The History of L & D Candies
In the late 1950's, my wife's parents, Lou and Doris Horvath bought a small corner grocery store in the Hornerstown section of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. It was like a thousand other Mom and Pop grocery stores with the wooden floors and products stacked up to the ceiling. There was one of these type of stores just about on every corner in the residental neighborhoods. About this same time Doris started making Homemade Candy in her basement and started selling to her friends. Soon the candy business was growing faster than the grocery business. In 1963 they bought a piano store next to the grocery and L & D Candies was born.
They sold the grocery store and moved into an apartment over the new candy store. L & D Candies was named for Lou and Doris, its founders. The small business prospered over the years with the help of their children, Linda and Ron, and many friends who pitched in to help. They developed a reputation for making a good quality and tasting candy and for selling it at a reasonable price. Through mostly word of mouth the business continued to grow. Then in July of 1977, a freak storm hung over the Johnstown valley and dropped 11 inches of rain in 8 hours. This was to become the third Johnstown Flood.
Unlike the two previous floods which were caused by the dam breaking and the river rising, in this case the water came rushing down from the hills, swelling small streams out of their banks and hit the upper Hornerstown area which had previously been high ground. The water completely filled the candy store and factory up to the ceiling on the ground floor. The street in front of the store was gouged out into a seven foot deep ditch. Everything in the candy store was thrown out and Lou and Doris started again. Flood Picture
Then in 1983, Linda and her husband David (Notice the initials of the names, L & D) decided that they were tired of working for other people in Alabama and approached Lou and Doris about returning to Johnstown and taking over the business. The business was sold to Linda and David, the new L & D. Lou and Doris continued to help them and to teach them the candy business. By this time the business had grown to the point where it could no longer be run as a sideline business and also needed some modernization. Up until this time Lou and Doris had pretty much done everything by hand. With the increasing volume of candy selling it was necessary to add some machinery. We added a small enrobing line and several other pieces of equiptment.
In 1986, a 2000 sq. foot addition was added to the building to house a new retail store and additional working space. Unfortunately Lou never got to see this as he passed away in 1985 and then in 1988 Doris was killed in a car accident in North Carolina. Today, L & D Candies continues to grow and prosper because we still use the original recepies Doris started with. We cook all our centers from scratch the way all candymakers used to do. We add no wax or artifical preservatives to our chocolates. Just good fresh ingredients covered with pure milk chocolate. Doesn't your family and friends deserve the Best!
-David DeFazio
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