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3rd generation candy-cane-maker teaches his art downtown Youngstown
By Sean Barron
YOUNGSTOWN
Doris Chianello loves all things Youngstown – everything from having shopped at the former Strouss’ and Higbee’s department stores to making candy canes.
“I’m elated with the way things are turning around” downtown, the 75-year-old Coitsville woman said.
She also was pleased with the progress she was making gently rolling two candy canes as part of a workshop she and an estimated 80 others of all ages attended Saturday at the Tyler Mahoning Valley History Center, 325 W. Federal St.
The class was part of the Mahoning Valley Historical Society’s Memories of Christmas Past events.
As she carefully tried to apply the right amount of pressure in rolling and bending her candy canes, Chianello acknowledged she had never seen how the treats were made. That changed, however, thanks to a demonstration Bill Rich gave.
Rich, who works for Cintas Facility Services, a uniform business in North Jackson, is a third-generation member of a family that began producing the striped treats more than 70 years ago.
“I still use a lot of his tools today,” Rich told his audience, referring to his grandfather, James Tyo, who started the family tradition in 1941 at a Zanesville candy factory.
Also assisting with the effort were Rich’s two children, Wesley and Lily, 8 and 4, respectively.
Rich began Saturday’s program by adding flavoring to a yellow, gooey substance on a marble surface coated with vegetable oil. He then had his wife, Leann Rich, and mother, Karen Rich, assist with adding food coloring. Cornstarch made the taffylike material white before he stretched, bended and twisted it.
Then Bill Rich rolled the sticky substance into a football shape, added green and red stripes, stretched and cut the strips and had attendees further roll and bend the narrow pieces.
It takes four to six weeks for the candy canes to solidify enough to use as holiday ornaments, he noted.
Before attending the class, neither Andrew Leshinsky, 9, nor his 11-year-old sister, Anna Leshinsky, was privy to the fine art of candy-cane making.
“I didn’t know anything about candy canes,” said Anna, a Boardman Center Middle School fifth-grader who last summer began taking violin lessons. “It was actually easier than I thought it would be.”
Andrew, a West Boulevard Elementary School second-grader, said the workshop taught him the technique of using two fingers to carefully bend the candy so as not to break it. Andrew added that he also enjoys helping his father, John Leshinsky, with cutting grass and other landscaping projects.
“The kids did better than we did,” their father said with laughter, referring to the delicacies of bending and shaping the striped treats.
Like Chianello, John Leshinsky enjoys the offerings of downtown Youngstown, where, as a youngster, he drank malts while at Strouss. And he’s happy to see the city undergoing what many people feel is a continued renaissance.
“It’s nice to see downtown coming back like it is,” he added.
The Boardman family plans to spend the holiday with many cousins and relatives, but Anna wasn’t shy about expressing her initial intentions.
“On Christmas, I will wake up really early and wake my parents up early, too,” she said with a chuckle.