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Show 01(1 -- Fashioned Recipe 1 ake one sick son. Add a worried mother and a grandmother's recipe book, and you have the ingredients for a story about a unique family venture. John Rudkin became ill of In 1937, when asthma, the doctor recommended taking him from damp Connecticut to the drier Southwest. But his mother, Mrs. Henry Rudkin, didn't want to leave New England. Like her parents and grandparents, Mrs. Rudkin believed you kept healthy by eating good food. "I decided to see if I couldn't help John's asthma that way," she says. "One of the first things I thought of was bread. "I got down the old family cookbook and turned to the a shock. recipe for bread. The ingredients it called for came as Fresh milk and butter were easy enough, but molasses, honey, and whole wheat ground between stones! "Still, I wanted John to have that bread, so I bought the and ingredients. A local feed store provided the whole wheat I ground it in a coffee mill." Mrs. Rudkin's first two loaves of homemade bread were failures, but she finally worked things out. Her son tasted the More important, he began steadily gainbread and liked attributed ing more energy and stamina. The Rudkins' doctor Mrs. part of the boy's progress to the bread, and persuaded Rudkin to bake a few loaves for some of his other patients. "Then we got the idea that healthy people would like our bread, too," says Mrs. Rudkin, "so I left some with my grocer in Fairfield. Three days later, the telephone kept ringing steadily. Other grocers were ordering the bread." A few months later, with a business on her hands, Mrs. Rudkin transferred her new factory to the garage. Then she resurrected a big oven from the basement and baby scales house from the nine-year-o- ld for SUCCESS by Jerry Klein ' When Connect icut Housewife " consult ed a Grandma's cookbook I v -- : r ' ' V--; " : . , 'K. -- , , I i , af Mrs. Henry Rudkin .' , - V-- -' I I an emergency, she unique family business. in ' unwittingly founded - it VV 7 Oxm bread recipe which helped cure their ailing boy has become a family business The d. and with the Henry Rudkins of Norwalk, Conn. Hour for the bread is stone-groun- d dd-fasHion- ed hand-kneade- I supplied the name, "Pepperidge Farm Bread." The business flourished and Mrs. Rudkin hired several housewives to help her. Her three sons carried ingredients to the ovens and delivered the finished loaves of bread to the stores and post office. Even Mr. Rudkin joined in what was becoming a family enterprise. En route to his New York brokerage office every morning, he would drop off a couple of dozen loaves at grocery stores along the way. Naturally, not everyone liked the bread, which was thick and chewy. "It would make a magnificent paving block!" one family friend remarked when he'd tried a sample. But foe was in the minority, and Mrs. Rudkin's business yeast in her dough. expanded faster than the double-raise- d Today the bread is produced in Norwalk, Conn.; Downington, Pa.; and Downers Grove, I1L The Rudkins buy flour for their white bread in the Midwest. bread is stone-groudaily at Grain for the whole-whe- at water-powermills in Milford and Farmington, Conn., as well as in mills in Sudbury, Mass., Chicago, and Philadelphia. Despite its growth, the business continues to be a family affair. One big office contains the desks of Mrs. Rudkin, president of the company; Mr. Rudkin, chairman of the board; in charge of sales, and William, Henry, Jr., 29, in charge of production. 28, Both sons learned the business from the grain up, pitching in after school and during summer Vacations. After college, Henry served his apprenticeship by working as a salesman. William bought supplies, worked in the shipping room, even kneaded dough, before taking over as head of the family enterprise. , The third s6n, John, whose illness started the whole thing, is 26 now, six feet tall, and glowing with good health. He's still in college, doing postgraduate work, and hasn't decided what field he will enter. But the other Rudkins hope that eventually he, tooi will be working alongside them for the bread whichto him was truly the "staff of life." nd ed Two of the Rudkin sens, Henry, Jr. (left) and of the business. Mrs. Rudkin, the founder, serves as president and Mr. Rudkin is the chairman of the board. William, are vice-preside- nts vice-presid- ent vice-presid- ent door-to-do- or h IT U John Rudkin (age 15 here), whose illness led to the unusual enterprise, Is now in college. The family hopes that he, too, will join the company. 1 I ' FAMILY ' WEEKIY - ..... ; MAGAZINE JUNE :. 26, 1955 ( jsro-ducti- on |