Obituary: Ernest J. Mancini / Headed renowned family bakery
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Ernest J. Mancini, longtime owner of a family bakery in McKees Rocks whose bread became a Pittsburgh culinary trademark, died Thursday. Mr. Mancini, of Windgap, was 84.
Feisty and athletic until leukemia sapped his strength, he was more like a peer than a patriarch to his grandchildren.
"He used to say he was the best dancer and the best wrestler in his high school. And he danced until the end, until he couldn't walk anymore," said his grandson Ernie Hartner, 24, who with his brother and cousin runs a branch of Mancini's Bakery in the Strip District.
A McKees Rocks native, Mr. Mancini was the youngest of seven children who all worked in the bakery that his brother, Jimmy, founded in 1926. He studied business administration at Duquesne University for two years before joining the Air Force in World War II.
He served as a top aide to a ranking commander. He would often proudly tell the story about when the war ended, he used his connections to wrangle a Jeep-load of food and orders for a fictitious mission into Italy from his base in Germany, Ernie Hartner said. Mr. Mancini drove to his grandfather's native village in the Abruzzi mountains and delivered food to the starving inhabitants. When the villagers realized whose grandson he was, there was dancing in the streets, said his grandson, who recently met a relative who was there.
"In that little town, he's regarded as a big hero," Ernie Hartner said.
After the war, he went into the bakery business with his brother and married Emma, the daughter of one of his father's friends.
The bakery was already renowned for its signature Italian twist loaf, and Mr. Mancini was loath to tamper with success. He adopted some automation, but insisted on letting the dough rest before baking. Today it still takes more than four hours to prepare a loaf of Mancini bread, using the same recipe his brother started with in 1926, said his daughter Mary Hartner of Robinson, who has run the business since Mr. Mancini retired 22 years ago.
He was in constant motion, she said, rising in the middle of the night to handle problems at the bakery. But he was not obsessed with work.
"My dad was a lot of fun. He was always ready for a party," she said.
The bakery was supposed to have passed to her brother, Frank. But his death in a motorcycle accident drew her into the business. Her father showed her the ropes, then stepped aside quietly.
He took his grandsons to lunch weekly, starting when they were in grade school, and golfed daily at the Chartiers Country Club.
There, Mr. Mancini co-founded the annual Ogad Festival -- which, with no apologies for political incorrectness, was "dago" spelled backward. It was a males-only event, its tables heaped high with loaves of Mancini bread, salami, sausages and other Italian delicacies, while accordion players added to the ambiance.
In his heart, Mr. Mancini was always 25 years old, Ernie Hartner said.
"When I would come home from college I'd have lunch with him every single day. I golfed with him, played gin with him," he said.
They made the rounds of his favorite restaurants, where Mr. Mancini walked straight-away into the kitchen to greet the chef, and kissed the cheeks of waitresses who brought him special cakes and gift bottles of wine.
"Anyone who met him fell in love with him. A lot of my friends called him Pap," Ernie Hartner said.
When his younger daughter opened a gym, he visited her daily and helped her out by running errands, Mary Hartner said. But he was never one to tell his children what to do with their lives. And he never pushed his grandchildren to follow him into the bakery business.
"He probably put more pressure on them not to do it. It was, 'That's hard work. You guys all have good educations,' " she said.
Nevertheless, when his grandsons and their cousin put aside other careers to start a Mancini's in the Strip, "I think secretly, deep down in his heart, he was real proud," Ernie Hartner said.
Besides his grandson and daughter, Mr. Mancini is survived by his wife; another daughter, Amy Mancini of Bridgeville; two brothers, Albert of Kennedy and Mike of Mercer; and two grandchildren.
Visitation is today from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m. at Anthony M. Musmanno Funeral Home, McKees Rocks. Services will be private.
First Published October 3, 2004 12:00 am
