Beloved Barrington, Richmond chocolatier Leif Anderson dies at 71
Leif Anderson, who took over what is now a 102-year-old family business in Anderson's Candy Shop in Barrington and Richmond in the early 1980s and oversaw its surge to national renown, died late last month. He was 71.
The longtime business owner took pride in his store playing parts in the traditions and milestones of families across the country who purchased its esteemed homemade candies to celebrate holidays, birthdays, family reunions, anniversaries and achievements of all kinds, his daughters and wife said.
Many customers are annual purchasers and consistently seek the same treats around Christmas, Mother's Day, Valentine's Day. and other holidays and special gatherings.
His dedication to not letting his customers down was exemplified by an episode his daughter Katie Anderson-Tedder recalled Saturday, involving her father driving two hours on a Christmas Eve to hand-deliver a candy bar that had been mistakenly left out of a family's order.
He was compelled to do it in part because the forgotten treat was the favorite of a grandmother in the customer's family who had recently died, and the buyers were looking forward to savoring it to help cherish her memory.
"He recognized that them ordering candy from us was about more than just eating chocolate," said Anderson-Tedder. "To be something that a family consciously chooses, that is special, that they will make a pilgrimage to each summer, or will choose as their reunion spot, or that our caramel bar can make you feel connected to your father who gave it to you when you were little, that is powerful. It's a huge responsibility to be in charge of for other people."
She and Leif Anderson's wife, Tracy Anderson, said they intend to continue running the candy shop as a family enterprise. Leif and Tracy Anderson's sons, Ethan, Zachary and Aaron, are also employees.
"We've really prided ourselves on maintaining the quality you could have years ago and still being here," said Tracy Anderson.
For years, Leif Anderson ran the store with his brother, Lars, who had a bar named after him that was the subject of a 1994 Los Angeles Times feature that helped promote the shop's popularity across the country and led to a flood of Mother's Day orders from states as far away as California.
Their father, Raynold Anderson, was the second-generation owner after his father, Arthur Anderson, started the candy business in 1919 on Armitage Avenue in Chicago, shortly before moving it to Richmond.
"To sum up a man of such dimension and magnanimity in the space of a few inches is daunting. Words seem ill-equipped - though Leif never had a shortage of them himself. He was a storyteller, a lover of words and ideas with an unquenching thirst for knowledge, and a heart that knew no bounds," Susanne Anderson wrote of her father.
Anderson was preceded in death by his parents, Violet and Raynold Anderson. He is survived by his wife, Tracy; his brother, Lars; his two daughters, Katie Anderson-Tedder and Susanne Anderson; three sons, Ethan, Zachary and Aaron; and two grandchildren, Georgia, 2, and Arthur, 1.
He died from complications stemming from a two-month battle with a rare blood disease.
A visitation will be held from 9 to 11:30 a.m. July 24, at Trinity Church in Genoa City, Wisconsin.