The Fenwick Bakery: Keeping Residents in Sweets is a Tradition

Michael “Al” Meckel was 18 years old and fresh out of Northern High School in 1979 when he came to the to work under head baker Edward Uebersax, whose parents Ernest and Alvena had started the business in 1913.

It was Meckel’s first real job. He's 50 years old now, and although he has worked at other bakeries for a few months here and there over the years, he’s always worked at the Fenwick Bakery.

“I have about a minute commute to work now,” said Meckel, who lives with his family in the Parkville home where he grew up, just down the street from the bakery.  

 “When I came (to the bakery), they already had a guy named Michael, so they asked me if they could use my middle name to avoid confusion. So, I’ve been ‘Al’ ever since,” Meckel said.

The history of the Fenwick Bakery is long and rich, now approaching its 100-year anniversary. Some of the employees have spent their entire careers here, and for some families, working at the Fenwick Bakery has become a family tradition.

Ernest and Alvena Uebersax started the bakery, then the Uebersax Bakery, on Columbia Ave. (now Washington Blvd.) in 1913 soon after the couple married. According to the Baltimore Sun, Ernest, a Swiss-immigrant baker, delivered his first son, Walter, at home. Two more children came along: Edward and Marta.

The elder Uebersaxes wanted their children to attend the best city schools, so they moved the family to Fenwick Avenue near Clifton Park in 1927. They moved the bakery as well to the corner of Montford Avenue and Oliver Street, renaming it to the Fenwick Bakery in honor of their new home.

Ernest and Alvena retired in 1952, turning the business over to Walter who served as president while brother Edward worked as head baker and sister Marta served patrons.

The siblings moved the bakery to the Harford Road location in 1971, and Al Meckel began working at the bakery in 1979 under head baker Edward.

When it came time for the Uebersax children to retire, they turned to employees who had put in a lot of sweat over the years. In 1994, the reins passed to Meckel (president and head baker) and Claudette Wilson (head decorator).

Like Meckel, the Fenwick Bakery was the first real job for his partner, Wilson, who came to the Fenwick Bakery at age 16. Since 1956, Wilson has taken off only two months for each of the two children she has given birth to.

“I used to bring the kids in when they were young, and they’d fall asleep as I worked,” Wilson said.

Wilson’s daughter, Dawn Noonan, who was decorating cakes beside her mom on a recent Saturday morning, remembers those days.

“She would have my sister and me decorating cardboard circles,” Noonan said.

It was an internship of sorts for Noonan, whose children are doing the same. All three of Noonan’s children have worked at the Fenwick Bakery over the years.

If all of this reads like the definition of tradition, that’s because it is.

Wesley Kram works in the shop as a baker. His relatives worked at Fenwick before him as well. It’s just that kind of business. 

And just as the company’s longtime payroll logs may read like ancestry.com, the same holds true for the vendors, according to Meckel.

“We’re buying from many of the same people the [original] owners bought from,” he said.

The Fenwick Bakery is an area legend where people line up on the street to get their Easter wares, and begin asking in early June when the first peach cakes will be made for the season. On June 29, Meckel posted a photo of the first peach cake of this season on the bakery's Facebook page.

Susan Turek Darone, a 1974 Parkville Senior High graduate, is just one peach cake fan of many. “Love your peach cake. Can't get enough,” she wrote on Facebook.

The bakery still uses some of the same recipes made famous by Ernest and Alvena in the early days. These recipes are what brought customers in, and are what, along with some new creations, keep them coming.

With business, it’s all about building relationships. With one generation of employees after another comes generations of customers as well. According to Meckel, some of the customers who had their original wedding cakes baked and designed by the Fenwick Bakery have come back to the shop to order anniversary cakes 25 years later.