The Schmitt family comes from a long line of bakers. My great-great grandfather had a bakery in Germany and belonged to the baker’s guild. My grandfather, who emigrated to the U.S., started a bakery in Chicago and my father, Henry Schmitt, carried on the tradition, opening his own bakery in downtown Chicago at the age of 26 after serving as a baker in WWII. He went from boom (32 stores) to bust (bankrupcy) but with a fierce tenacity, he started all over again with Deerfields Bakery in 1972. Oh, such is the life in the bakery business. Up and down.

My brother, Karl, and I, who had grown up in the bakery, sought different careers but in the end, the bakery business was in our blood, the pull too strong, and we bought Deerfields from my father in 1982 after working together for three years. We expanded the one store to three stores and cheered when Karl’s son, Tim, joined the business in 2005. New blood always proves auspicious.