Tradition of Gift Loaf Will Be Kept as Mrs. Baird Celebrates Birthday

Article in the Fort Worth Star Telegram, published on Wednesday Morning, May 23, 1956.

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Tradition of Gift Loaf Will Be Kept as Mrs. Baird Celebrates Birthday

A white box, tie with royal blue ribbon and containing a loaf of bread, will be one of the birthday gifts presented to Mrs. Ninnie Baird, 2429 Rogers Rd., Wednesday on her 87th birthday.

A gift loaf of bread means a great deal to the white-haired blue-eyed little woman who is the matriarch of a family of seven living children, 23 grandchildren, and 36 great-grandchildren.

Mrs. Baird's firm influence on the family was expressed a few years ago by one of her granddaughters, who said: "Grandmother does't say much, but somehow you just feel what she approves of and you try to do it."

Herself one of six children, Mrs. Baird has a brother, F. G. Harrison 93. He lives in San Francisco as does their sister, Mrs. Curtis Sargent, and another brother, C. B. Harrison, who is visiting here now and for whom one of Mrs. Baird's sons is named. Their other sister is Mrs. Delia Townsend of Parsons, Tenn.

Mrs. Baird is a native of Tennessee. She came here with her husband and four children. After moving here the couple had four other children. They lived on Hemphill near the intersection of Pennsylvania Ave., and Mrs. Baird, as many mothers of that era, used to bake bread for her family regularly.

Sometimes there would be a loaf left over and she'd give it to a neighbor. Sometimes a neighbor would ask her: "When you bake next time, will you make me some bread, too?" So a gift loaf of bread became a standard present in the Baird family.

The father became an invalid, and the family moved out farther on the South Side to a house at the corner of what then was Cactus St. and Washington. Mrs. Baird continued baking on her kitchen range. She baked in earnest then, because with an invalid husband, she needed to make a little money and could not go out to business.

She sold the bread "out the back door," and finally the man from whom she rented built a shop on the back of the lot, and the boys began delivering the bread in an old surrey.

Mrs. Baird's children are Mrs. A. H. Beitman, 2525 Boyd; D. C. Baird of Houston; W. Hoyt Baird, 2504 Stadium; C. B. Baird, 2209 Ward Parkway; Roland W. Baird of Dallas; Mrs. E. C. Cummins, 3309 Avondale, and Mrs. Edd Hyde,, 2410 Stadium Dr.

More than 60 of her descendants gathered to celebrate Mrs. Baird's birthday last year at her farm. But this year there will be no general gathering of the clan, because Mrs. Baird is being rather quiet after three months in the hospital.

She broke her hip Jan. 1 and is "taking it easy" at home with a nurse. As chairman of the board of the bakery which has grown out of her first home baking, she presides at board meetings at her home.

In talking about their mother and grandmother, some of the boys remarked Tuesday: "We have such a wonderful heritage from Grandmother that we just couldn't let her down," and a son said, "We all think of our work as great fun - none of us think it's real work. We play with it - why one of the boys takes live dough home and bakes up all kinds of fancy things at home."

A daughter said: "Mother is so humble and quiet. She doesn't think she has done anything more than what any mother would do - try to take care of her children."

Three sons and seven grandsons carry on the work Mrs. Baird began.

All the family will send gifts, cards and expressions of their affection Wednesday, and Mrs. Baird will begin another year with a gift loaf of bread wrapped in silver foil as a token of what in her family has in truth been "the staff of life."

End of Article

A photo of "MRS. NINNIE BAIRD" by Rhea-Engert accompanies the article.