Mrs. Baird, Founder of Bakery, Dies at 92

Published in The Dallas Morning News on Sunday, June 4, 1961, Page 16, Section 1.

Mrs. Baird, Founder of Bakery, Dies at 92

Mrs. Ninnie L. Baird, 92, from whose modest kitchen of 1908 grew the nation's largest independent baking company - Mrs. Baird's Bakeries, Inc. - died Saturday morning in a Fort Worth hospital after a long illness

Mrs. Baird, a resident of Fort Worth since 1901, opened her first commercial bakery in Fort Worth in 1908, when she organized her "brood" into bakers, businessmen, and route men. Today, her bakeries are sprinkled throughout Texas, including Dallas, Houston, Abilene, Victoria, Lubbock, Waco, Austin and Fort Worth.

Born May 23, 1869, near Trenton, Tenn., she was orphaned while a young girl and reared by an aunt who taught her a unique skill - how to bake a loaf of bread people would pay money for.

The skill remained latent until the age of 17, when she married W. A. Baird and moved to Fort Worth.

Here, she baked all the family's bread. The oversupply she gave to neighbors. The neighbors liked it and asked if they could buy it from her regularly.

Mr. Baird became too ill to work in those days, but requests for bread continued. It was then that Mrs. Baird, to support the family, organized her home into a bakery.

Her eldest son, Deward, 16, became first assistant baker to his mother, and the three younger boys, Hoyt, Roland and C. B., became the "route men" - they delivered their first loaves piping hot in baskets.

The family's daughters kept the household running.

The customers named the bread by requesting "Mrs. Baird's Bread, please."

In 1912, Mr. Baird died.

"If we're going to get along, we've got to bake more," the young widow said, then purchased a second-hand wood-burning commercial oven. The bakery was in big business with an oven capacity for 40 loaves.

She didn't have enough cash for the oven's price, $75, so she paid $25 cash and the rest in bread and rolls.

From the beginning, the bread firm grew under the management and direction of Mrs. Baird. A horse and delivery wagon were purchased to peddle the bread which came from a small wooden building in the back yard of the Baird home on Fort Worth's Washington Street.

By World War I, demand sparked the firm's moving to a large bakery. The bread was then sold through the grocery stores for the first time.

Today, the firm is still a family operation, with sons and grandsons managing the business operation and supervising the baking.

Surviving are four sons, Deward C. Baird of Houston, W. Hoyt Baird of Fort Worth, Roland W. Baird of Dallas, and C. B. Baird of Fort Worth; three daughters, Mrs. A. H. Beitman, Mrs. E. C. Cummins and Mrs. Edd Hyde, all of Fort Worth; two sisters, Mrs. Curtis Sargent of San Francisco and Mrs. E. M. Townsend of Parsons, Tenn.; 23 grandchildren; 48 great-grandchildren and eight great-great-grandchildren.

Funeral services will be held at 3 p.m. Monday in University Baptist Church, 2221 Wabash in Fort Worth, with burial in the Greenwood Cemetery.

Pallbearers will be her grandsons, William D. Biard, Vernon Baird, C. B. Baird Jr., R. W. Baird Jr., Clay Cummins, and Baird Tripp.