Zelma Murphy Calhoun made some great pies. And though she didn’t work in a factory, the estimates are that she baked more than 650,000. This is another one of those reasons and stories why those of us in the South may seem to worship at the altar of Chick-fil-A.
When I was a freshman at the University of Georgia, I witnessed a curious and somewhat regular happening on Sundays following almost every Dawgs home game. As I left my dorm room, I would encounter a slight and spritely bald man with a big smile on his face. He was carrying neatly stacked and string-tied boxes of what I would soon learn were incredibly delicious pies.
The man was Truett Cathy, the founder of Chick-fil-A. I was fortunate to grow up near one of the first food court locations at North DeKalb Mall.
The original store, called The Dwarf House, was opened in 1949 in Hapeville by Cathy, and though twice remodeled, it still serves huge crowds and quantities each week. There is now also a mini-bakery and pie shop named for Zelma Murphy Calhoun.
Cathy was already on his way, but this was decades before he became a billionaire, yet on those football weekends, he could still make the drive around to each and every CFA location in a few hours. All CFA’s and the famed Dwarf House were – and still are – closed on Sundays. Except for the apple and peach, there was a decent amount of dairy and cream in all of the other signature pies. Cathy would make the store rounds after the dinner rush each Saturday, gathering up all of the unsold pies. Those day-old pies were not going to be sold as “fresh” to his customers on Monday.
So Cathy, a devout Christian and thrifty survivor of the Depression, did what was only practical: he gathered up all those pies for redistribution. The first of many Cathy family foster children, Woody Faulk, lived in my dorm at Reed Hall next door to Sanford Stadium. Cathy was hauling those pies to Woody and any of his hungry friends.
Those pies – lemon. chocolate and coconut creme pies – were to die for. Fried apple and peach pies were later menu additions, with Calhoun serving as the lead baker for 45 years. Toward the end of her professional baking, Calhoun made more than 100 pies daily. Cathy hired Calhoun while she was still in high school in 1954 at The Dwarf House.
When she decided to retire in 2000, Cathy gave her a brand new Ford Mustang as a parting gift. A letter from Cathy, which accompanied that Mustang, is a family keepsake. Looking like new, that car was still sitting in Calhoun’s driveway as she transitioned this past week at the age of 89. As The Dwarf House went through a second major remodel in 2022, the new pie shop just inside the entrance was named in her honor, and in the large kitchen, she is a star on the Dwarf House Wall of Fame.
At the age of 88, Calhoun returned for one last stint of baking to give the new pie shop with her name on the wall and just inside her beloved work home one more tour of duty. Folks lined up around the building for those pies.
The bakery in heaven just got a major upgrade. I imagine Cathy will be giving her the full tour. Please save me a slice of that lemon pie, Miss Zelma, assuming I eventually make it to that counter.