Nancy Jane’s Bakery owner survives heart attack

By DEB BENTLY

Staff Writer

For Nancy Jane Klecker, it was the stuff of nightmares. “His eyes rolled back in his head and he sort of fell back. I leaped out of my chair and ran out into the hallway screaming.

“The doctors say I probably saved his life by reacting so quickly.”

Fortunately, “the hallway” was in a hospital where Harry, 57, and Nancy Jane’s husband of 31 years, had just learned that there was dangerous blockage in a number of blood vessels connected to his heart, and that he should be scheduled for open heart surgery in the near future.

The news was a complete surprise to him. “I never had any symptoms that seemed dangerous,” he observes. “I had some shortness of breath now and then, but that was all.”

The Kleckers own Nancy Jane’s Bakery in New Richland and are its only employees. From the time the blockages were discovered on March 30 and the surgery was scheduled, their business had to be closed–a sudden turn of events that took area residents by surprise. The shop remained closed through April and halfway through May, opening again when the two felt ready to handle their rigorous work schedule again.

The two live in Geneva and commute over to New Richland Tuesday through Friday at about 3 a.m. in order to get the necessary mixing, baking, frying, filling and frosting done in time for the bakery’s 6 a.m. opening time. The shop closes at noon; Harry and Nancy Jane then take care of record-keeping and other tasks for another couple of hours, making their typical work day about 11 hours long. The bakery is also open from 7:30 a.m. until noon on Saturdays.

“We never really thought about it that much before,” reflects Nancy Jane, “but the job really includes a lot of lifting and hard work like that.

“We’re doing things a bit differently now than we did before.”

The changes in their lives include accommodating two heart-focused physical therapy appointments for Harry each week as he works on rehabilitating his heart, an altered diet, and doing some of the heavy lifting and mixing tasks as a team. “It’s a good thing we like each other,” Nancy Jane quips.

“It’s been challenging,” she observes. “But we’re very grateful things turned out the way they did.” She admits that sometimes she will wake up in the middle of the night and listen to be sure Harry is breathing. “It’s scary to come that close,” she says.

Harry seems to see it all very straightforwardly: “I’m here to see another day,” he comments.

Area residents will be glad to learn the bakery is back to its full scale of services, ranging from freshly-made rolls to cookies, cakes, breads, bars, buns, quick breads and the eternal favorite, mocha cakes.

Harry and Nancy Jane have owned the bakery since 2009. Nancy Jane has been a professional baker since 1983 when she applied for employment with a company that needed a baker and set her to work. “I fell in love with the whole thing,” she remembers. “The art, the accomplishment of making something delicious–I found it very fulfilling.” She proceeded to earn an associate’s degree in baking at Anoka Technical College–a program which has since been made more generalized and no longer focuses on baking alone.

“It’s hard work. But it’s really rewarding to know the finer points of making these different items that people love and appreciate.”