Frances Kuyper
Frances Kuyper was an inspiration to me and I’ll bet anyone who met her. My students and I would visit Frances at Hollenbeck Palms where she moved herself and her cake museum after the death of her husband. When she demonstrated her talents in a large room complete with a wall mounted screen, which enabled the audience to view her figure piping and airbrush skills close-up, my beginning cake decorating students were enthralled and amazed.
My calculations show me that Frances was around eighty years-old when we began visiting her and enjoying her energy, passion, and her hospitality. We would be served cake and beverage at the end of her approximately ninety- minute demonstration while most of the students, an international mix of men and women composed of all age groups, posed with her for photographs for their scrapbooks.
Maybe five years ago, Patty, one of my neighbors fulfilled a promise to another neighbor, Mae. The promise was to celebrate Mae’s one-hundredth birthday! When I heard of the planned event I immediately volunteered to make the cake. During the neighborhood block party, a young man approached and asked me if had heard of a woman who was called The Cake Lady. Of course I did and how did he know? It turned out that he was her doctor! What a small world we live in! Whenever I saw him I would always ask about Frances. He would also share his admiration regarding her pluck and determination and love of life.
Frances was a celebrity and a force in the cake decorating venue. I hope when I am eighty and beyond that I will be as generous and as passionate about life as Frances Kuyper.
