- A secretary, a Kambly factory in Quebec and a lovely garden in Willowdale
“I am still a secretary” says Hedi Jakob while showing me the many neatly typewritten documents and Xerox copies she carefully prepared for our meeting at her home in the Toronto suburb of Willowdale. “You should find almost everything you need in there to learn more about the not-so-successful Canadian story of a well-known Swiss cookie producer that took place in the 1950s” she adds while offering me a Kambly cookie from a box she just opened. “As you can see, I am still faithful…”
Hedwig “Hedi” Jakob–Bolleter was born in Meilen, Canton of Zürich, between the two world wars. After finishing secondary school, Hedi studied at the “Tochterschule” in Zürich from 1943 to 1946. Thanks to her language skills (Hedi Jakob is fluent in English, German, French and Italian) and her desire to travel she was hired as a secretary by Ostertag Hausamann Faes (now Pongees Ltd), an international silk trading company then based in Zürich, that eventually sent her to its London branch for one year to perfect her English.
“I had a marvellous time in the City” Hedi remembers. “But then again I wanted to see more of the world. It was 1952 when I heard that Kambly AG, the Swiss cookie producer based in Trubschachen was going to open a factory in Canada and was looking for a trilingual secretary. I was hired almost immediately. But before accepting the offer I spent 4 weeks at the plant in Trubschachen to see what cookie production was all about and to understand what my job would be like. Eventually, I joined the company and I arrived in St-Hyacinthe, Quebec, in 1954. There, I was the assistant of Willy Jakob – a nephew of Kambly’s founder Oskar – who had been appointed by the Swiss headquarter to supervise the construction of the producing plant in St-Hyacinthe. A few years later Willy Jakob would become my husband and the father of our 3 children”.
However, the Kambly plant in Quebec never reached the expected success and after a couple of years found itself in financial troubles. Bad advice, insufficient business planning, lack of marketing research, different customer taste and habits led to serious production and retailing issues. To avoid putting the main company at risk, Kambly Switzerland almost immediately decided to stop production in Canada. In 1956 the plant’s machinery and the majority of the workforce were taken over by George Weston Ltd. (Loblaw’s). Later on, Kambly’s boss Oscar II would call the Canadian episode a profitable setback (ein Lehrreicher Misserfolg) for the company.
Kambly’s takeover had a great impact on the Jakobs family: Willy was offered and accepted a secretary treasurer’s position at Willard’s Chocolate in Toronto, a subsidiary of the George Weston group. Willard’s was later amalgamated with Neilson Ltd. William Jakob, who had obtained his IRA degree in 1965, became Vice President Finance of Neilson’s in 1980 before retiring from the company in 1983.
For Hedi Jakob moving to Toronto at the end of the 50s marked the start of yet another life. She gave up her job as a secretary and took the time to raise her 3 children in Willowdale while taking care of her home and garden. “For almost the next 20 years my work would be sewing and gardening. Then I did a bit of voluntary secretarial work for a church’s choir that I had joined a few years earlier. It was 1979 when I saw an ad in a newspaper from an electronic supplier company looking for a German and French speaking secretary. I had no intention whatsoever to start a new career at the age of 50 but I applied anyway and to some surprise I was hired. I liked that job but I decided to give it up after a few years, when my husband retired in 1983. I could not imagine myself working in the office while he was at home cooking and taking care of the house. So I definitively put an end to my professional life”
The couple’s wonderful retirement time lasted about 25 years. It was sadly interrupted in November 2008 when William Jakob passed away at his home after a brief illness.
“We spent twenty five 
marvellous years of retirement together. Taking care of our home and garden, visiting our children and grandchildren was what we liked most. For sure, now that I am alone things are different, the house often seems very empty…” says Hedi Jakob, before adding “However, with a daughter living in Ontario, a son based in Québec and another son managing a restaurant in Zermatt (son Bernie and his wife Andrea are owner of the Olympia Stübli there), I still have opportunities to travel. I went to Switzerland last year and even paid a visit to the Kambly family in Trubschachen with whom I am still in contact and where Oskar Kambly III is now in charge of the company”.
“And one thing I still do that I used to do for years with my husband: I go to the Theaterabend of the Swiss Theatergruppe every year to enjoy a full Swiss-German evening. I am not really involved in the events of the Swiss Club in Toronto but the annual theatre play is something I would not miss for anything” she adds while offering me another Kambly cookie.
Thank you, Mrs. Jakob, for your hospitality and for sharing your story with us.
Links:
Kambly SA
Restaurant Olympia Stübli on MySwitzerland.com
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