?Bread lady? makes friends

Each week over the summer, hundreds of people gather in Washington?s Central Park to sell home-grown vegetables and homemade crafts during the farmers market. The vendors come to know the shoppers so well they?ll have an order waiting for them before the shoppers arrive.

The market is a great place to meet people, especially for those who are new to town. Jane and Alfred Kruse moved to Washington three years ago and didn?t know anyone in town. That quickly changed as soon as Jane began selling bread at the market. The Kruses have been to nearly every farmers market since the spring of 2009 and have used the opportunity to see new faces and make new friends.

Alfred is a retired Lutheran pastor and Jane is a retired occupational therapist. They moved to Washington in February 2009 because they wanted to be close to their children, who were spread out across Iowa and Illinois. Washington is roughly equidistant from the three cities where their children reside, which are Waterloo and Cascade to the north and Keokuk to the south.

The Kruses have lived most of their lives in small towns in the Midwest. Alfred grew up on a farm near Le Mars, so small-town life suits him just fine. Jane, on the other hand, grew up in Detroit, Mich. After she married Alfred in 1969, the couple moved to Nebraska and lived nine miles outside Fremont. That was quite a culture shock to the big-city girl, who went to a high school with 2,400 students.

?In Fremont, we didn?t see even our closest neighbors very often because they were a half-mile down the road,? she said. ?When you shopped, you had to plan for it because you might only do it once a week. The nice thing about living there was that you could make friends easily and you knew who your kids? friends were. I think people in small towns are more concerned about other people than themselves.?

Fremont was where Jane learned to bake homemade bread. A retired school teacher taught her how to do it. The teacher gave instructions and Jane was the one who handled dough and the other ingredients.

?She said, ?You will do it and I will tell you what to do,?? Jane recalled. ?I did the mixing and I added the flour so I could get the feel for it.?

The first few batches Jane made were a success. She continued baking but mostly for her family. The general public would have to wait many years to taste Jane?s masterpieces.  

Alfred had numerous chances to pastor at different churches, and he felt a calling to move. The Kruses lived in Fremont for four years, in Eldorado for 6 ½ years, in Cushing for another 6 ½ years, in Carthage, Ill., for 8 ½ years and in Readlyn for 14 ½ years before moving to Washington.

When the Kruses moved to Readlyn, Jane sold her loaves at auctions in town. That?s where she began experimenting with new kinds of bread such as marble, caraway rye, raisin, Ezekiel and cherry bread. In fact, she and Alfred went to Michigan last October and brought back 50 pounds of cherries for her cherry bread.

Jane didn?t start selling her bread at farmers markets until she moved to Washington.

?My brother told me I should open a bread shop when I retire, but I?ve got pretty much the same thing here at the market,? she said. ?I might not know all their names, but sometimes people will catch me on the street and say, ?Oh, you?re the bread lady!??