For decades, Chuck Kalousek has led the inverted life of a baker, manning the ovens and mixing bowls at Ingram’s Busy Bee Bakery from midnight to morning so his Downers Grove customers could start their days with fresh — truly fresh — breads and pastries.
It’s how he learned the baking business as an apprentice out of high school. Take the time, work the wee-morning hours, do it right.
For 22 years, the Kalouseks have owned the bakery. Chuck’s birthday cakes have marked the unfolding lives of Downers Grove children. For many, Busy Bee baked goods are staples at holiday gatherings.
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When you carve a place out in a community, when you become a strand in the fabric of family traditions, you become something bigger, regardless of your own humility. People take notice. And when something goes wrong, they respond.
When friends and customers learned Chuck was hospitalized with COVID-19 last month, they sent positive thoughts and prayers to him and his family. And when they learned more recently that the baker’s condition had worsened, that he had been place on a machine to help him breathe, with a double-lung replacement on the horizon, they joined together to support the Kalousek family.
A GoFundMe page set up by a family friend had, as of Wednesday afternoon, raised more than $100,000 to help cover medical costs and support the family. Chuck was the only baker, so Busy Bee has been closed since he got sick.
On the bakery’s website, the family wrote: “Thank you for any prayer that you may be able to provide to us during our time of need. We are both looking forward to the day that we may be able to flip our OPEN sign back on and get back to serving our community.”
Melisa Mackevicius-Leonard, the family friend who launched the GoFundMe, said Chuck is humble, maybe not the sort who would be comfortable with the attention he’s getting. But, she said, what has driven people to support him and his family — his wife, Katie, and their 17-year-old son and 13-year-old daughter — is the baker’s devotion to the community.
“Through this GoFundMe, we’ve been getting so many notes from people who worked there in the past saying how much they loved working there, sending notes of love and prayer for him,” Mackevicius-Leonard said. “They’re just such an integral part of the community. They give baked goods to churches for homeless people, they do all these amazing things.”
Emmie Pawlak, a founding member of the Downers Grove Community Kitchen, a group that helps feed the homeless and people facing food insecurity, has been on the receiving end of the Kalouseks’ generosity.
She said high school kids who volunteered at a nearby church’s homeless shelter in the early morning would get a free doughnut as they walked past the Busy Bee on their way to school. And Busy Bee always gave Pawlak’s group their Friday doughnuts so they could serve them to people in need on Saturday mornings.
She said the response to Chuck’s illness hasn’t been surprising: “It really speaks to this town. We all hope for the best.”
I spoke with Katie and she told me a story about her husband that hit like a gut punch. His own father died when Chuck was a sophomore in high school, and that thought stuck with him as his condition grew worse.
“He couldn’t bear the thought of our family going through the same thing he went through,” his wife said. “I’m just forever, unimaginably filled with gratitude for all the sacrifices he has made for our family.”
She said she’s humbled by the support that has poured in, through the donation page and in the form of kind notes and prayers left on signs outside the closed bakery.
“I’m just overwhelmed and amazed at the power of what this community has done for us,” she said, her voice cracking. “I don’t know how I could ever thank everyone enough for all they’ve done for my family.”
I don’t know Chuck, but I would like to. I’ve never tasted one of the paczkis he makes, but people presumably line up down the block to get them for a reason.
I asked Katie if she could sum her husband up in a story. She thought about it a moment then told me about a family trip to Branson, Missouri. Chuck loves roller coasters, so he and the two kids boarded the PowderKeg at Silver Dollar City amusement park.
“He’s always so concerned about his kids, so first he’s checking their restraints, then he checks his restraints,” Katie recalled. “Then he noticed a kid who was alone, just a single rider. And he saw the kid wasn’t restrained, but the ride was starting to move. My husband started screaming, ‘WAIT! STOP THE RIDE!’ “
They stopped it and shut the ride down, then Katie said a manager came up and told Chuck he probably saved the child’s life.
“That’s kind of how my husband is,” she said. “He’s a person who would always watch out for things. He always looks out for people.”
So it’s fitting people are now looking out for him.
I’m rooting for Chuck, sending my thoughts and prayers his way as he tries to beat this horrible virus that has damaged and devastated so many Americans. I hope you’ll consider doing the same.
The world needs good bakers. And even more, it needs good people.
rhuppke@chicagotribune.com
