San
Joaquin County
Biographies
JACOB GATZERT
A progressive businessman of Lodi,
who serves the public with delicious bread and pastry, is Jacob Gatzert, the
enterprising proprietor of the Lodi Home Bakery, located at 41 South Sacramento
Street. He was born in the province of
Hesse, near Frankfort-on-the-Main, Germany, on August 28, 1880, and there
received his schooling. At the age of
fourteen he began an apprenticeship to learn the trade of baker and became
thoroughly trained for the trade he had selected for his life’s work. He worked at his trade for three years in
Germany, at end of which time he concluded to cast his lot in the land of
greater opportunities and at the age of twenty-three came to America, then to
California in 1903, going direct to Sausalito, Marin County, where he had a
brother in the bakery business. For the
following three years he worked with him and in 1906 located in Lodi, at that
time a small town. He purchased a
half-interest in the Home Bakery from Joe Bartke and
the partnership continued for two years and then he purchased his partner’s
interest and conducted the business as sole owner; his first shop was on Pine
Street and was very small, his average output of bread being 300 loaves per
day. In 1909 he bought the business
block at No. 41 South Sacramento Street and moved his bakery to this location;
a brick oven was installed and as his business grew he purchased more space
until his frontage is thirty-four feet and the latest improved machinery has
been installed. His output of bread at
the present time is 2,000 loaves per day; he ships his products to the extreme
northern part of the county, besides supplying the local trade. He has installed modern equipment for bread
making; the flour goes from the sifter to the mixer, then to the portable bins
where the dough is weighed, then to the mould machine, which makes it into
uniform loaves; then to the raising racks, then to the ovens, then to the
cooling trays, then wrapped in oiled paper ready for sale. Mr. Gatzert is a member of the Stockton
Bakers’ Association. He owns a
half-interest in a building on Elm Avenue, where for three years he conducted
the Tokay Theater.
The marriage of Mr. Gatzert united
him with Miss Malvina Bechtold, a native of South Dakota, and they are the
parents of two children, Alfred and Clifford, both natives of Lodi. Fraternally Mr. Gatzert is a member of Lodi
Lodge No. 256, F. & A. M., and of Stockton Chapter No. 28, R. A. M. He has always been progressive in his ideas,
and has proven his loyalty to the city of his adoption by supporting every
measure for the welfare of the community.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Page
1598. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2012 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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