Lucy Bennett watched Seward go by through The Bakery's storefront window for nearly 30 years.
The city's been through countless changes since she and her husband, Richard, took over the bakery from Richard's father in 1981, but the citizens' appetite for freshly baked sweet treats stayed the same.
“We went to work at midnight each night and usually went home about three in the afternoon,” she said. “We had to have all our doughnuts and rolls done by 5 a.m. for the quick shops, the people who worked at Tenneco, Hughes Brothers and all of them.
“We kept it up for 30 years but we had tremendous support from the community, the schools and all the surrounding little towns around.”
The Bennett family came into ownership of the bakery in 1961 when Richard's father, Bob, purchased the Sixth Street building. The Bakery remained a downtown staple for more than 50 years until the Bennetts closed the shop permanently in 2012.
For nearly a decade after its closing, The Bakery awning and sign remained on the building's facade, serving as a reminder of the decades of donuts, dinner rolls and desserts that passed through its doors. The sign and awning were removed by the Bennett children June 8. Lucy Bennett was there to watch as the Seward landmark came down after half a century.
“It's the end of an era,” Bennett said. “I guess that meant it was finally over. As long as that was up, it was still a bakery to us.
“It didn't feel like it was totally over until that awning came down.”
Bennett said that most of the bakery equipment has been sold and a few more things need to be moved out of the building. Once it's cleaned out, Bennett said it will be listed for sale.
As she and her family walked through the building this month clearing out old furniture, items and materials, Bennett said the memories flooded back.
She remembers college football Saturdays, where donut batches were doubled and tripled but always sold out. She remembers the holidays and each special item she hand crafted for the occasion, from the hundreds of burger buns for the Fourth of July to the hand decorated bunny donuts for Easter, which, to Richard's dismay, were extremely popular.
“My husband really didn't like that idea but we did it,” she said, with a laugh, “and they were a hot seller.”
The journey through the building brings to mind the countless dinner rolls provided for the Goehner spaghetti feed and just about any community dinner that needed freshly baked buns. She recalls the rush of graduation, preparing hamburger buns, cakes and rolls for students throughout the area and catching a few minutes of sleep on a sack of flour when she could.
The Bennetts' products were a staple at many events and celebrations, Bennett said the amount of donuts and rolls the bakery produced is literally countless.
“We made hundreds of thousands of donuts,” she said. “I tried to add up one time how many cookies we made and I got into the thousands and quit.”
The daily grind of The Bakery was tireless, but it was never thankless, Bennett said, and that's what kept them in the business for so long. She said the support of not just the community, but people from all around motivated them to continue to rise early each morning.
“We had great support from Utica, York, David City, Milford, Friend...all those little towns in Seward County,” she said. “We did something for every town when they had something going on.”
