This isn’t that Ed
Ballard we’re talking about here.
The Ed Ballard who has more name recognition at French Lick
Resort is the Ed Ballard who owned West Baden Springs Hotel in the earliest
years of its heyday a century ago. The current-day Ed Ballard who works here
toils more so behind the scenes. But you need to know about this Ed Ballard,
too.
Charles Edward Ballard — he’s always been called by his middle
name — is among French Lick Resort’s earliest risers, long-tenured associates
and elder statesmen. (And in case you were wondering, Ed’s father was third
cousins with the Ed Ballard of West Baden fame.) At 81 years young, Ed’s still
going strong, launching his workdays at 3 a.m. in the resort’s bakery.
The sweet homemade treats served up at the French Lick
Mercantile Co. inside French Lick Springs Hotel are pretty much all furnished
by the man known around the kitchen simply as “Mr. Ed.” In fact, if you visited
the hotel as far back as the 1950s, you may have tasted some of Mr. Ed’s work.
He’s perfected the art of Danish, muffins, cookies and
cinnamon rolls — even though baking was a career that started on a whim back
when Ed was a young guy living a few blocks away from the hotel.
“If you go way back … I was working on the dish line. An old
gentlemen here in French Lick was the bread baker. He came over there one morning
and he said, ‘Ed, how would you like to get off this dish line? And I said,
that’d be all right.”
Two months after Ed’s crash course started, the head baker
left the state for another job. Ed became the one in charge at the bakery. The only one, in fact, as the bakery
operated as a staff of one for several years.
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| Ed served in the military between his two stints working in the bakery at French Lick Springs Hotel. |
Ed detoured from the baking biz for an extended spell,
serving two years in the military and spending 12 years in construction amid a
few other stops working at a packaging company and driving a truck. Then came a
phone call one day in 1982 from the chef at French Lick Springs Hotel.
“First thing he said was, ‘I heard you was one helluva bread
baker.’ That’s his way of putting it. He said would you be interested to come
down and talk?”
The reputation Ed built for baking could be exceeded by
probably only one thing: the reputation for a beastly work ethic.
Back in his first stint working at the hotel in the ’50s, he’d
work the dish line until about 4:00 in the afternoon, then help in what was called
the superette where they served up short orders like hamburgers and steaks. He’d
assist the regular cook there until about 1:00 in the morning. Then it was up
at 7:00 the next morning to be back on the dish line.
The grind continued when he came back in the early ’80s as
the one-man show running the bakery.
“I’d come in at maybe 1:00 in the morning and I wouldn’t get out until about 2:00 in the afternoon,” said Ed, then recalling a conversation he had with Luther James, the hotel’s owner at the time. “He came in there one morning and he said, ‘Ed, you done me a good job. I’m going to give you a raise and I’m going to promote you to head baker.’ I said, ‘Mr. James, I just about have to be the head baker, I’m the only one in here.’”
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| His niche has been in the bakery, but Ed also assisted elsewhere in the kitchen when he first started working at French Lick Springs Hotel in the 1950s. |
“I’d come in at maybe 1:00 in the morning and I wouldn’t get out until about 2:00 in the afternoon,” said Ed, then recalling a conversation he had with Luther James, the hotel’s owner at the time. “He came in there one morning and he said, ‘Ed, you done me a good job. I’m going to give you a raise and I’m going to promote you to head baker.’ I said, ‘Mr. James, I just about have to be the head baker, I’m the only one in here.’”
Ed tells the story with his trademark chuckle, which sounds
like the playful laugh of a little kid getting poked in the belly. The
young-at-heart aura is still strong here. A bum foot slows him down some, but he’s
still on his feet most of his shift other than the intermittent water break. “Outside
of that, pretty well going the whole time,” he says.
And that smile and those blue eyes radiate when Ed shares
stories from the past. Such as the times he sampled French Lick’s famed Pluto
Water back when you could dip it straight out of the spring. (“Not for me,” he
says with a laugh and the shake of a head.) Or his memories from when eating
at the hotel restaurants was always more of a buttoned-up affair compared to
today’s more casual climate.
“You couldn’t go in the dining room without a tie. The men
would be in suits, and the ladies they’d usually come in in their evening gowns
or evening dresses. It was pretty strict.”
These days, Ed’s kept some of the tried-and-true recipes alive
in the bakery, though he hasn’t been afraid to try new ones. “You never get too
old to learn something new,” he emphasized.
And that is what’s helped keep Ed going and going … and
going some more, since Ed doesn’t talk like someone who has plans of slowing down after nearly 38 total years on the job here.
“Some time or other
in the future I’m going to have to lay it aside and say, ‘Hey it’s my time, I’m
going to have to get out of here.’ I’m not ready to do it yet, and I tell you
the real truth about it, I kind of hate to see that day come. I’ve worked here
and I’ve met a lot of nice people, and it’s all come together like a family,
you know?”
“I’ve enjoyed it. I’ve enjoyed the time here.”