FREEHOLD — Old-timers still recall when the aroma of freshly baked bread and other delicious baked goods wafted each morning from the building that is now the home of the Walter J. Conley Elks lodge on Throckmorton Street.
"You could always tell that there was a bakery in the neighborhood," said Borough Councilman Robert J. Crawford, 70, who grew up on nearby Bowne Avenue. "There was this delicious smell of baked goods in the air, especially so when the wind was blowing just right, much like the coffee smells you get from Nestlé at times today, except that the aromas coming from the bakery were much more pleasant."
Crawford remembered making special trips to the bakery, which was owned by Irving Lanborg, on Fridays.
"My mother used to send my brother, Michael, and me to the bakery during the late 1940s for fresh bread dough," Crawford said. "She used to use the dough to make pizza."
Kathy Lewis, 77, who now lives in the Hudson Manor senior apartments, grew up on Waterworks Road and also remembers the popular Throckmorton Street bakery from the 1930s and 1940s.
"The bakery used to begin its baking at 4 a.m. every day," she said. "The bakery also made deliveries. We had a box on our front step to put the bread, rolls, cake or other baked goods in, much like we had a container for the milkman."
Lewis had reason to remember the huge ovens the bakery used to produce its baked goods.
"At Thanksgiving, my mother would buy a large turkey," Lewis said. "We did not have an oven large enough to roast the turkey, so my mother would put the turkey in a large container that I would pull on my little wagon to the bakery, where Mr. Lanborg would roast our turkey for us. It would take about two hours. The owners and the people who worked there were always very nice."
— Dick Metzgar