Family of Busy Bee Bakery owner humbled by community’s support

When Chuck Kalousek was hospitalized after contracting COVID-19, his wife, Katie, had no idea how big the impact her husband had on the community truly was. With Chuck’s three-month battle with the disease ending and his family grieving his loss, Katie said she feels the community grieving with her – something she will forever be grateful for.

“This has been a completely life-changing experience for our family to see this outpouring of love and support, and our lives will never be the same,” Katie said through tears. “It’s renewed my faith in humanity to know that people who didn’t really know us but knew our bakery were so moved to help.”

The Kalousek family has owned Busy Bee Bakery for 22 years, but Chuck began baking there at age 16. Katie said the bakery has become a staple of the Downers Grove community, something that is evident based on the support from the community and residents’ sadness at its closing.

Chuck Kalousek, 55, died June 23 waiting for a lung transplant, and donated his organs to the Gift of Hope, Katie said. Having lost his father while he was a sophomore in high school, Chuck lived every day as if it were his last with his children, Katie said, even well before COVID-19 was a thought in anyone’s mind.

“Everything he did, he did because he lost his father at a young age, and he didn’t want that for his kids,” Katie said. “He was the rock and driving force of our family and the most selfless and caring individual I know.”

Chuck’s children, Kayla, 13, and Charlie, 17, are a lot like their father, Katie said, and will remember him as a hardworking and dedicated man. While Chuck worked tirelessly at the bakery, missing a number of his children’s extracurricular functions, Katie said he always made time to let them know they were loved and taken care of.

Even as he lay in a hospital bed on the day Busy Bee Bakery closed, Chuck worried about the community, Katie said. The bakery closed on St. Patrick’s Day ahead of its Easter tradition of providing lamb cakes, and Chuck, Katie said, was concerned folks in the community would not have their traditional dessert.

“When people were sleeping, Chuck worked, and I think a lot of people don’t realize how much work it is to be a baker the way he was,” Katie said. “He knew these traditions were so embedded into the magic of the bakery, and I know that somewhere in heaven he sees his work was not in vain.”

Working long and late hours, sacrificing family time, having no air conditioning in the kitchen, no sick days and only one helper are just some of the silent challenges Katie said Chuck faced every day as he provided for the community, and it never bothered him one bit, she said.

To know that so much of Chuck’s work created special memories for so many strangers, and to see those strangers support her family now is something Katie said she is still processing. She said the support has shown her that the community may not have understood all of the challenges Chuck faced as the Busy Bee baker, but it did appreciate everything he did.

“I’m just so amazed at what my husband accomplished,” Katie said. “It blows my mind that the community would do all of this for him and our family, and it’s like he’s being repaid and honored. It humbles our family to hear what our bakery, and Chuck and his work, have meant to so many.”