The Gonnella story is a chapter in that epic: The book of bread. In 1879, Alessandro Gonnella ventured, at 16, to the New World from the walled city of Barga in Tuscany. He came to New York as an apprentice in ceramic statuary, but it was a false start. Within two years he was back home, gathering his energies for another crack at the promised land.

Next time he tried Chicago, boarding with a baker
on DeKoven St. In 1886, the year of John Carroll’s
founding, that one-horse delivery wagon bakery was
Alessandro’s – he bought building, oven and horse;
he was 23. Equipped with a Tuscan recipe, he mixed
and kneaded the dough, baked, delivered, kept the
books. It was a go.

Ten years later he returned to Barga and brought home Marianna Marcucci to be his bride. He moved to a larger building and soon summoned three teenage brothers-in-law from the Old Country to create a family business. In 1915, a plant was built on Erie St. By now there were many horses drawing wagons making hundreds of stops each day. The Gonnella family, like the dough with which they worked, was rising, and in time was – weekly – selling half a million loaves with a thin crust, a style of the staff of life that came to be called Vienna bread.



Alessandro died in ’48 when grandson Robert
was 14. Robert’s father, Anunzio, and his Marcucci
cousins had long since assumed leadership of what
had become a household word in Chicago and its

The Gonnellas; a story of bread and family environs. Robert grew up with the smell of bread and the knowledge that he would follow his grandfather’s lead, but before that happened he went off to John
Carroll to obtain a good education. He got that, but also brought home a bride, as his grandfather had
from Barga. This one went by the name of Joan Zirm
’57 and worked as the secretary of Edward McCue,
SJ, the dean of Arts & Sciences. She was also a student (night classes), as well as the object of her
father’s jocular prophecy: “I loved bread so much, he
often said that as soon as I met someone in the bread
business, I’d be off and away.”

Robert ’56 and Joan ’57 became the parents of
triplets: Paul, Bob and Ann. Paul, the vice president
of sales for the present Gonnella Baking Co., did not
follow his parents lead, but Bob Jr. ’84 and Ann ’85
became the second set of male and female Gonnellas
to graduate from JCU in successive years. Each of
the quartet professes to have found a fine
educational experience and a bounty of friendship at
the university. Bob used his mother’s notes in the
Shakespeare class of Dr. Joseph Cotter. Over the last several decades, the Gonnella product line has shifted. Still based on Erie St., the company produces, weekly, one million loaves of that Vienna bread, but the vast majority is now baked in the kitchens of supermarkets. Frozen dough is the new product name, but it’s the same loaf – it just has a new delivery system. Many of their other bakery products, such as sandwich buns, continue to carry the brand from Milwaukee to Indianapolis, and another large portion of the 1.5 million pounds of baked goods that go out from the three Gonnella factories every week find their way to restaurants. All of which means that while the name isn’t as prominent as it once was,
business is very good.

The Gonnella story isn’t just a bread story; it’s a happy family tale. At one point there were 40 Gonnellas and Marcuccis working at the baking company; at last count, 33. Stock is owned by 100 family members, though as Robert, Sr. says, “We
have no covenants, agreements or restrictions on stock transfers.” Asked his title, Bob, Jr., said, “vice president for operations. I just made that up.” His dad chimed: “That’s one of the ways we keep peace in the family. We have three directors and three officers, and then everybody else can give themselves whatever title they can.

We have so many vice presidents you’d need
a computer to figure it out.” Whatever they’re doing, it’s working. Robert, Sr., retired as president a few years ago, but Bob, Jr., was able to work with his dad for six years after he returned to the fold from the Board of Trade. Ann Mintz ’85 is the mother of three in Cincinnati.

Wherever they are, all of this entrepreneurially
successful family take time to break bread with each other, and whether or not they work with the dough, they all continue to be happily engaged in the family mission of making bread together.