Sacramento County
Biographies
REINHARDT G. KAESER
REINHARDT G. KAESER--Kaeser's Bakery at Oak Park, Sacramento, a well-known establishment, was started in 1903 by Reinhardt G. Kaeser, who is a native son of the capital, and has always been in intimate accord with its life, and social and commercial spirit. He was born on April 15, 1870, the son of Andrew and May (Frey) Kaeser, the former a pioneer of 1869, who is still living at the age of eighty-four, as is the mother, who is also of the same age.
Reinhardt Kaeser attended the public schools of Sacramento, and as a youngster sold newspapers in the streets of Sacramento. He then teamed, and after that was in the dairy business. Then he found employment in the Southern Pacific shops, and in 1890 he started to learn the bakers trade. In 1897, he went to the mines of Shady Run. Returning, he became a fireman in the Florister Paper Mill, and then he went to Truckee, icing railroad cars. In 1901 he was back to Sacramento, and he resumed baking in Rice Brothers' Pacific Bakery and in the Golden Eagle Bakery.
On July 15, 1903, Mr. Kaeser baked the first loaf of bread in his own bakery, at Oak Park, which was known as the Oak Grove Bakery, turning out thirty loaves, and he peddled the output himself, with an old horse and buggy. In 1914, he had a fine concrete building erected, and he changed the name to Kaeser Bakery and in 1921 he had his new addition built. He was baking over 12,000 loaves of bread a day, and employed twenty-seven people to do the work, and sold by wholesale only, with the use of eight delivery cars. He also maintained a branch at 3417 Second Street. He is a Republican, and believes in legislation of the kind that steadies and conserves trade. He sold the business on January 1, 1923, to the Pioneer Bakery Company and in May, 1923, he traded the property for the London Bakery property at Eighth and L Streets.
In 1896, Mr. Kaeser was married to Miss Alice C. Bundock, a native daughter of Oakland, and they had several children: Rosie, Alice Ruth, now Mrs. M. Scott, and the mother of a daughter, Lillian Dolores; Walter E.; Lillian E.; Wallace R.; and Verna J. Kaeser. Mr. Kaeser belongs to the Eagles, the Knights of Pythias, and the Sunset Parlor of the Native Sons of the Golden West.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Source: Reed, G.
Walter, History of Sacramento County,
California With Biographical Sketches, Pages 571-572. Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, CA.
1923.
© 2007 Jeanne Taylor.