Walter Hecker needed a job when he was 15. He was helping his parents pay the rent. So he answered a want ad to apprentice as a baker at Gimbels.

His career path swerved for just a few years, when he enlisted in the Navy and worked on a ship that transported war dead home from Europe after World War II. His rank was baker third-class, and while in the service, he baked the wedding cake for the daughter of an admiral.

A resident of Baldwin, he died Wednesday from complications of lung cancer at age 81.

For almost 44 years, he was the master baker at Gimbels and managed the bake shop on the 14th floor. He was renowned for his Italian rum cakes, said his son, Robert Hecker, of Scott.

"After he retired, he still got calls from people begging for them for the holidays. There was a lemon meringue that [former Pittsburgh mayor and Allegheny County commissioner ] Pete Flaherty used to like."

But he warned his sons away from the same career. The hours were long and often grueling, with a lot of standing and a lot of heat. Filling 10,000 rum cake orders between Thanksgiving and Christmas made the holidays particularly stressful.

"He never baked at home. It had to be 50 of something or nothing," said Robert Hecker. For his sons' birthdays, he brought cakes from work.

When Gimbels closed, Mr. Hecker, with no pension, went to work as operations manager at the Allegheny County Airport and retired five years ago.

He was "shortchanged" on the retirement end of life, said his son Gregory, but he was used to having little left for himself. He started earning change to take home to his mother when he was 12, helping a blind man sell pencils.

"He was basically selfless all his life," said Robert Hecker. "He didn't make a lot of money and had no pension, but he raised three sons and was a great provider."

He was the manager of his sons' Little League teams and took them on vacations every summer.

Divorced in 1970, with custody of the boys, he took them to California for three years in a row in a 1969 Pontiac Catalina. They visited all the iconic places of the American West, including Las Vegas "so we could see all the lights," said Gregory Hecker, who raised his own children in the home they shared with his father.

"He helped me raise my children and was always right there for me," he said. "I'll spend the rest of my life getting over" losing him. "He was not only my mentor but my best friend."

Mr. Hecker was preceded in death by his adopted son, Gary. Besides Robert and Gregory, he is survived by two sisters, Violet Lako of Carrick and Shirley Hecker of Mt. Lebanon; three grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.

Visitation will be from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m. today and tomorrow at Jefferson Memorial Funeral Home, 301 Curry Hollow Road, Pleasant Hills, where services will be held at 11 a.m. Monday.