Wilson Area High School
Class of 1971
N&T #2 Answer and Comments
Now and Then - #2
The newest location for the rapidly expanding Lehigh Valley Health Network opened the summer of 2017, its footprint occupying that of a long-time Wilson Borough landmark. The activity that took place in the buildings that formerly filled this landscape had a daily impact on many of our lives. You could say that none of us would be who we are today without the output that resulted from those activities. Although the sign on the buildings changed throughout the years, it was consistent throughout our school days. Can you identify the former occupant of this plot of land at the edge of town? Hint: It has something in commom with Now and Then #1.
It's the former site of Schaible's Bakery, home of Sunbeam Bread and Rolls!
Congratulations to Leo Wismer, who still has that freshly-baked aroma locked into his olfactory memory bank and was the first to identify the expansive bakery that occupied 2400 Northampton Street for nearly 100 years.
A major local business during our high school years, Schaible's not only provided the area with bread, rolls and those fabulous sticky buns, but also provided employment for many of our parents and relatives. During summers, those of us returning from college and lucky enough to break into a summer position at the bakery manned the busy hamburger and hot dog lines during the day and picked up overtime loading bread ovens and delivery trucks overnight. For a generation of Wilson and Easton High graduates, Schaible's was our first experience as dues-paying union men - card-carrying members of the Bakery and Confectionery Workers International Union of America. The union wages and overtime premiums often meant the difference between working a part-time job at college and having the time, and funds, for more interesting pursuits.
Those aromas that Leo fondly recalls were even better on the inside of the building, and all of the fresh-baked bread and rolls one could eat was an extra bonus. So was the inside information we all gained - the 29-cent Food Lane branded hot dog rolls were identical to the premium Sunbeam rolls that "discerning shoppers" paid twice as much for. No wonder Little Miss Sunbeam was always smiling.
Four years after we graduated from high school, the Schaible's name came down, replaced by Reading-based Maier's Bakery which bought the operation that had been family-owned since 1884. After the turn of the century, Maier's was bought by Mexico-based Bimbo, and under Bimbo, the bakery continued to produce Maier's brand bread and buns for about 10 years. In 2014, Bimbo consolidated operations into a new $75 million bakery complex in Fogelsville and that aroma we all grew up with was gone forever.
Rounding out the first five responders with fond memories of Schaible's were Marti Ott Sebring, Al Perruso, Terry Bieber Balcavage and Joy Garren Hemming.
The bakery, in its various iterations, always ran a thrift shop selling several-days-old product in a separate building behind the factory off of Wood Avenue. For the freshest bread, rolls and buns, however, there was a small store inside the bakery, near the loading docks. Does anyone remember buying their baked goods there? Return here to add your own memories and observations.
|