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Show by Dora D. Flaclz OON AFTER the invention of candy, first- generation candymaker John Startup " started up" a sweet life in England. He never dreamed then that his descendants in America would con-tinue the business into the next millenium. But can-dy has indeed kept the Startup family together down to the seventh candymaking gencration. In the early 1800s, physicians and apothecaries developed sweet confections to disguise the taste of medicine. John Startup created his own medicated product, American Cough Candy, so named because he longed to move to America, and advertised it in a British newspaper in 1823. Later, he and his son William produced more lunds of candy. As an adult, William moved to Manchester and opened a store where he made candy in the basement. Working alongside him was his son, William Dawe Startup, who had been born in 1846. Both John and William Startup died before realiz-ing their American dream. However, the dream was firmly implanted in young William Dawe, especially after he joined the LDS church in Birmingham, England. There he also met Hagar Hick, who shared hs American dream. When she had joined the LDS church, her relatives dubbed her the " little Mormon devil," criticism she, wished to escape. At age 24, Hagar accepted the opportunity to immigrate to America in 1868 with Mrs. John Strickley, a semi-invalid; she would care for the two Strickley chil-dren in exchange for food and passage. Hagar told William Dawe that he would have to come to Am-erica if he wanted to marry her. Hagar's family never suspected her plan that memorable morning when she walked out wearing her Sunday clothes and a feather- plumed hat. Car-rying no luggage, she boarded the ship Minnesota. Later, while crossing the plains, she still wore the same clothes and hat, carrying one Strickley child on her back and the other in her arms. After arriv-ing in Salt Lake City in 1868, she traveled on to Wanship. In October of that year, 22- year- old William Dawe Startup arrived in Wanship with his sister Harriett. On his way to Utah, he had stopped in Philadelphia and purchased candy molds to add to his deceased father's collection of scales, iron edg-ing bars, drop machine, shears, hooks, aid recipes. The following month, William Dawe and Hagar were married in the LDS Endowment House in Salt Lake City. William spent the next year teaching school in Peoa, but candymaking ran in his blood. He felt that his father's confections would find a ready market in the mountains' ideal climate. Since the largest population was in the Salt Lake Valley, William Dawe moved his family there, first living in a dugout, then in a log cabin. He opened a store near the Salt Lake Theatre to sell his home-made confections. At LDS conference time, he sold sandwiches as well as candy from a refreshment stand near Temple Square. In 1874 the Startup family moved to Provo, where William Dawe established another candy store near the old Brigham Young Academy. He would stay open at night until the evening dances closed. As they left, customers would call, " So long, Bill, the Upstart." William Dawe also served as a member of the Salt Lake City Fire Squad. Business grew. So did hls family. William was born in 1869, Minnie in 1871, Walter in 1874, and George in 1877. Even though Hagar was busy with the children, she also assisted with the candy busi-ness. The growing boys also helped. Timing was right for the new business. Hard can-dy animals, made from the molds purchased in Philadelphia, hooked customers. And, according to daughter Minnie, William Dawe produced the terri-tory's first stick candy. After three years in Provo, in 1878 tragedy struck when William Dawe tried to lift a large sandstone slab used ( for cooling candy. The strain ruptured a blood vessel in his stomach, causing excruciating pain. Three days later, he died I at age 32. Hagar worried about support-ing her young family. William, the oldest, was only nine, and the baby was a year old. Family legend states that after the funeral Hagar walked into the store. Noticing a batch of candy in a pan on the cold stove, as her husband had left it, she built a fire. After the candy reached the boiling point, she sampled it. It was just right. She knew she could continue the business. Having worked with her husband, she remem-bered some of his recipes. None had been written down. But she slullfully made her own additions, although she could not write; she could only read. Incredibly, she kept all the business accounts in her head, and her figures were usually correct. Because the chldren still maintained first place in Hagar's life, she ran the business on a small scale, with the children helping when possible. Periodically, she sent ten- year- old William to Salt Lake City to pay the company's supply bill. She wrapped the exact amount of money in a handkerchef, tuchng it under William's sandwich in his lunch box, then cautioned hm never to let anyone know he carried anydung but food. He never lost a cent. Thlnking life could be easier, Hagar married Al-bert Singleton. It was a difficult rinali- iige, though, and after she brought two more daughters into the world, it was dissolved. With six children to rear, Hagar's hands were full, and life was a struggle. In 1892, Hagar traveled by train to Box Elder County. She observed a small unattended