Who Were They?

I think one of these two young men might be my father-in-law, but I’m not 100% sure. (Update, my husband says he is the one on the right!) The picture unfortunately isn’t the best, but it is a treasure all the same. And just look at that monster cake they are decorating! The Gibbons Bakery in Mt. Clemens, MI was opened in the 1920s by Albert Henry Gibbons and his wife Christine Schultz Gibbons. Born in 1891 in England, Henry emigrated to the US in 1913. Henry and Christine married in 1920 and must have opened the bakery around that same time. Sons William (1922) and James (1923) soon arrived, followed by daughter Roseann (1930) and finally son Albert Raymond (1932). By the time Raymond was working in the bakery it was a well established business that has a long legacy in Mt. Clemens. I have another photo I will share soon of Roseann and her kids in front of the bakery. By 1957, Henry and Christine lived in Florida and Bill, Jim and Ray kept the business running. Eventually, all the kids had moved on to various other locations, and by 1988 the bakery was owned by Djurdja “Julie” Bogojevski. Gibbons Bakery was located at 84 Macomb Place near the corner of Pine St for quite a long time, enjoying at least one resurgence in the early 2000s by an entrepreneur who wanted to bring a nice bakery to Mt. Clemens. The building is still there and looks basically the same as it did way back when.

At some point, Ray and my mother-in-law Marie opened the Ray Marie Bakery, also in Mt. Clemens. Marie told me some stories of the early days of their marriage when Ray had to get up at 3 a.m. to be at the bakery and she would get up to make his breakfast, all while suffering morning sickness and the smell of bacon and eggs made her extra queasy! It was in that first apartment that Marie was given the recipe for carrot cake that became one of the recipes at their bakeries. It is a family treasure that I have made for birthdays and special occasions over the years. She shared that her neighbor offered her a slice of cake, but all she could think was “why would anyone make a cake out of carrots?” Fortunately for all of us, she liked it. By 1971 they were working on building The Cake Shop in Whittier, CA. which became another family owned and operated bakery, with Steve, Paul, David & Joe working alongside their parents.

The most recent version of the Gibbons Bakery in Mt. Clemens, MI operated from around 2010 to 2015, at the historic location of 84 Macomb Place. The owner at that time had personal ties to the bakery, having worked for Bogojevski shortly after emigrating to the US.

Here’s a great vintage photo I found showing a firefighter poking his head out of the window of Gibbons Bakery after a fire in the adjacent building. The irony here is that The Cake Shop burned down many years later, fire once again damaging a Gibbons owned bakery.

Here’s more about the “new” Gibbons Bakery:

Gibbons Bakery Facebook Page

Article about the reopening from Oakland Press News