Jim Felger's classmates would tease him because he smelled like deep-fried doughnuts when he came to school.
"Jim's father was a third-generation baker," said his wife, Lois Felger. "He learned by working next to his parents."
As a teen, Felger rolled dough and baked cookies at Stacy's Pastry Shop in Sandstone, Minn., which was named for his mother. Years later, the self-taught master baker owned Jeffrey's Patisserie & Candies, just off the exit to Hinckley, Minn., on Interstate 35.
For four decades, Felger was renowned in Pine County for his mouthwatering European breads and pastries, as well as the candies concocted from old family recipes — and his own.
"It was nothing for Jim to bake 3,200 hand-cut cookies a day," said Linda Grohoski, a friend and owner of Marianne's Kitchen in Shoreview. "He used quality ingredients in everything, and you could taste it." Around the holidays, his fruitcake, packed with cherries and pecans, was unrivaled.
Felger died on June 11 at age 73 in his Hinckley home. "His last night, he pulled out sugar and butter at his baking bench where he had spent hundreds of hours," said Lois Felger.
Jim Felger was born in St. Paul. When he was 5, his parents, Theodore and Stacy Felger, moved the family to Willow River, then to Sandstone, where they opened Stacy's Pastry in 1954. Felger graduated from Sandstone High School in 1960. When his father died in 1964, he took over the bakery business with his mother.
After he married Lois Osterhus, the couple decided to branch out on their own. In 1988, the Felgers debuted their bakery, Jeffrey's, named after their young son, inside a big Colonial-style home. "We lived above the bakery so we could spend time with the kids," Lois Felger said. Jim Felger wanted to be "where the action was," which was across from Tobies, the landmark restaurant and bakery at the Hinckley exit. The Felgers were confident that there was enough business from families driving Up North to support both bakeries.