baby sleeping on a train seat. At the end of the line, the infant was left there- alone. Hagar felt compelled to take the little one. She adopted and raised that baby, Cosette, as her own. Now she had seven chil-dren. Soon after the death of their father, Walter, age 1 1, and George, age six, had been employed at the Provo Inquirer, a semi- weekly newspaper. Six years later, at age 17, Walt became foreman of the news-paper printing office. The boys never dreamed that their printing training would provide indispensable knowledge when they later revived the candy busi-ness. In 1892 the three Startup brothers organized the Startup I Candy Company into a solid business. As manager of the sales staff and promotions, 26- year old William spread the business across the country, placing large ads on barns and commercial buildings throughout the state. Walter, 2 1, pos-sessed the natural ability to motivate people, and he managed production. George, the youngest at age 18, had good business sense, so he became presi-dent. Proving that three heads were better than one, they jelled their ideas and together built a fac-tory at 69 South 300 West in Provo. Soon it was crowded with some 20 employees. In 1895 the brothers developed what the family believes was the world's first candy bar, the " Opera Bar," with layers of chocolate, vanilla, and strawber-ry cream filling. It sold for five cents. Packaged in a small box, it became popular even in other coun-tries and is still sold today. They also pioneered modern breath sweeteners by producing " Magno-lias," 1 / 4" sugar balls filled with perfumed liquid. Capitalizing on their worlung knowledge of the printing business, the brothers set up a printing press in a separate building. Here they created their own candy boxes, including those for dipped choc-olates. The press is still in use today. Hagar watched her children with great pride as they expanded their sweet " inventions." Coca Cola, which made its debut at this time, was an ingredi- ent in some of their treats. And the company was one of the first major producers of chewing gum, with such exotic flavors as Violet, Floro, Oriental Bouquet, and a special rose- flavored gum called Buy- Roz. By 1900 the Startups were malung and sellin- g commercial ice cream from their retail store. In winter they cut ice from Utah Lake then stored it in a dugout covered with sawdust, pre-serving it for making ice cream in the summer. Demand for the company's 1,000 varieties of confections necessitated building a larger factory at 534 South 100 West. At its peak in the 1920s, Startup Candy employed 175 people, including 15 salesmen. The comDanv claims to be the first in I / Utah to pay its employees a profit- sharing bonus. When Artimissa ( Artie) Harris was hired to work in the company's ice cream parlor at 8 1 West Center, she and Walter became acquainted. Although Artie lived a few blocks from the Startup home, the two had barely known each other. Friendship grew into courtshp. On their dates, Walter often took Artie for rare father/ son sweet relationshp into the fifth generation. Also, the company's few employees were almost part of the family. Clem and Lola Tucker were two of those longtime valued employ-ees. Walter personally made candy until he died in 1957 at the age of 83. Harry became the natural successor to the business, but he felt depressed and incapable. His wife, Karma, assured him of her firm support, and his mother, Artie, continued to be h s A mainstay. One day as Harry approached the facto-ry, he noticed Clem Tucker sitting out in front. Harry shared his doubts with Clem, who offered to help even more Harry managed the business with ten regular em-ployees and more during rush periods. Using the traditional recipes and molds, he continued to rides in a horse- drawn car-riage down by the Provo River bottoms and up Provo Canyon. They were married September 17, 1903. Walter deeply appreciated Artie's interest in and help with the business. In the 1920s competition in the Utah candy busi-ness was tight. Provo became known as the Candy City, but at the ~ e a okf Startup's prosperity, and not long after Hagar's death in 1927, tragedy struck again, this time in the form of the Great Depression of the 1930s. Many Americans could not buy food, let alone the luxury of candy, and business sank. Determined to keep his workers employed even at his own risk, Walter bought out his brothers' inter-est in the factory. He struggled for ten years before losing the building to the bank. Finally, he saved enough money to buy back the north half of the factory and the box plant. He con-tinued business on a very small scale. Meanwhile, George and William had found employment else-where. Walter's young son Harry, born in 1 9 18, con-stantly trailed hs father in the plant. As he grew, Harry poured, pulled, and pummeled hard candy, taffy, and chocolates of all lunds. This continued the make the candy by hand. In 1974 Harry and Karma opened the Startup Candy Store on University Avenue in Provo, and there they & s-played antiques, machinery, tools, and portraits of Harry's predecessors. After twenty- five years in that location, the family moved the store to their factory on 100 West. At the present, 80- year- old Harry is president and his son Jon manages. Jon trains fami-ly members in the art of candymaking, including his ten- year- old daughter, Kaitie, who