Sylvia Lenell Bocskay, 87, a savvy businesswoman and vibrant member of the Swedish immigrant family that founded Chicago’s Maurice Lenell Cooky Co., died of natural causes Friday, Dec. 3, in her Des Plaines home, her family said.
In 1937, Swedish brothers Hans and Gunnar Lenell, along with Agaard Billing, founded a small general bakery in Chicago, naming the business after Hans Lenell’s first son, Eric Maurice Lenell.
By the 1960s, the family business had grown to become a Chicago institution and one of the city’s largest bakeries exclusively devoted to making cookies.
Mrs. Bocskay, Hans Lenell’s daughter and co-owner of the cookie company, was the corporate secretary and helped oversee the process where her father’s homemade cookies became available for mass production.
In the 1980s, she owned and operated two suburban Maurice Lenell Cookie Jar stores. She was the only woman who held a management position in the family business, said her daughter Jill Bocskay-Cartalucca.
“She was an idea person for the company,” her daughter said. “Her main goal was, ‘How can we make Daddy’s cookies by machine?'”
The family sold the business in 1987, and in December 2008, the Maurice Lenell bakery shut down operations and sold its equipment and trademarks to Ohio-based Consolidated Biscuit. This month, a new Chicago store started selling the beloved Maurice Lenell cookies once again.
Sylvia Lenell was born in 1923 in Boda, Sweden, to Hans and Stina Lenell. In 1924, the Lenell family immigrated to Chicago, where they opened a bakery specializing in Swedish limpa bread and cakes.
They started out by making bakery products of all types but soon found that their Swedish cookies were their most popular item. As word of mouth spread about the delicious cookies, the bakery expanded and moved twice, ultimately opening as Maurice Lenell Cooky Co. on Harlem Avenue in 1937.
As the family business thrived, she attended Schurz High School, graduating in 1940.
The company’s two signature cookies were the vanilla and chocolate pinwheel cookie, and the swirl cookie with a dollop of raspberry jelly in the center.
In the early days of the business, a young Sylvia was riding her bike to the bakery and crashed into John Bocskay, a Maurice Lenell employee in charge of new cookie development.
After being knocked on the sidewalk, he sat up and said, “Hey, watch where you’re going, freckles!”
The accidental meeting eventually led to their wedding in 1948. They settled in Chicago’s Andersonville neighborhood, where they raised four children. They remained married until his death in 1994.
Her children recall the delicious thrill of testing new cookies that came from their parents.
“She would come up with the ideas, and he would test them and perfect them,” her daughter said.
Beyond the family business, Mrs. Bocskay forged a successful career in sales for Russell Stover in the 1960s, selling boxed candies for business gifts and fundraising.
She then transitioned to real estate, becoming one of the first female brokers at Boehmer & Hedlund Real Estate and Rich Port Realty, ultimately managing six real estate offices in the northwest suburbs.
“The first offices she ran were solely comprised of female real estate agents, where she implemented dress codes and held meetings about how to overcome the handicap of being a female agent in a man’s world,” her daughter said. “She was a role model, she was strong and she was dynamic.”
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In the 1980s, as the popularity of franchise businesses grew, Mrs. Bocskay opened retail stores selling Maurice Lenell cookies in Des Plaines and Rolling Meadows. She closed the stores in 1987, when the family sold the business.
Though she was born into the bakery business, Mrs. Bocskay’s true passion was reading and supporting literacy, her family said. She shared her love of books with others as a Head Start volunteer reading to children and as a Great Books teacher for adult learning.
She also enjoyed playing the organ, bicycling, growing peonies and bowling in a pair of hot pink bowling shoes.
She is survived by two other daughters, Janis Bocskay and Tina Bonetti; a son, John; a sister, Ellen Tobias; and a grandchild.
A celebration of her life is being planned for January.