Zelma Murphy Calhoun made amazing pies. Although she did not work in a factory, it is estimated that she baked more than 650,000 pieces. This is another reason and another story that we in the South seem to worship at the altar of Chick-fil-A.
When I was a freshman at the University of Georgia, I witnessed a strange and somewhat regular occurrence on the Sunday after almost every Dawgs home game. As I left my dorm room, I met a small, energetic bald man with a big smile on his face. He was carrying neatly stacked and tied boxes of what I would soon learn were incredibly delicious pies.
That man was Truett Cathy, the founder of Chick-fil-A. I was lucky to have grown up near one of his first food courts at North DeKalb Mall.
The original location, called The Dwarf House, was opened in Hapeville by Kathy in 1949, has been renovated twice, and still draws crowds of customers every week. It now also has a mini-bakery and pie shop named after Zelma Murphy Calhoun.
Cathy had already left, but this was decades before he became a millionaire, and on football weekends he could still drive to each CFA location in a matter of hours. Ta. All CFA and the famous Dwarf His House were and still are closed on Sundays. With the exception of apple and peach, all other specialty pies contained significant amounts of dairy and cream. Kathy would patrol the store every Saturday after the dinner rush and collect all the unsold pies. Those day-old pies weren’t sold as “fresh” to his customers on Monday.
So Kathy, a devout Christian and thrifty survivor of the Great Depression, did the only thing that was practical. She collected all the pies to redistribute. Woody Faulk, the first of the Cathy family’s many foster children, lived in my dorm in Reid Hall, next to Sanford Stadium. Cassie would carry those pies to Woody and her hungry friends.
That pie is lemon. The chocolate and coconut cream pie was exquisite. Fried apple pie and peach pie were later added to the menu, and Calhoun remained in charge of baking for his 45 years. Toward the end of her professional baking career, Calhoun made more than 100 pies each day. Kathy hired Calhoun to her house of dwarves when she was still in high school in 1954.
When Kathy decided to retire in 2000, he gave her a brand new Ford Mustang as a parting gift. The letter from Kathy that was attached to the Mustang is a memento from her family. The car, which looked like new, was still sitting in Calhoun’s driveway when he moved in last week at age 89. As Dwarf House undergoes its second major renovation in 2022, a new pie shop right at the entrance is named after her, and in the large kitchen, she is the star of Dwarf House’s Wall of Fame.
At 88 years old, Calhoun is back for one last baking, to once again work at a new pie shop with her name on the wall, just inside her beloved workplace. People lined up around the building for the pie.
Heaven’s Bakery has undergone a major upgrade. I think Kathy will give her her full tour. Mr. Zelma, save me a slice of that lemon pie, assuming I end up at that counter.
