Ardell. Sido retired in 1973, but, along with Al Gerbig, continued to work part-time at the bakery, for a few years at least.

There were other old hands at Sally Ann. Clara Barth was a clerk for many years, as was Betty Simpson (now Mrs. Edwin Dankenbring). Most recently, the Sally Ann clerk has been Consie (Mrs.Robert) Compton, Mrs. Barth's niece.

In the early days, before freezers, the Sally Ann bakers started work at 10 p.m. and baked all night. Now, dough can be prepared in advance and frozen, making it unnecessary to bake immediately after the dough has been prepared.

At that, the work day at Sally Ann has begun at 3:30 or 4 a.m., so that the merchandise can be ready when the doughnut and coffee cake crowd starts showing up around 7 a.m., when the shop opened.

As Ardell Gerbig worked on Friday, putting the pans of creamy batter into the oven and removing the golden cakes, according to a timer with a bell, a man in a truck driver's uniform appeared in the doorway and asked about a cake which was to be ready that evening for a party at the Anna-Henry Nursing Home. The cake would be ready on time, Ardell assured him.

As he worked, Ardell reminisced. "We've seen different prices over the years," he said. "Peanuts have gone from three cents a pound to 50 cents. Lard went from a nickel to 50 cents."

He recalled when the biggest merchant in town was the Palace Store, across the street, where Fredman Bros. furniture is now. The Palace was a true general store, offering groceries, housewares, clothing and general merchandise.

"There was angle parking on both sides of Main Street, and the streetcar went down the middle. You could double park in those days and not get a ticket. If it rained, you had to be careful when you drove because the streetcar tracks were slippery."

The Gerbigs have watched Main Street change over the years. "A lot of buildings have been torn down for parking lots," said Ardell.

There were spectacular fires, too. In 1935, the Schwartz Hotel, across the street, burned down. In the 1940s, the lumberyard behind Hotz Hardware (now Overbeck's) caught fire and made a memorable blaze in the annals of downtown Edwardsville.

Ardell Gerbig paused to inspect the progress of his cakes in the oven. The big sheets had developed large, flat bubbles on top. He grabbed a broom and broke off one of the straws. Then he poked the clean end of the straw in the bubbles so they'd flatten out. His eyes twinkled. "That's the way it's done -- the old way," he said.

Cheesecake

Some of the Gerbigs' products have achieved a certain amount of fame among local people. Take their cheesecake, for instance. One local family, which travels to Oregon, always takes a supply of Sally Ann cheesecakes along.

The late Clarence "Butch" Daech, who lived in San Diego for a time and visited here regularly, stocked up on peanut butter coffee cake before he left to return to California. He'd buy a whole pan of them, said Al Gerbig, eight coffee cakes.

Where did the name Sally Ann come from? It came from the Fleischmann yeast people, said the Gerbigs. Fleischmann offered a variety of trademarks for the use of its customers, and the Gerbigs chose Sally Ann. They had it printed on all their bread wrappers.

But that was long ago. Today, the Gerbigs remember many friends made over the years.