Founder of Brownberry Bakery Dies

A Wisconsin housewife, whose friends insisted years ago that she sell, rather than give away, her homemade bread--leading to a career in baking that made her a fairly young millionaire--has died at age 79.

Catherine Clark, who had sold her Brownberry Ovens bakery more than 20 years ago but stayed on as its board chairman until retiring in 1979, died Friday in a San Francisco convalescent home.

She was a housewife in Oconomowoc, Wis., after the war, when friends urged her to begin selling the bread that she baked in her small oven for herself and a few neighbors. Her friends worked as volunteer distributors, passing out the loaves in the Milwaukee suburb.

A favorable response led her to hire two assistants, and the three began canvassing grocery stores in the state, offering free taste tests and then using an old beer truck for deliveries.

Soon Brownberry Ovens had grown to include a bakery in Oconomowoc and one in Burlingame, Calif., with sales of $16 million a year in 40 states.

Mrs. Clark employed mostly women in her bakeries, once saying they had a “sixth sense” about her products.

“What we’re trying to do is make bread the way a housewife would do it herself--if she had the time.”

She and her husband, a banker, moved to San Francisco after her retirement.