is learning to dip chocolates. Kaitie and her cousin, college stu-dent Todd Hillam, are seventh- generation confec-tioners, and Jon's wife, Stacey, is Hagar Startup's counterpart. She handles much of the office work, and when she sees Jon lifting heavy equipment, especially the big cooling slabs, she warns him not to repeat his great- grandfather's tragic history. The business has evolved over the years, and so has the family. More important, the histories of the business and of the family are intertwined, one af-fectin- g the other. Just as the first Startups in Utah succeeded by worlung together, so has this latest generation made candymalung a family affair. The business and family tradition, started so long ago, are indeed continuing into the next millenium. Dora Flack is an independent writer based in Bountiful. She has authored or co- authored 18 books, including Butch Cassidy, My Brother, with Lula Parker Betenson. N SEPTEMBE19R4 2 we were shipped by train to a ominous portent of a coming storm. Before I wwas I concentration camp which we knew to be some- halfway to school the wind grew so intense I felt as where in Utah and was called Topaz.. . . though I were caught in a hurricane of dust. Barracks There were no trees, or growth of any kind, only a few feet away were soon completely obscured except clumps of dry greasewood. We were entering by walls of dust, and I was fearful that the wind the Sevier Desert some fifteen miles west of Delta, might sweep me off my feet. I stopped every few and the surroundings were now as bleak as a yards to lean against a barracks and catch my breath bleached bone.. . . As the bus drew up to one of the and then plodded on to school. When I got there, I barracks, we heard the unlikely sound of band music. found that many of the children had braved the Marching toward us down the storm to come to school. It dusty road was a group of young Boy Scouts who had come with the advance contin-gent, playing bugles, trumpets, and drums and carrying signs that read, " Welcome to Topaz- Your Camp." It was a touching sight to see them standing in the burning sun, covered with dust and malung such a determined effort to lessen the shock of our arrival at thls bleak desert camp.. . . We found that our [ barracks] room contained nothing but TOPAZ an account of Japanese Americans interned in Utah during World War II by Yoshiko Uchida - four army cots without mat-tresses.. . . Those who arrived still later did not even have barracks to go to and were simply assigned to cots set up in empty mess halls, laundries, or the cor-ridors of the hospital. . . . As mornings and nights grew colder, we looked with increased longing at the black iron stove that stood uselessly outside our barracks waiting for work crews to bring it inside and connect it. One day, almost a month after our arrival, a work crew composed of resident men appeared and finally installed our stove.. . . By now my father, sensing the tremendous needs of the struggling community, had volunteered to serve on several committees.. . . My mother, in her own gentle and quiet way, continued to be a loving focal point for our family, converting our dreary bar-racks room into a makeshift home, where we invited our friends as we did back in Berkeley. Having been a close family, ours did not disintegrate, as many did, from the pressures created when entire families were confined to living in a single room. I applied for work in the Topaz elementary school system [ and] earned a salary of $ 19 a month for a forty- hour week. [ One day] about noon, gray- brown clouds began massing in the sky, and a hot sultry wind seemed an touched me deeply to see the eagerness of the children to learn despite the desolation of their surroundings and the meager tools for learning. At the time they seemed to adapt with equanimity and cheerful-ness to this total and bewilder-ing upheaval of their young lives.. . . I tried to conduct class, but dust poured into the room from all sides as well as from the hole in the roof, which still lacked a chimney. It soon became obvious that we could not continue classes, and it seemed prudent to send the children home before the storm grew worse and stranded us all at school.. . . That nig- ht the wind reached such terrible force I was sure our barracks would be blown apart .... For hours the wind shrieked around us like a howling animal, rattling and shalung our flimsy barracks.. . . The following day, the non- Japanese head of elementary schools reprimanded the teachers of Block 41 for having dis-missed school without consulting him.. . . A succession of dust storms, rain squalls, and a full- fledged snowstorm finally brought our limping schools to a complete halt in mid- November. Snow blew in from the holes that still remained in our roof, and we all shvered in ten- degree temperatures even though we wore coats, scarves, and boots. An official notice finally appeared stating that schools would close and not reopen until they were fully winterized with sheetrock walls and stoves. It seemed close to miraculous that we had been able to hold any lund of school for as long as we had, and I knew it was possible only because the children had been so eager to come and the residents so anxious to have some semblance of order in their lives.. . . Excerpted from " Topaz: City of Dust," in Utah Historical Quarterly 38 ( Summer 1980). |
