An enterprise for the whole family
The family of A.W. Lindfors consisted of his wife, Wilhelmina (born Saarinko) and seven children: Ivar, Karl, Adolf, Axel, Viktor, Aina and Sigrid.
They were all engaged in the bakery business and later on in the sweets factory, in one way or another. It really was a family business from start to finish.
Wilhelmina’s responsibility was the sale of the products. Pastry and sweets were sold in the family’s shop or from a covered wagon in the market square.
Twenty years earlier, the trade of the market square had been moved from the Town Hall Square to the Market Square and the Finnish author Zacharias Topelius described the new square in the book “A Travel in Finland” from 1873 with the words: “the new square with its wide streets is so huge that the small houses by its side look lost and malice has claimed that foxes were caught there some twenty years ago”.
The shop of the Lindfors family was situated in a low wooden house facing the river. Almost one hundred years later Brunberg’s shop in Old Porvoo lies only a block away. The house with the first shop has since been demolished and a massive yellow house was built by a bank in 1911.
The daughters Aina and Sigrid were responsible for taking care of the home, which, in those days, also included the maintenance of employees and servants. After the death of her father, Aina was managing clerk (1906-1909) of the sweets factory.
Adolf became a baker, but also an Olympic medalist. Adolf Lindfors was one of Finland’s foremost wrestlers in the beginning of the 1900’s and he won the Olympic gold medal in Greco-Roman wrestling in Antwerp in 1920. Adolf actively participated in setting up a local sports club, Porvoon Akilles, in 1902, and he was the first chairman of the club.
Ivar moved to Helsinki at an early age and became a successful business man, a trustee of the city’s business life and an influential person in the communal life in Helsinki. Ivar bought his father’s sweets factory only one year after its establishment and participated in the activities of A.W. Lindfors Sweets and Marmalade Factory, above all as a financier, until 1928.
Karl became a sweets master and manager of the factory. He travelled to America, where he acquired know-how of the business during a few years.
Axel assisted Ivar with the activities and Viktor was, during a period, the managing clerk of the sweets factory.
When the sweets factory was founded (in 1897) the sons Ivar, Axel and Karl were members of the first board of the company.
