Jefferson County Online A part of the IAGenWeb and USGenWeb Projects The 'Madegood Family' Paul Anton Coleson

"The Fairfield Daily Ledger"
Fairfield, Iowa
Friday, May 1, 1925
Front Page and Page 6

NO. 5--PAUL ANTON COLESON.

Newspaper men, like lawyers and doctors, learn many secrets of the public, personal and business life of the people of the community. But the lawyer and doctor are notoriously selfish about these things, and instead of letting other people in on these secrets they keep them for their own selfish enjoyment. Newspaper folks are generous, big-hearted people who believe in letting the world enjoy a morsel of scandal when they learn some, so often lay bare man's deepest secrets for the edification of the public.

All of which is by way of explaining our reason for publishing here the photo of one Paul Anton Coleson snopped as he was engaged in the secret process of making light and fluffy a loaf of bread that was otherwise leaden. 'Tis a remarkable pho o (sic), and has never been published before.

"How do you get your bread so light and fluffy?" we asked Paul the other day. Paul was flattered so much that he was moved to the generous offer of taking us into the bakeroom and divulging the secret to us, probably forgetful of our profession.

'Twas vurra simple. Paul just picked up a disconsolate looking lump of dough from the pan, jabbed a pair of hand-bellows into it and began to pump. Then he chucked it into a hot oven for a few minutes and when it came out it was a beautiful brown and looked light enough to blow away. We supposed the entire inside would be one large air chamber with only a shell of bread surrounding it but Paul showed us how he overcame that.

"There's a little piece of very fine mesh screen wire in the point of the bellows," he explained, "and this breaks the air up into tiny jets so that instead of one large cavity the loaf is filled with hundreds of little air pockets."

Ingenious? Well rather!

Paul used to be a farmer. He raised 7,000 bushels of corn the last year he farmed. But farming was too tame a game for him, he said--wasn't enough kick to it. So he got a job as office manager for the electric light company in Fairfield. First day he worked at it a 220 pound citizen, with blood in his eye, came in waving his monthy electric bill.

"You're all a bunch of crooks in here, and you're the biggest one in the bunch," he told Paul

"Now," reflected Paul, "I've got into a business where there's a real kick in it." But as this and similar incidents occurred every few days Paul began to feel 'twas a bit overdone, and pictures of the old farm with its peaceful pastoral scenes began flitting in his memory. 'Twarn't long before he decided that the public utility business was a mite too strenuous so he secured a nice, easy, care-free job over at the city hall as city clerk. Paul was astounded to learn that, in spite of the fact that he had graduated from a commercial college, 99 per cent of the water bills he made out were wrong--at least the consumers declared they were. Old farm began to have even greater attractions, but he said he'd make one more try at something else.

So, Paul, optimistic Paul, bought a bakery. Didn't know any thing about the business, but said he could learn. And he had a lot of confidence. As may be apparent to those who drop into his store, Paul seems to have learned all right. Not much of a kick in the bakery business either, but Paul is pretty well fed up now on the strenuous life and is willing to settle down now to something a bit quiet. Fact is he's trying to avoid kicks by working true to the principle of satisfying people--"No substitutes" is the working motto of his business, and he hews to the line. Best of everything he can buy goes into his products.

But Paul, like other great men has a weakness. Yeh, you guessed it--radio. Uh huh. radio bug of the worst kind. Got Hung- seu-hu-chow, China, the other night, but won't be satisfied until he gets Tchernigoffvinski, Russia. He'll probably get it--gets most things he wants.

You've probably heard Paul sing. He's been singing publicly around here for about fourteen years. He's a veritable Swedish nightingale--of the male gender--and we can forgive him for a lot of things because of the songs he sings for us. Even the gifted songsters in the Rotary club, where Paul is a member, aren't one, two, three with him when it comes to singing.

Seems funny Paul wouldn't put in something more up-to-date in the way of machinery to take the place of that hand bellows he uses. Course he explains, he doesn't use the air pressure only on his specially fine brand of bread made for select trade which wants really light, light bread. And so long as Paul Anton sticks to his motto of absolute purity in his products we'll not criticise his inflated loaf system for he solemnly assured us that he was careful to use only pure air in his bellows.