A young Rick with father Red

Although Grahame’s Bakery is celebrating sixty years in business, the family’s connection with the bakery goes back much further. When Bert Frisby arrived from the Isle of Man in 1922 and settled down on the Howey Road (now County Road 43), he brought with him a collection of baking recipes which he used in the building he bought on Clothier Street in Kemptville. By 1939, he was looking for some help, someone who could, perhaps, apprentice as a baker and take over from him one day.

He found Leonard Grahame, and Len went to work for Bert, serving a long apprenticeship until he and his wife, Lila, bought Bert out in 1960. So, for more than twenty years, Len Grahame had been part of the Frisby Bakery. And his young son, Ken, got involved too, and from a very young age. Ken began helping out at the bakery when he was 10 years of age. In later years, he recalled: “I scrubbed the floor and brought in the wood. I worked every night after school and all day Saturday, Mr Frisby paid me three dollars”.

Leanord Grahame

Ken “Red” Grahame took over the bakery from his father after enjoying a long career in hockey, and made sure he continued Bert Frisby’s ways. He used Bert’s recipes, because they were so good and he could see no reason to change them. The photographs on these pages are a wonderful illustration of the family traditions at Grahame’s Bakery: father to son to grandson and granddaughter, and on through the years. Generation following generation, maintaining an unbroken tradition of community involvement and commitment that is carried on today by Rick Grahame and Debbie Wilson.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here